Keanan Duffty
Keanan Duffty is an award-winning
British fashion designer and
musician who is based in
New York.
Duffty has always believed that music and fashion go hand in hand and he was a founding member of the British
Punk band Sordid Details. Formed in
1978, when Keanan was 14 years old, Sordid Details built a strong reputation in the North of England and were heavily influenced by the
Sex Pistols, for whom Duffty would later design stage clothes.
In
1980 as the Punk scene waned Keanan Duffty moved on and formed
Wonder_Stories, a New Romantic group influenced by
David Bowie and Roxy Music. Their live shows gained good reviews in the ‘Sounds' music paper and support from Radio 1 DJ Peter Powell. Wonder Stories played a number of gigs during 1980 and
1981, but by
1982 Duffty had chosen to study fashion design at
St Martin's School Of Art in
London. Keanan also worked at PX, the signature New Romantic boutique in London and former haunt of Visage vocalist Steve Strange.
By
1983 Duffty found an experienced music business manager,
Falcon Stuart, former manager of Adam & The Ants, X Ray Spex and Classix Nouveau. Stuart encouraged Duffty to record demos for
EMI and
MCA records eventually releasing a 12" dance mix of "Water Sport" on Falcon Stuart's "Awesome" Records label (AOR4). Duffty also recorded a 4 song session at Maida Vale Studios for
BBC Radio 1 DJ Janice Long. "Water Sport" got great reviews including record of the week in Smash Hits, good reviews in the NME and became an underground club hit in the UK. Duffty played a number of shows in London including the ID Magazine Fifth anniversary party at the
ICA. Both his music and fashion designs received good reviews in the British music and style press.
Duffty graduated from the prestigious St. Martins School of Art in
1986. His graduation collection earned him a Bachelor Of Arts First Class Honors degree in fashion. He then began to focus more on his fashion career as music took a backseat. From
1987 to
1993 Keanan became design director of
Jeff Banks, London. Banks, who is known as the creator of the acclaimed BBC TV program "
The Clothes Show", was instrumental in turning Duffty's attention to New York.
Duffty relocated to New York in 1993 where he became designer at Fenn Wright & Manson and design director of Wilke Rodriguez. However, music was always on Duffty's radar, and in New York he recorded the song "I Am An Alien". The Video featured famed downtown diva
Amanda Lepore as a futuristic nurse and has become a cult classic.
By
1999 Duffty had established his own fashion company. The KD collection is sold in over 70 premium specialty retailers including Bergdorf Goodman, Bloomingdales, Lounge in New York, Maxfield, Theodore, H Lorenzo and Fred Segal in LA, Joyce in Hong Kong, Harvey Nichols in London and Beams and Journal Standard in Japan. Duffty's designs are inspired by subversive subcultures and mix high fashion with youth culture and music.
Like many musicians who cross over into fashion, Duffty began an immensely successful two-year sneaker collaboration in
2000. Duffty's co-branded
Reebok men's sneakers were sold to many key retailers. In
2001 Duffty introduced a capsule women's wear collection, which debuted at the Gen Art Alumni show during
New York Fashion Week. Duffty dressed the Sex Pistols and
Aerosmith for their American tours in
2003 and staged a runway show using
Barbie dolls on a conveyor belt. He was also thewinner of the Fashion Group International Rising Star Award.
Duffty collaborated with the Japanese toy company
Medicom and renowned British rock journalist
Jon Savage in
2004. The partnership yielded a "
Bearbrick" toy which was featured in
Time Magazine. Duffty also collaborated with David Sylvian and Sex Pistols' guitarist Steve Jones on limited edition signed and numbered t-shirts.In early 2005 Duffty partnered with Aveda to create a signature KD scent and with Kid Robot to produce a KD ‘Dunny' toy.
From the outset, the KD collection has earned immense coverage from the press and media. In
March 2000,
MTV profiled Keanan Duffty in the program "
I'm On The Runway", featuring both his fashion designs and music. Duffty's collections are regularly featured on "Video Fashion" and "
Full Frontal Fashion" and on the cast of "
Queer Eye for the Straight Guy". In February 2005 Keanan Duffty and his wife and business partner Nancy Garcia were featured as mentors on the
TLC hit show "Faking It".
Keanan Duffty's clothes have gained a celebrity following that includes David Bowie, the Sex Pistols,
Aerosmith,
Elizabeth Jagger,
Ivanka Trump,
The Offspring,
Steven Dorff,
Jimmy Fallon,
Smashing Pumpkins,
Alyssa Milano,
Sarah Jessica Parker,
N'Sync and
Martha Stewart.
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Keanan Duffty official site, with
runway photoshoots and catalog
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Keanan Duffty article on The Sex Pistols
