FORTHEFLY CUSTOMS
NORMAL IS A ILLUSION
ForTheFly Customs is the work of British artist and designer Keith Thompson.
It started in Manchester in late 2018 with an old studded belt, an 80s motorcycle jacket and absolutely no intention of starting a clothing brand.
At the time, I was managing restaurants and bars, playing in bands, acting, painting and burning myself out trying to do everything at once.
I needed something that was just for me.
So I took the old belt, stuck it to the back of the jacket in an inverted cross and added a couple hundred studs.
I put it on Instagram and a friend bought it straight away.
I used the money to make three more jackets. They soon found homes too.
Then came the first commission. The first stagewear project. The first handmade leather choker.
Before I really knew what was happening, ForTheFly had come to life.
Then the world shut down and I vanished into my leather cave, went full-time with ForTheFly, moved to Barcelona,
and spent the next few years fucking things up, figuring them out and getting my 10,000 hours in fast.
Eventually, I understood why I couldn’t stop what I’d started.
I LEARNED I COULD MAKE MUSIC WITH LEATHER. WRITE SONGS IN STUDS.
My work has always existed somewhere between clothing, craft, art and music.
A jacket can have rhythm. A line of studs can build tension.
Damage becomes distortion. Empty space speaks of silence.
My process is often closer to a disjointed one–man jam session than an organised orchestral arrangement.
I start with an idea, find the flow and follow it somewhere I could never have planned from the beginning.
Before ForTheFly, I’d seen plenty of custom alternative clothing, but something never sat right with me.
The work rarely had the individuality or craftsmanship I was looking for, and pricing was usually completely out of reach for most of us.
I knew there was another way.
To spend less money creating more waste, and more time transforming raw materials and forgotten treasures into something worth owning. Worth celebrating.
I grew up with vintage and second-hand. Long before anyone called it sustainable, it was simply how I was raised.
I learned that old things weren’t lesser things. They were often much better.
They had survived, they had history, and many times they were far more interesting than anything you could buy new.
That has stayed at the heart of ForTheFly Customs.
The thrill of the hunt. Finding the coolest shit that simply doesn’t exist anymore.
Forgotten pieces. Rare merchandise. Collectors’ gems.
Things that have already lived entire lives before they even reach my hands.
I don’t want to erase that history. I want to continue it. Elevate it.
Write another verse. Ensure the song keeps playing.
"Normal is an Illusion.What is Normal for the Spider is Chaos for the Fly." - Morticia Addams
I grew up in the North of England as the teenager with hair down to his shoulders, a cut-off Metallica shirt and flaming high-top Chucks.
It wasn’t exactly camouflage.
I learned to run. Fast. And I knew I wasn’t the only one.
ForTheFly has always been for the others. The outsiders. The people who see, hear and feel the world a little differently.
The ones who have lived and want to live, those who have seen things and have stories to share.
Not everyone knows how to express themselves with words.
Some of us say it through music. Some through art; poetry, painting, pottery. Some through what we wear.
We should never have to stay quiet. We should never have to run.
Over the years, pieces I’ve made have found their way into the homes of people I grew up admiring and onto stages in front of hundreds of thousands of people across continents.
But some of the things I’m proudest of are harder to photograph.
Clients have become friends. Friends have become collaborators. People who trusted me with a strange idea years ago are still part of ForTheFly today.
Now, I work from my atelier in the heart of Barcelona’s Gothic Quarter, creating custom clothing, leatherwork, wearable art, artist stagewear and costume.
Some projects arrive as detailed concepts. Others begin simply with a sentence, a strange idea and a couple of reference images.
I still never quite know what’s coming through the door next.
That’s why I’m still here.
LET’S MAKE SOMETHING.
Custom work, commissions, collaborations, stagewear, costume, purchase or rental — tell me what you have in mind.