Aline Borges, The Florist

The power of composition, and the importance of community

Liam speaks with Aline Borges, a Zürich-based floral designer who’s made the leap from fashion coordination for magazines like Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar to independent floral design and installations. The conversation covers what it’s like to move between different creative fields (and countries), how to think about composition to tackle almost any creative challenge, and the courage it takes to start on a new venture.

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Liam: Aline, welcome to Design Notes.

Aline: Thank you. Thank you for having me. Thank for the invitation.

Liam: Sure. Um, to dive right in, I want to know a little bit about your current work and the whole journey that led you there.

Aline: Wow, that's (laughs), that's already one podcast just for that (laughs)-

Liam: (Laughs).

Aline: ... but, no. Um... So, I'm a florist, I come from a background of fashion. I was working 15 years in fashion in Brazil as, uh, executive producer, creative director, fashion coordinator for Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, Elle, Marie Claire and other, um, important, um, magazines. And what I used to do is I used to take care of all the images and all the editorials in the magazines. And, uh, when I decided to move to Switzerland six years ago, I thought would be also a great opportunity to change career as I was changing my whole set up. I used to grow up with my grandmother that had a huge garden with lot of flowers and she, she told me a lot about how to take care of the flowers, how they are, what they like, but of course that was in Brazil, that's another weather and environment. Um, so I came to here and I decided to do that and I went to the UK for a year to study floristry there before starting the business and it worked. So, I'm happy.

Liam: I have a lot of questions-

Aline: (Laughs).

Liam: ... I wanna follow up on. First, I would like to n-, understand what it was like for you to make the jump between two creative fields that, you know, at first glance feel quite distinct from one another.

Aline: Yeah. That's a interesting question because in my view they are not so distinguished as you may think. Because when I work with photography I wasn't like a-, any specific, um, um, person as a photographer or a stylist, or a makeup artist. I saw... I was the coordinator of the project, I was the creative director. So, I was seeing the, the whole picture as one. So, I learned a lot, um, over the years and I, I t-, I say that because I didn't do any, um, important university or I don't have a, um, MBA or anything like that. I learnt doing it. So, I start my career being a photographer, uh, a assistant photographer, then I was assistant for a stylist, then I was a model, then I was... So, I, I learned a little bit of each of the, the steps then I became what I became to see the whole thing.

When you see the whole image as one, you start to understand where you can get better and how to, um, decode the, the, the image that you're seeing. And florist is more or less like that. You need to understand what you are working with and then you need to understand what is it that you are seeing. So, it's about texture, it's about colors, is about depth, it's about, um, length and it's about, um, how do you, um, see the whole information that the flower is giving to you altogether, how they combine together. So, it was not that difficult a jump. Once I understood that, um... Because my specialty is not, um, doing small things, is doing, uh, installations and, um, uh, whole set ups for, for events, for weddings, uh, um, installations in, in museums and, and galleries. So, you see the space that you have to work with and you understand how can you work in that f-, m-, space that you have.

So, you put what you have, uh, available at the time. So, I, I don't think was that difficult. I- it's quite interesting actually.

Liam: Right. It strikes me as you're talking also that in both cases you're working with living subjects who are dynamic (laughs) entities.

Aline: Y- yeah. Yeah, yeah. Most of the time... Th- th- the flowers are, I would say, are a bit more sensitive because they just die (laughs)-

Liam: (Laughs).

Aline: ... really fast. So, you need to pay attention in more on th-, uh, how warm or how dry the d-, the space that you are working with, uh, will be and how can you make sure that they will be comfortable in the space that they will be and so on, so.

Liam: How did you make the decision to specifically pursue the floral arts? How did you l-, reconnect with that kind of interest?

Aline: Yeah. So, it sounds a little bit like crazy but I was really doing researches when I moved in here. I took kind of like a sabbatic time, um, to understand a little bit the environment that I was in and to make a research of the city and the country because I moved to Switzerland... Like I didn't know Switzerland at all. I know, I knew from Brazil but I never been here before. So, I came and visit and a-, in the three days that I was here decided, "Okay, I'm moving in." So, when I was here I needed to, you know, understand where I was and what is it that the city, in my opinion, was missing. And one thing... I always thought as myself, "What is it that I would like to have that I cannot see it here?"

