With a background in fashion and a passion for ceramics, James Pegg has built a career that bridges textiles, colour and craftsmanship. After studying at Central Saint Martins, he moved into teaching, guiding the next generation of designers while continuing his own creative practice. His bold ceramics have been featured at the Barbican, Heal’s and the Hayward Gallery.For our March edition of My Uniform, we caught up with James at his home in South Manchester, and his studio at the University of Salford, to chat about his journey from textiles to clay, his philosophy on making and how fashion education has changed in the digital age.
Hi, James. What’s your day-to-day ‘uniform’?
At home it’s a printed T-shirt and trousers from Cos, Adidas trainers and a beanie from Béton Ciré x Junya Watanabe. At work, it’s much the same. I like to be able to dress the same whether I’m at work, in the studio or at the park with my daughter. I’m wearing Paul Marsden jeans, Nike x Undercover trainers, Helmut Lang glasses and my fluffy cap is a Columbia/End collab. One of my friends from Salford went on to work for Roksanda in London and last year they did a collab with George at Asda to celebrate London Fashion Week’s 40th anniversary. I bought a hoodie from the collection – in XXL because it was womenswear, but you could camp in it! It’s huge, but I wear it a lot.
How did your time at St Martins influence your look?
Fashion students tend to fall into two camps. There are those who are super flamboyant and those of us who are more understated – like, it’s not about me, it’s about the products. For us, it wasn’t about standing out personally, it was about letting the work speak for itself. I’m a bit torn between those two worlds. I like an element of quirk – an interesting cut or a detail that’s slightly unexpected – but it’s never overtly eccentric. It’s more in the vein of Martin Margiela, who was an icon for my generation. His work had these little moments of humour, details that people outside of fashion might not pick up on.
What’s your earliest fashion memory?
Growing up as a little gay boy, there were plenty of things I wasn’t allowed to have! But I remember buying a pair of Calvin Klein trousers from TK Maxx and loving them. I wore them for about two years before I realised they were pyjama bottoms.
What was it like studying at St Martins?
For my interview, I turned up with a roll of duct tape and said, “I want to print duct tape”. I ended up creating all these prints that emulated it, layered over more traditional fashion prints. I’m obsessed with colour now, but back then I wanted to be Helmut Lang – stark, Germanic, minimal. St Martins was all about throwing ideas at the wall and seeing what stuck. You couldn’t be phased by getting things wrong because that’s where the learning happened. It was an amazing time. We spent every day experimenting and playing, but there was this sharp contrast between that creative freedom and the intense industry-focused professionalism we were expected to have as well.
Did you pursue fashion work after college?
I did some freelance work but almost immediately, I started teaching women’s wear at London College of Fashion. My parents were both teachers and always told me, “Do whatever you want, just don’t go into teaching” But it felt natural to me. At school and uni, I was always told I had too many ideas, but in teaching it’s an asset. I’m constantly managing 180 different concepts, guiding students to develop their own creative paths. I love that they get to do things I physically couldn’t – it’s a way of exploring multiple ideas through them.
How did you get into ceramics?
I almost studied ceramics, but a potter friend of my mum’s told me I’d never make money from it. So I went into textiles – not exactly a lucrative alternative! When we moved to Peckham in 2017, I took a ceramics course and it all came flooding back. Having a background in textiles gave me a sense of experimentation and play, so I found my technique quite quickly. I call it ‘action casting’ because I’ve always been fascinated by the abstract expressionists, especially Jackson Pollock’s action painting. For me, it’s the same idea – working with chance and spontaneity, exploring the point where we lose control and the process takes over.
Is fashion or ceramics your main passion?
They’re connected. The ceramics started as a way to reconnect with making, but a friend encouraged me to take it seriously. I’m not a potter. I create vessels, but really, they’re more like an extension of my textile practice driven by my obsession with colour. While the vessels change, it’s the surface people really respond to. I’ve had some wonderful opportunities through ceramics. The Barbican asked me to create work for their shop during the Lee Krasner exhibition – a full-circle moment since Krasner was Pollock’s wife, and he’s a huge influence on my work. I’ve also had pieces in Heal’s, the Hayward Gallery and the Pitzhanger Manor when it reopened.
What challenges do today’s fashion students face compared to when you were studying?
They have the internet. And students take things for granted that we never did. I love teaching about concept, narrative and storytelling, but we have to teach those things differently now. You can’t just Google words and use the first images that pop up. That’s lazy. I try to get students excited about discovering things that others won’t find, rather than looking for things they think everyone will like. A lot of education is about teaching students how to be good humans. It’s about giving them a creative process they can apply beyond fashion.
Where does sustainability fit in? It’s obviously a huge issue in fashion.
It is, but it’s changed. Ten years ago, we had to teach sustainability. Now, students arrive with it ingrained in their thinking. The same goes for issues like gender diversity and body image. We barely need to introduce those topics. Students aren’t afraid to talk about anything. One of the first things I tell them is: don’t make anything ugly. If something’s beautiful, people will want to keep it, and then we can talk about making it ethical.
At Field Grey, we talk about sustainability in terms of wears – it’s about longevity.
Exactly. We’ve done projects like that, like working with Patagonia, which is very much in that world. But the biggest shift in sustainability now is transparency – it’s about helping the end user understand the process.
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Photography: Matt Bramford