SAMUEL ROSS

The decorated British artist and designer gets introspective on creativity and time.

- Alvin Wong

NEVER SUGGEST TO Dr Samuel Ross that life imitates art or vice versa. To the multidisciplinary creative soul, art is life. For artists, Ross suggests that “there is no such thing as a work-life balance”—at least not for himself.

Ross, whose work spans the fields of fashion, industrial design and art, believes that his output is both a manifestation and consequence of his past, his experiences and his growth. And the 33-year-old’s creative well is rich, wide and runs very deep. Ross is behind initiatives such as A-Cold-Wall*, a cult streetwear label that he founded “as a bedroom start-up” and grew to a £16 million company, which he recently sold to his previous minority partner; SR_A SR_A (Samuel Ross & Associates), a boutique company focusing on industrial design and precision engineering across the fields of fashion, architecture and design; and the Black British Artist Grants Programme that supports emerging black British artists.

A protege of the late-Virgil Abloh, Ross’s numerous awards in recognition of his works include the Hublot Design Award in 2019. The crossing of paths with Hublot kickstarted a collaboration leading to two limited-edition timepieces: the Big Bang Tourbillon Samuel Ross from 2022 and this year’s Big Bang Tourbillon SR_A by Samuel Ross, both distinguished by bold, industrial designs and cutting-edge technical complications.