So, I thought as, as a client and I said, "Oh, I would love to see, you know, to have a nice, um, store that I can buy beautiful flowers like in the English style," because in my opinion, this is the style that I, I could consider the most free style that leaves a little bit th- th- the flowers the way they are in the nature. So, it's, it's more, um... It's like you bring your garden inside of the house. So, this is what I wanted to see and I tried to find out this in Switzerland and I could not. So, I decided to do that. But it was a huge research of other fields as well. And one day I just w- woke up and I said, "I... You know what? I would try this. I would do this course in the UK and see how it goes." Because, you know, the flowers are very sensitive, so you need to have the hand for that. Is not that, "Oh, I wanna..." You know, probably had a plant in your house that you tried-

Liam: Mm-hmm.

Aline: ... and it died. So, they very sensitive, so you need to see as well if you are good working with them and if they allow you to, to do this with them. So, I just decided and I w-, I pursued and, and it worked for me. So, yeah, that, that's pretty much how was it.

Liam: Yeah.

Aline: (Laughs).

Liam: I'm (laughs) really interested to dig into the, the program that you completed to learn this art-

Aline: Yeah.

Liam: ... and what you learned there. I mean, you mentioned like knowing all the qualities of the flowers, that they are living entities, so those qualities are changing, they're different from flower to flower even in the same species. Like-

Aline: Mm-hmm.

Liam: ... how was that? How did you learn those qualities?

Aline: Yeah. So, what I learned with my grandma, it was a living garden, so that's a completely different thing to work with cut flowers. Um, so the school I did unfortunately... One of the schools I did doesn't exist anymore because after COVID they shut down, unfortunately because they're really nice. This school is, is not specific for how to learn the techniques in flower, floristry. They teach you as well about, um, things that are, I already knew a little bit from the fashion field, which is color palette and, um, texture, how to work them together, and they were, uh, very focused on installations. So, when you work, uh, uh, an installation you need to really understand the technique because 90% of the installation is regarding the pre, um, structure that you do to receive the flowers in. So, that's the most important part of the installation. Because, um, when you understand the difference of the spaces that you have and you build an installation ready for that kind of, um, flowers that you wanna receive.

But, anyway, so the flo-... Th- th- th- the school, um, it was in, during a year and you learned how to take care of the flowers, how the seasons of the flowers are, what flowers are in, in which season, the names of the flowers and what flowers do you have are not so important. So, you, you need to understand the base of the flower is. If it's soft base, if it's a hard base, if it's made of wood, if it's like, um, um, a-, one that is chewy like for example the, the tulips. They, they, they have one specific type of, um, um, base and, uh, um, as a hydrangea for example that is h-, a little bit woody and you need to cut it. So, they teach you how to take care of each of these type of flowers instead of like, "Okay, let's look at the tulips. How do we take care of tulips?" No. So, so it, it was a really nice school. Um, and then it was interesting because I was there for let's say five days a month, then they left, uh, leaved us to, to do some homework. And then we came back with the pictures of what we trained at home, uh, like homework and then we came back and went to a next, n-, next level. So... And I had a teacher, he was amazing and he used to say, "You know, the best part about learning the rules is to break them."

Liam: Mm-hmm.

Aline: Once you understand the rules and you understand why is it that you need to understand that rule, you can work in a way boarder way than just, you know, being inside of the rule. So, that was something that always stick in my head like, "Okay, I can do this with the flower but what else can I do with it?" So... Yeah. So, it's really, it was really amazing school.

Liam: Can you tell me about a project where you broke the rules creatively?

Aline: Well... Yeah, I ca-... I have some. I did, uh, an installation in a, uh, uh, um, brand called COS in Hauptbahnhof, in, in Bahnhofstrasse-

Liam: Mm-hmm.

Aline: ... here in Zurich. It was a b-, huge installation on the top of the ceiling that I needed to work with, um, uh, baby breath which is a little, tiny flower. Uh, so, b-, my intention was to be build like clouds, uh, look like installation. So, I was working with the, I would say, 3,500 stems of it, um, and while I was working it I had, I learned how to do that installation in a way in the school but then I arrived there and I had, I would say one and half hours to finish everything. Because they... The flowers were alive and it was a project that we were doing with, with, with the brand and they said, "Look, you need to do on the say because we just have this window for you to do the, the installation. And after that this door will be open for the public. And you need to be here to tell the people what is it that you did and everything." I was like, "Okay, that's not going to work. I cannot work with this structure."

