GAIKA On His Style, and the Importance of Functionality and Lightness

Image via Alec McLeish

Obviously the visual aspect of your work is really important, why is that?

Because that’s what I started off doing. That’s what I am, a designer, like graphics, illustrator and filmmaker. That’s what I qualified in, that’s where I come from. And for me you can’t separate out music from visual.

So is your style really important to your work?

Yeah I guess so. I don’t think about it but I care about having nice clothes. Yeah, I care about having nice clothes and I’ve got a particular style that’s a form of self expression but like I don’t lose sleep over it.

You mentioned about your background and how you trained as a visual artist. Has that influenced your work and your style?

Yeah. In terms of my work, definitely. I’m always trying to make stuff that’s one work. Music and visual, it’s one thing, it’s a complete artwork. I believe in total artwork. And if I’m in that, how I am attired is part of it. How I am attired at any given time is part of that total artwork. Having an eye for aesthetic and an eye for colour and balance and design has definitely been influenced by being a visual artist.

You’ve toured the world recently, and obviously you travel a lot. So is it really important to pack things that are comfortable and lightweight?

Yeah. I like DMs and I have a pair, but I just often didn’t wear them because it’s just like, “how do you get them in your bag?” But they were definitely a tour staple, and these will be as well. What is it that everybody loves? It's the shape, the colour. The DM's Lite have got that, and I'll be able to take them on tour with me a bit more easily. 

You just mentioned what you wear on stage, is that something you put a lot of thought in to?

Yeah, definitely. It’s part comfort and flexibility and part aesthetics. I move around quite a lot in my shows so I want to be cool but I want to look good. I want to be able to not get tangled up in it. I don’t necessarily want it to detract from the visuals; often I do like installations and stuff. I kind of wear a lot of black or a lot of layered things, so it’s kind of an interesting shape, but you’re not going to see me in like a silver spangly jacket.

You’ve mentioned before about how politics is an important part of your music, but also an important part of your everyday life.

I think it’s a part of everyone’s life.

And you said about your style as self-expression. Do you think that this political aspect is expressed in your style?

Yeah. I wear a lot of like army things, army surplus things. I’m wearing them now. I wear a lot of stuff like that. Number one, I like the aesthetic and the design of it and two, I just quite like the idea of reclaiming workwear, or reclaiming army wear and that kind of technical things, because that has a meaning to people. It’s not like an overt statement, but I guess I do wear a lot of camo shit.

Your music’s got a lot of diverse influences, like you spoke about Prince a lot in the past. Is your style the same?

Yeah, yeah definitely.

What would you say are the big influences?

Army shit, or just military shit, Japanese kind of like traditional tailoring. I quite like sportswear, streetwear, but like you won’t really see me in a whole lot of logo stuff. But I like the idea of sportswear or something that’s for a purpose, even if you’re not wearing it for that purpose. I guess it comes back to the design, it’s all stuff that like has a use in the real world. So I wear quite a lot of leather jackets, bike jackets and things like that. I wear a lot of army shit, like overcoats, just something that someone’s thought that it has loads of pockets in it. So that’s definitely an influence; recontextualising stuff that has a purpose in the world.>

I quite like to mix that with quite fancy, pretty things. I’ve got quite a lot of like really quite high end fashionable stuff that’s I guess is in some ways understated but in other ways it can be quite flamboyant but its quite effective mixing them things together. I guess I dress for a world that exists in my head, which is populated by the various influences I have as an artist, and one of those things is a kind of speculative vision of the future.

That’s quite interesting, talking about the future but also about recontextualising the past.

Yeah definitely. I’m always quite interested in the idea of the near future and what that future actually looks like. The idea that everyone will be walking around in all-in-one, lycra, star trek body suits ain’t a thing, because we forget that everyone is constantly doing something retro. So what do I think people will be wearing in the future? Like whatever it is that we’re using for our daily lives now.

Yeah, that’s true actually, people say that like everything we do now is retro or so influenced by the past.

Yeah, it just continues. For me the number one drivers of fashion are technology so if it can be done, people that work in the kind of like concept designers who work in film because everybody watches that, so if Lord of the Rings is a big film what do we have? Loads of leather boddices with loads of detail on or if there’s a war film everybody wears camo or if there’s a biker film everybody wears leather jackets. And like big world events like wars, like natural disasters, disease. That creates these visual images that then influence all the designers, all the image-makers. At present, we’ve lived through what ten years of continuous war and so many cuts are driven by that visual.

But I think that’s sort of wear my style comes from. It’s images that go to my head, and I guess I assess how those are created. It’s maybe hard for me to describe, like everyone always says to me ‘Oh, that’s very you’.

I think that’s the thing though. A lot of things that are ‘very you’ is like who you are, you don’t sit down and think ‘who am I?’ That’s just how you dress.

Yeah, and when you asked me that question I thought of my wardrobe, like what have I got loads of? What would I pick up? AndI’ll always pick up an army jacket, I’ll always pick up a leather jacket, I’ll always pick up some patterned, Japanese, fancy thing that you can’t get anywhere else, and I’ll always layer those things and mix them together. I’ve got a lot trainers, but I’m not a sneakerhead, I don’t really care about what they are I just do like trainers. I guess I like jewellery, I wear rings and gothic-y things as well which I guess is the last element, a bit connected to rock’n’roll or hip hop and music subcultures.

My thing’s driven by aesthetic, and so I don’t attach any meaning to what clothes are other than how they function and how they look. I’ll happily be going for a fancy dinner and wearing something that really cost no money, but I’ll happily go to the cinema in a sweater than cost me a thousand quid. I’m not trying to show anybody anything, it’s how I feel.

I guess that functionality is kind of where Dr. Martens come from.

That’s it, that’s why I like DMs. I’ve always wanted a pair of pretty hard wearing, boot-trainers. My friend had some and I was like “those are fucking sick”. Aesthetically they look sick.

That’s it style wise. I’m a mix of all different things that hopefully makes some sense. It’s a bit like my music. I quite like experimenting and changing what’s conceived as normal and trying to create a new subculture.

The new DM’s Lite are available now, and you can listen to GAIKA’s latest release here.

Photography by Alex McLeish.