We live in just the most amazing world now where there’s almost no such thing as masculine and feminine. It’s both one world – I love approaching design in one gender, I don’t really even think of masculinity and femininity.

I did the first conscious play with masculine and feminine in a spring show about four years ago in Paris. I just played with the idea with a guy asking, “Why not?” I never looked at it as a trend. I thought it was just going to become a stronger and stronger idea that people would embrace more and more, and I think they have. It shows such confidence in the way people are approaching themselves and I think that is really refreshing.

I try to challenge myself [with] every collection. I make it grounded in something that’s understandable to everyone. And even, you know, the most provocative ideas that I have, there’s something that everyone understands, so that makes it a little bit more approachable.

For the SS20 collection, I was really taking a very 18th-century French kind of pannier world and bringing it into the 21st-century world of Thom Browne. I’m certainly not the first person to do skirts or dresses or any of that, but I think I’ve done it in my way, in a way that made it seem more interesting. Here, the idea of a codpiece on a skirt is taking those classic ideas and making them in ways [that are] relevant for today.

What’s the future of menswear? I always think it’s a question for journalists to answer. For designers, it’s more important that we just focus on the next collection and keep our stories moving forward. I don’t think even I know the answer, and sometimes it’s nice to be surprised.

My mum is from Scotland and it’s a big part of the brand – we’ve developed checks and tartans pretty much in every collection. The AW17 collection was called Black Watch and the kilt is in a Black Watch check, which was produced in Scotland with the kilt manufacturers I work with. Still today in 2022, [the kilt] has power politically, socially, stylistically. It’s still quite a statement.

I touch on both sides of my heritage, from my Afro-Caribbean side and Scottish, and I do a lot of research on family history and talk about multiculturalism. I want to tell an authentic narrative through clothing, and ultimately, [make] more of a personal journey for myself – by understanding my identity, where I come from and the fabrics, [and] narratives or characters who shaped me, whether directly or indirectly.

I think fluidity across gender and masculinity has been challenged constantly and I think more and more with the world we live in, it’s getting blurred. It’s the structures within western clothing or western history where historically it’s been more rigid with men’s and women’s styles. It’s quite interesting when you look at traditional garments from India or Pakistan, from China or Japan or Korea or in parts of Africa. There’s way more fluidity between genders and styles and what’s seen as masculine or feminine.

There’s lots of different conversations around menswear, and the future of it. I think it will definitely still have its own moments on the fashion calendar and there will be people who are pushing and challenging the status quo. Nothing needs to be binary. I think it’s more like a grey blur across all the fashion world. That makes it more exciting, and I guess that’s where it needs to develop to push menswear forward.

I was doing these things called “body bags” [in 2014]. They were these super functional, monumental, protective garments. The flap at the back was for hygienic functionality, but obviously it added [a] kind of erotic tension.

When I put the penis on the runway [in 2015], I was kind of mocking male pride. By showing it almost indifferently on the runway, I thought it was an interesting way of just taking away its power. It’s funny how people reacted. I saw Karl Lagerfeld on TV talking about it. He flipped out, he was horribly offended. I was just delighted because it was exactly the kind of mentality I wanted to provoke.

Almost everything I’ve ever done in my life, it’s been to balance a kind of moralism. The clothes that I make can be very quiet and can recede, but they can also be a kind of bold vote for otherness, to think about alternative beauty.

I don’t think menswear has become more experimental. In the 1980s, when I was growing up, I felt like it was more flamboyant. Any gestures that I see towards men being more flamboyant now, it’s very calculated and very safe because everyone is so self-conscious of being observed. I think the codes that people express to each other through clothes have to become more and more abstract.

I used to be a lot more modest [in the way I dress] because I thought that was a gentle way of navigating life. Then, in the last five years, I have become more flamboyant because of the moralising that I see on the internet, people judging each other so harshly, conservatively. I became more exaggerated. Now I wear platforms all the time, I wear super low neckline to show my tits, and I wear coats with huge shoulder pads. Everything is exaggerated – but it’s still all black.