The Story of Gallery58 London
The conception
A chance meeting in 2008 led to the creation of the refreshingly unconventional
and unpredictable luxury collective, Gallery58 London.
Founders Steph Aman and Paul Seville who were already highly accomplished fashion designers in their own right, both relishing in the unexpected, seamlessly managed to blend their expertise, fusing textile design and embroidery with haute couture, traditional artisan skills and tailoring with corsetry, via their delightfully dark, raw decadent world.
Married a year after their first meeting, the exclusive Gallery58 creations are a blend of life, love and work.
The Gallery boutique collections
Initially set up to showcase and exhibit their individual brands, the early success of Gallery58 resulted in the now established collaborative and decadent fashion collections in leather and silk. Exclusively available from Gallery58 and created by both designers in their own purpose built studio and workshop ‘The Rose Gardens’ on the borders of East London.
The fashion collections feature bespoke leather bustiers, corsetry, boudoir accessories, super fine, ornate and fabulously feminine silk loungewear and decadent classic outerwear. Each creation captures the designers deliciously decadent and debauched design palette, and is inspired by their Irish and Anglo-American heritage. Just think of it as Jacobean high drama meets Victorian macabre.
‘Having successfully sold our fashion collections worldwide in boutiques and department stores from Harrods, Harvey Nichols and Libertys in London to Baycrews and HP France in Japan, throughout the 90’s and 00’s and then establishing the exclusive collections for our Gallery58 boutique, we are keen to extend our portfolio further’.
Collaborations & clientele
Karl Lagerfeld Sketches & Paul Seville leather flower prototypes.
‘Collaborating with other luxury brands & other areas of the creative industries has always been hugely important to both of us in terms of pushing the boundaries & challenging the limits of our own creativity & skills. We find embracing new ideas & working as part of a larger project hugely satisfying and rewarding’.
Seville and Aman have created some amazing catwalk showpieces, textiles & accessories, furniture, interiors & installations for some of the most elite and prestigious couture houses & luxury brands from Alexander McQueen, Givenchy, Karl Lagerfeld, Romeo Gigli, Vera Wang, Calvin Klein to Antonio Berardi, Exte, Victoria’s Secret, Rochas, Hussein Chalayan and Vivienne Westwood.
Silver asymmetrical dress Paul Seville for Alexander McQueen.
‘Creating these amazing one off pieces, especially the catwalk showpieces for Alexander McQueen, was one of my most rewarding and creative experiences, these showpieces have a life of their own & the images & the pieces themselves continuously re emerge in exhibitions & books some 20 years later.’ Paul Seville
The Vision
‘Creating the Gallery allows us the platform to develop our style and craft further than just a fashion brand. We feel fashion on its own, although it is the central character in everything we create, is somewhat limiting to the ideas and scale we have in mind’.
We want to see our skills used in all areas of the arts. With our current portfolio of work we want to further explore the world of TV, Film & costume, taking our haute couture designs to a new audience is a natural progression for our work. 2022 sees our studio create our ‘Cabinet of Curiosities’ a furniture & couture installation.
‘The Gallery58 creations are designed to be beautiful aesthetically pleasing works of art, whether it be haute couture fashion, furniture or installations, they sit perfectly in their own gallery showcase, anything from a seedy cocktail bar to a boutique hotel, something that we can mould and fashion into our own decadent world, to create the most amazing experience’.
In 2008, we created such an experience in an old Victorian building in Islington, ‘De Beauvoir House’ . We had 4 wonderful years curating and building the most amazing house of curiosities. It was at this stage the fuse was lit in our minds and we knew that with the right commercial foundations in place through our Gallery58 boutique, we could pursue our ambitions to create our own ‘works of art’ something more than a fashion collection, more of an experience, more avant-garde, definitely more theatrical.
We present
‘Tales of a Butterfly Collector’
Haute Couture designs, rare and collectable objects of desire in silk and leather.
‘Created through the couples shared passion for all things beautifully wrong, decadent and unreasonable’.
This is our personal story, a visual autobiography in 6 chapters created with the traditional skills acquired over the last 30 years,
‘The ethos remains the same, all creations must be functional and aesthetically pleasing.
Like a piece of antique jewellery, an heirloom, a work of art, collectable and timeless’.