So, I needed to change everything in my head and think like super fast what is it that I could do to make it work. So, I just did a completely n-, other technique that I would do for hand-tie bouquet for example. So, this kind of situations it's, uh, happens a lot, so.

Liam: When you're talking about building these installations, I'm always really curious what the stuff is that designers and artists are working with, what is the other stuff that you're working with besides the flowers that, that helps these spaces and installations kind of come together.

Aline: Well, it really depends on the project I would say. I have a right arm person what I work with that understand my way of working. So, when a project come in we kind of have a, a chat and she gave her point of view and I have mine. But it really depends on the how much weight do we need to carry, where is it that it will be, how long we will have to, to, to make the installation. This will define the size of the crew. But it's not a 100% florists, um, it's, it can be, you know, hands-on people, people that wanna learn as well. Because I am a person that I learned everything doing, so I do believe that people that wanna learn things they wanna learn doing as well. So, I get really a lot of people that just wanna, you know... I s-, I received a lot of CVs and people, "Oh, I would just love to just to, you know, be part of one day of one installation that to do to understand what is it that you're doing." I, I, I invite these people sometime but, uh, of course we have the professional people and, uh, sometimes even companies to build the structures depending on the size of, and what we are talking about if it's a huge project or if it's just a store, or... Yeah, it depends.

But it's all kind of people, it's not, I'm not in a box with that at all.

Liam: Yeah. And still thinking about how the flowers are alive and the kinds of design constraints that that places on you, um, as well as the fact that, like you said, you prefer to, to work with the flowers like they would be in nature and, you know, you grew up learning in, in a living garden. How do you think about the ways that you're kind of recontextualizing the flowers, like the natural world into the built environment or into some other situation where you wouldn't normally see them? How does that influence the work?

Aline: I think that the flowers, they speak to you. So, um, when I'm doing something, I look at them and I, I let them speak to me, what is it that they are telling me on that space. So, when you see a garden, even if you see for example, um, a natural garden like a, a, a wild garden, that's the word, um, you see for example little bit of pu-, roses here, you see some, some other flowers there, some hydrangeas in the other side. You don't see them all like mixed around, you know. They, they all come a little bit together in bunches. So, the things I wanna always think about is how I would see them in the nature and how I would see them put together in a way that they look like that they were in the nature. So, try to put the same stems of the same flower together with the others and, um... I heard this from a friend once, it's like organized mess.

Liam: Mm.

Aline: Um, because it is. But also, the space that the flowers will be. When I know the space, they influence a lot. So, it really depends on the day as well, the mood, the season that we are in. It's really an organic, uh, work. So, for example, I prefer to choose my flowers, uh, that I will work with looking at them, um, and not just buying some, some flowers randomly. I choose them, they speak to me in that time. Th- the ones that I will work in that period of, of time which is two days because they, they cannot be more than that, um... It's, it's all connected to each other, it's very organic. And sometimes it could be that first thing that they do is that... Okay, we will have the focus flower, and then we get the, the secondary ones but then we have so many beautiful flowers together then we wanna put them all together. It works as well because w- w- what we learn in school is that we need to have a focus flower which will be your main flower that you will work with and then you need to h-, work with the around flowers on this first flower. But I don't think this is nice. Is like all the flowers are important, why do we need to have the secondary flowers? Why w-, why wouldn't put them all as important ones-

Liam: Mm-hmm.

Aline: ... because that's how they are in the garden? So, that's more or less how I, I think in my head. But it really depends. I can, I... It doesn't have a formula for that.

Liam: I'm also thinking about, um, you know, the, the work that I've seen from your studio. I, I guess I am thinking about the relationship of the work to the specific place where it's happening. So, in this case, we're in Zurich.

Aline: Yeah.

Liam: I feel like a lot of your work I've seen flowers that, um... You know, Switzerland has a lot of wild flowers (laughs). But I'm seeing ones that, that I might not necessarily be exposed to any other way and I'm curious how you think about that, like the flowers that you're bringing into the environment.

