Inspiration from Exploration
In recent years our quest for nuggets of inspiration for our clothing has seen us gravitate towards the late 1960s on a pretty consistent basis. It was an era of great political and social upheaval and that naturally led to, and arguably was led by widespread creativity, expressed in a multitude of ways.1968 always seems to rear its head in particular. In Search of the Lost Chord is the third album by the Moody Blues, released in July 1968, though the summer of 2024 was when we played it to death, while designing Spring 2024's releases. It's a fitting backdrop to the final full range designed by our longstanding design team before multiple members moved on to pastures new. The songs of In Search of the Lost Chord form a pretty loose theme concerning quest and discovery, including both world exploration and inner self-realisation. The album takes inspiration from the spirit of the era, in which psychedelics grew in use.Justin Hayward of the Moody Blues acknowledged the influence of psychedelic drugs on the band's creative process: "Oh, almost all of us dabbled in all sorts of things. Usually, they were the more psychedelic type of drugs. I must admit we always had a great time on acid. And those trips inspired a lot of our music at the time."In its 42 minutes playing time, the album takes in exploration both spiritual and literal, referencing the journeys of David Livingstone, Robert Falcon Scott and Christopher Columbus, all of whom pushed the boundaries of discovery via the most extreme corners of the globe.The outspoken psychologist Timothy Leary also features, with the band having studied his advocacy of psychedelic drugs. This was the guy who popularised the phrase "Turn on, tune in, drop out". That journey of exploration our research for this range took us on increased our understanding and awareness of just how important an era the late 60s was for the human race and where possible we have tried to incorporate elements of it, albeit in a contemporary way. Without that era of enlightenment having happened, who knows what the world would look like now. Listen to In Search of the Lost Chord below.
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