Mr Slater and Mr Porter

Words by Ali Klinkenberg | Photos by Mr Porter

If you’re not already familiar with Mr Porter then do yourself a favour and steer clear. It’s a meticulously designed, romanticised shopping atlantis, that’s been created with one purpose: to flex your Amex. You’ll be swept up in stories of adventurers and actors, painters and boutique vineyard owners, and next thing you know you’ll have convinced yourself that you too could enjoy a fabulously windswept and interesting existence if only you dressed like the intriguing men that you’re reading about. Conveniently, everything’s for sale! Mr Slater (we’ll call him that for now) and his new venture Outerknown has landed on Mr Porter in force. If you can get past the blatant lack of surf knowledge in the interview, then it’s actually an insightful and nicely balanced foray into the King’s court, and the shots, well, the shots speak for themselves.

“When you travel like I do, you might be in South Africa one day and Paris the next,” says Mr Slater (or Chino and Maine judging by these two shots). “You’re kind of a chameleon in some ways because you fit into all these different ways of life. And you experience the diversity of what the world has to offer.”

When asked to sum up the type of gent that he envisions wearing his shiny new Outerknown gear: “I think a lot of us are dreamers and we follow our passions; that’s the one common thing between us all.”

“I want a few pieces where I can go, literally, from the beach to a nice dinner. I’m constantly in and out of places where I need somewhere in-between zero style and high fashion – I guess it’s very relaxed-casual.” As usual Mr Slater manages to succinctly sum up the issue at hand, and in the case of Outerknown, the fact that his range is designed around his tastes and needs, gives it the utmost authenticity.

Read the whole story here.