Paul Hecker

Paul Hecker is a Founding Principal of multi-disciplinary design practice Hecker Guthrie.

If you could only wear one outfit for the rest of your life, what would it be?

For some people, maybe most, clothes serve a functional role … they provide warmth, preserve modesty, cover the bits they don’t want on show; for these people the choice of what to wear is based on, what is the right price, what is available in store or online, and loose interpretations of what is fashionable. For other people, the primary driver of what clothes to wear is based on how best to represent their personal style … over time they develop a uniform …”we know who you are just by looking at you”… hipster, goth, emo, corporate etc…

I belong to a different group of people who very intentionally dresses for mood; “who do I want to be today?”

I love fashion, I love clothing, but even at 62 I am still trying to figure out what are the drivers that determine what I put on. What I have learnt is proportion. I know my body well … long body, short legs … beefy on the top, skinny on the bottom. This means I try to find shorter tops and wider pants that work with my body. I don’t always get it right; thankfully an outfit is generally only for a day, and not for life.

I would rather look ridiculous than boring. Someone once said to me that my outfit looked “try hard”. I thanked them, saying “thank you for acknowledging my effort”. I would rather look “try hard” than look like I have made no effort at all. Some people can look great and “effortless”. I’m not one of those people.

My mantra for the last decade has been; ‘I’d rather be mutton dressed as lamb than mutton dressed as mutton.’

How does this collection of clothes allow you to move between the various aspects of your life?

What I do know is that if I can only choose one outfit, it needs to be proportionately perfect… back to short top, wide pant… it must er on the theatrical… I love a sparkle, stand out in a crowd and draw attention… I am a bit of a peacock! It should have a sense of humour, be none threatening and be slightly eccentric rather than overtly fashionable. If it is too much about fashion, at some point it will be painfully out of fashion!

So, that said, my outfit is a plain white women’s T shirt from “COS”… they fit better than men’s T shirts… and I need to know I can strip down to get cool! The hero piece is an “Acne” Jumper in metallic silver and gold, and a pair of black cotton sateen oversized painters pants from “Needles”… the shoes are a cartoonish loafer from “CamperLab”… if you asked me next week what my choice would be it might be completely different, so best we just draw a line in the sand now!

Based on my relationship with clothing, choosing one outfit is almost impossible… I care too much, and I don’t identify with a ”uniform”. My selection process varies every day; sometimes it takes 3 minutes, other times it takes 15 variations, a “BEX and a lie down” .