Samuel Ross, anti-fashion upstart selling US$125+ T-shirts, reflects on his street wear label A Cold Wall’s rapid rise

Samuel Ross is a man in a hurry. The 26-year-old British designer, artist, music scorer and entrepreneur went into business in early 2015 and has quickly built up a mini empire including the critically lauded conceptual street wear label, A Cold Wall, which opened its first Hong Kong pop-up store in Sheung Wan last week.

The pop-up on Tai Ping Shan Street, has more in common with a gallery installation than orthodox clothing retail. The exterior windows are covered in metal foil, the inside has been covered in black industrial canvas. The clothes hang from wire, hovering just above six large industrial fans, which are also for sale.

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“I wanted to bring back a sense of risk to a retail space. My idea is for a sensory experience to better reflect some of the washes and textures in the clothing,” says Ross.

“It’s been pretty quick,” says Ross about his rise in the fashion world, but he’s more interested in communicating ideas than starting trends.

“A Cold Wall is corrosive, it’s abstract social commentary,” he says, and the clothes and accessories reflect what he describes as “bleakness” in the use of colours, the fit and the production. “The brand wasn’t meant to be a retail-friendly product, which is why I think its been successful. The intent was to have an artistic expression. My thing has always been visual language and design which bled into fashion, and then stage design, installations and other things.”

His mentor Virgil Abloh is the creative force behind Off White and a man rumoured to be a leading candidate to take over the rein at Versace. Like Abloh, who has a background in architecture, Ross’ route to fashion was unorthodox and circuitous.