Meet Timothy Gibbons, the Irish Designer Behind These Cult-Favorite Corset Hoodies

In the early months of the pandemic, Timothy Gibbons was toying around with a shamrock-green Irish rugby shirt he’d found in a thrift store when inspiration struck. He pulled out his cutting scissors and sliced it in half horizontally; next, he put his Central Saint Martins degree to work, building a meticulously constructed quilted corset in a matching shade. He pieced the two together, and behold! Gibbons had created his very own fashion Frankenstein’s monster: a playful synthesis of sportswear and corsetry. “I like to keep my hands busy to stop me from going mad, and it just sort of happened,” he laughs.

It was a little later, however, that Gibbons stumbled upon the formula that would become a hit. Last summer, between stints assisting costume designers for film and TV in London, he spent an extended period of time in New York working in the studios of both Carly Mark of Puppets and Puppets and Kim Nguyen of Nguyen Inc. While observing the latter’s alchemical ability to upcycle trash into fashion treasure, he was inspired to revisit this hybrid technique. “I was absolutely broke, living on friends’ sofas, and I saw the pieces Kim was making with T-shirts from Canal Street,” he remembers. “I bought this thrifted sun-bleached hoodie and started fusing them with corsets, and a bunch of friends wanted to buy them instantly. They just kind of took off.”