Tim Soar - Biography
"I have been always been interested in clothes and fashion. When I think back on it now, it is strange that I did not move into fashion design sooner than I did. What was certain from the start, however, was that I was always going to be involved in some form of creative business.After a brief spell as a maker of models for architects and TV commercials, I teamed up with graphics superstar Neville Brody to launch the interiors project POST Design. We worked on retail and exhibition design in the UK and Europe. It was at Neville's studio that I first started to dabble in graphics. I subsequently worked as a graphic designer, initially by myself, and then in the partnership STAC with photographer Andrew Catlin. Much of the work was with the music business, although the art of the record sleeve was already on its last legs. During this time I started a moonlight career as a dj. I was given my first break by Graham Ball, one of the heroes of London clubbing scene, at his night Babes In Toyland, playing rock and roll on one turntable at the height of rave. I then moved to a Friday night residency in Camden when Britpop first broke. The circle was completed when Graham invited me back into the West End to dj at the launch of the Met Bar.
When I first saw the Metropolitan Hotel/Met Bar, I immediately understood that music could be a design commodity, that a designer hotel was going to need a consistent and coherent approach to music. Thus Sound Architecture, now renamed Music Concrete, was born. Following the success of the Metropolitan, the company was very quickly invited to set-up the music for Ian Schrager's two London projects; St Martins Lane and Sanderson, and then to the much larger venture of Great Eastern Hotel in the City. This was perhaps the first modern hotel where there was totally integrated music strategy from the start. Music Concrete also worked with many of the UK's and Europe's leading fashion designers and design house, producing show music or supplying djs and bands for launches and events.
Music Concrete currently works with hotels, bars and casinos throughout the UK.
In 2005 I finally arrived at fashion design. My work in music, graphics and interiors had given me a creative language that I could use when conceiving and designing a collection, and the industry contacts I had made through Music Concrete gave me access to the technical support that is so important in fashion. I knew that I wanted my clothes to be informed by both minimalism and the avant guard, while my design aesthetic is internationalist, therefore it was important that the label was not seen to be rehashing the usual 'British' design tropes.
The first collection was brought by London's hugely influential B-Store, the second collection was brought by Liberty, and so I was up and running."