Navinder Nangla
“Fassion is my pashion”
London is a city burgeoning with creativity. From the people inhabiting the city to the walls we live within, London has served as a breeding ground for some of the industry’s top voices. Strategically placed around the city are art installations, ranging in grandiosity. But often, the most impactful is a series of a few words ink-blotted onto random street corners.
Quotes like “Fassion is my pashion,” and “Fassion Weak,” have popped up on people’s social media feeds for years now, and they can all be attributed to one person. Navinder Nangla, also known simply as Nav, is a multi-medium graphic artist situated in London. His work has been seen on surfaces in every major fashion capital, through the lens of Michelle Lamy in Paris, to Pull&Bear’s newest store situated on Oxford Street.
The aforementioned label just opened the doors to its new flagship, tapping Nav for a limited-run t-shirt series and live art installation nestled at the foot of its new store. We caught up with Nav, albeit in the middle of his process, to learn more about the person behind the art and why he chose Pull&Bear to immortalise his sincere style on a t-shirt.
Tell us a little bit about Nav as a creative.
I’m 100% an artist. I studied fashion design, but I was an artist doing fashion design. It’s just that, with fashion design, I couldn’t tell my parents I wanted to study art. So fashion design had some substance. I was able to learn how to make and engineer garments.
How long did it take you to find your art style? Because it’s so specific.
I always had the mantra of “destruction as a form of creation.” So that was the build-up to this, and now I’m depicting words, then destroying it, and remaking it in a new way. I was looking back at the 1990s, and how rebellious fashion was. Rei Kawakubo and Yohji doing the anomaly. I feel like I’m translating that into an art form, like rebellious, raw and unfinished.
My culture, and my cult following, are fashion heads. Artists have a following, but my art is universal. Don’t get me wrong, it does translate to everyone. But the majority of people are fashion-forward heads.
Breaking through as a creative can be difficult. Can you pull back the curtains and unveil a few instances where you had trials and tribulations?
Well, my struggles, I turned them into a superpower. I’m dyslexic, and I always struggled at school with reading and writing, cause my S’s looked like 5’s. But now my most famous tag has two S’s, which is funny. I’ve turned my struggles into something I can champion and be really proud of.
Your art is really quote focused. Was that always the case?
Before that, I was doing these big canvases. But I had a dream, where I was like oh you flip this, then that, and you have Fassion is my Pashion, then Fassion Weak, and Fassionably Late. I had a dictionary so I started tagging it around Paris Fashion Week, obviously it’s the fashion capital. I had people like Michelle Lamy share it, Lily Collins, and Amelia Gray. Then it just started going berzerk.
Your work has parlayed into a collaboration with Pull&Bear. Why did you decide to partner with them?
Well, the new store is opening on Oxford Street, and I started tagging around Soho, Oxford Street because a lot of the footfall is here. And they’re a massive brand, so I was excited to partner with them.
I’m like the neo-Shakespeare. With the arrows on the shirt, I flipped the L’s and replaced them with arrows so it seemed like I was pulling the bear. It was funny cause it was like I could be pulling the bear, or pushing bare. Kind of like the UK slang, I like fashion bare. So it was easy for me to work with them.
What was the inspiration behind the t-shirt?
I like Margiela, and obviously, tromp l’oeil is a big aspect of his design catalogue. So I wanted to translate this into what I was doing. The best way to do tromp l’oiel was to put a t-shirt onto a t-shirt. So I was like f*ck it, let’s put a t-shirt onto a t-shirt.
What’s the process like working on a project like this? Because you’re doing more than a t-shirt. You have an installation going up as well.
I used my iPad, procreate, with the building, the kiosk, and everything in the middle. Obviously, my thing is words, so different words take up different spaces on the wall in certain fonts. The whole thing was positioning and getting the proportions right on the typography.
And what are you using to actually create the art in person?
I use a mix of different mediums. My main one was a mop pen, it’s alcoholic paint pigment. That drips when you squeeze it and stuff so I used conventional spray paint later.
When I started, I didn’t have much control over regular spray paint. So I found using a mop pen a lot easier. Then I realised oh, this is fun and it actually looks really nice. Everyone does spray paint, and mop pens have a nice drip to it.
Do you have any final words of encouragement for artists who may look up to you, or want to end up in your position?
Fassion is your pashion.
