Keanan Duffty

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Keanan Duffty is an award-winning British fashion designer and musician who is based in New York.

[edit] Life

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 Nouveaux. 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 the winner 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.

[edit] Recognition

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”.

In July 2006 the Keanan Duffty collection made it's debut at Target stores in the USA and at Target.com

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.