Being a bohemian

John Malkovich is that rare designer who loves the cloth for its beauty, writes Luke Leitch

It usually takes about two minutes to work out just how tenuous a "designer" celebrity endorsement really is. Ask Cheryl Cole a searching question about heel construction, or bowl Freddie Flintoff a googly about supply chains, and they'll most likely crumble.

After an hour on the phone with John Malkovich, however, I admit defeat: he is that rarest of beasts in fashion, a celebrity designer who's in it for love just as much as money.

Malkovich started his menswear label, Technobohemian, four years ago. His first, Uncle Kimono, ended after a legal dispute with his Italian partners (a deeply authentic fashion experience).

So Malkovich has been in the game long enough to forget precisely how many collections he's designed - "this is my eighteenth, or maybe nineteenth" - and he knows his stuff. He reels off the name of his fabric suppliers and says he is just off to Prato, near Florence, and then Lake Como to select materials for 2014.

He even talks about the economic decline of the Italian artisan fabric industry and - accurately - about the skulduggery of some designers' work posturing as "Made in Italy" when it isn't.

When he's designing, he says: "I just start with a pencil and paper. I don't want something too trendy, too fashion-forward. I don't want to make something I consider a regular person couldn't wear with blue jeans. But I don't want to make something that other people make, either - like a skinny black suit in a shiny material that you can buy anywhere."

The result, looking back at the past few seasons, is a collection of menswear that has only the odd unconventional aside. There are a lot of collarless shirts and the occasional extraneous button on high-revered jackets. The oomph is delivered by those Malkovich-commissioned Italian fabrics: kaleidoscope prints on ties and scarves, and richly intricate detailing in the jackets, trousers, and coats. "I want to make the yarn, or the structure, or the texture something that's different, and presents a different choice."

Malkovich says he's been interested in clothes all his life. "I know fashion can be intensely goofy, but it is something I've always taken pretty seriously."

As well as collecting fabrics and fashion, he used to model - for Prada, Armani, Bill Robinson and others - and says that when he first started, his fellow thesps thought he was nuts.

Technobohemian, named after a phrase he liked in a novel, is so niche it lists no British stockists on its website. The clothes, concedes Malkovich, are expensive - "but that's because the people who make these materials need to be paid a living wage". How deeply refreshing it is to encounter a celebrity who isn't cynically trading on his status to make a few quid in the rag trade.

As Malkovich observes: "Fashion is chaotic, and it can be an aggravation, but it is at its best when it allows you to express yourself."

©The Daily Telegraph