The Kooples and The Great Frog

By Jon Savage

" I once the preserve of black-clad outsiders, nowit has been reconfigured - in the collaboration between the Kooples and theGreat Frog - as a sleek high fashion item.

n the 21st century, thelifestyle and appearance of the formerly marginal, outcast even, have becomechic

and desirable. Take theexample of the skull ring:

This Skull Head is abeautiful object. Hand-carved in wax at the Soho studios of the Great Frog, itis then cast in UK hallmarked sterling silver. It has an enigmatic lustre thatmomentarily diverts the mind from what it is: a skull-head, that memento moribeloved of pirates, rockers, and all those who choose to live outside the law.

The Great Frog have beenproducing the Skull Head since 1972, and over the last four decades, they hadmany celebrity clients. They include outsiders like Lemmy, Iggy Pop, AliceCooper and Pete Doherty. But their appeal is wider, extending to modern heroeslike the Arctic Monkeys, Pink and - the biggest pop star on the planet - LadyGaga.

The collaboration with thesharp style of the Kooples is not as surprising as it might seem. Severalgenerations of Parisians in particular have had a deep and well researchedfascination with the style and music of hardcore rock and have been among theGreat Frog's best customers.

For this project, theSkull was subtly redesigned by Reino Lehtonen Riley, the son of the Great Frogfounder Paterson Riley. There are subtle changes to the basic skull template:the eye sockets are slightly narrowed, and the teeth are neatly arranged. Theforehead is domed, and there is no excess decoration.

The result is a sleek,minimal artefact that fits the Kooples brief of classics with a twist. It canbe worn as a flourish to an otherwise conventional looking outfit: an index ofa wildness that chooses not to proclaim itself, but rather to be discovered bythose with eyes to see.

This new variant on theDeath's Head shows that it is possible to give familiar symbols new relevance.Over the last sixty years the skull ring has made a long move from outré rockerto high fashion: the process begun by rock- stars and cutting-edge designers isfinally complete. What remains is the power of the image.

What is it that we findso attractive about pirates and rock stars, those iconic wearers of the SkullHead? It's not that they are death-haunted, but that every time they look atthat symbol, they recog-nise the finite quality of life. So it serves as apermanent reminder to extract the maximum intensity from the moment, to be herenow. It's the only way to live. "