Aline: Is a symbiosis connection. It's a, it's more like a visual, um, connection to me than a thinking process. And I also believe that when you think too much it doesn't work. You need to see it and you need to feel it at the moment. I don't know how s-, to explain that. I think creatives understand what-

Liam: Yeah.

Aline: ... I'm talking about. It's more like a, "Okay, I like this. I don't know why and I, I don't know if it will, will work but I would try it out." And in the beginning was a lot of trying and some errors, of course, but, um, after a while, it just becomes something very organic, very automatic. A- a- a-, n-... I can't explain it.

Liam: Yeah. It makes intuitive-

Aline: (Laughs).

Liam: ... sense. Um, I'm also realizing many... You know, on this show I talk to a lot of folks who do all kinds of creative practices, design practices, art, but I'm realizing that your specific art has something that can probably never be expressed in other disciplines which is fragrance.

Aline: Oh, yeah.

Liam: I'm thinking about the fact that flowers beyond all of the visual qualities that we've talked about also have a fragrance.

Aline: Yes.

Liam: And a-, I wonder if, if that's part of, part of your thinking, how you feel out the flowers, what impact that has.

Aline: The good thing about cut flowers is that they don't have much fragrances and we normally try to avoid the fragrances because people have normally allergy of the pollen because-

Liam: Mm-hmm.

Aline: ... the scent comes out of the center of the flower. I work with small forms and of course big ones because, um, when you work with cut flowers you need to go for quality and to go for quality you need to, to go for professional, uh, farmers that work with cut flowers. So, they already developed the flowers without scents because of people that don't like the scents and it's... As my bouquets are normally... You cannot choose the flowers that you are working with and my clients needs to trust and, in what I'm doing, I try to make as best as I can to of course not give them something that will give them allergy or fragrance.

But I had, uh, situations that I worked for example with a lot of roses together, and it could be challenging. And, um, I think the fragrance, uh, subject it's, it's something really interesting because we are not there yet to decode fragrances and smells as we are with images for how it's pleasant to everyone. So, I think will be very interesting in the future to see how it will be developed but we don't try to work with the scents as much as we can to be honest.

Liam: It's like a whole other dimension of the flower.

Aline: Yeah. Yeah.

Liam: And has-

Aline: Because it's, it's, it;s very sensitive. It's like perfume. You don't have one perfume that everybody likes. It's like even the flowers, you don't have one flower that everybody loves.

Liam: Yeah.

Aline: I mean, peonies I would say is the, the most loved one. But even though they can have a scent, it's a very strong one when, when is it there. So, it can be disturbing actually.

Liam: I think there's an aspect of your work that certainly as someone who worked as a freelancer at one time, and I'm sure many of our listeners as well (laughs) will, will be wondering like how you successfully entered this new field, and set up the business, and, uh, you know are able to market it and, in my opinion, be really successful about that. I mean, we were speaking before the show about your website and how the aesthetic of it is so tight because again, you have so much experience developing these aesthetics and managing all the different parts of an installation which, you know, in the German language I think metaphorically the internet is like a room that we walk into, so I would consider a website to be a space as well (laughs). Um-

Aline: That's, that's true.

Liam: What, what was that like and, and how do you do that? Just on a more practical side I think-

Aline: Hmm.

Liam: ... people would like to know.

Aline: Yeah. That's a interesting question. It's, it's just... I mean, people ask me over and over, "How, how did you do it?" I mean, first thing I really think is that I wasn't afraid at all. It doesn't, it didn't really matter for me if I would be successful or not, I was doing what I, I really believed that could work. That was the first thing I, I really went through. Second of all, if I knew that build, build a business in, in Switzerland would be a little bit complicated, I wouldn't have done it. So, I just didn't know how difficult h-, it could be. I just, you know, went for it. I jumped in with my head and, you know, the only thing that could happen wrong is it couldn't work, but it did. So, you need to leave the fear aside and you really need to believe that you can do it. That's the first thing I believe. And I start my career as freelancer, doing everything you can imagine, as I told you in the beginning.

So, you need to learn a little bit from the experts. And I, I really believe in, in self-learning and everything I wanna learn to be honest I just google it and a-, it's there. You can learn absolutely anything you want nowadays in the internet. So, I would do it more research before starting something, and of course I have this aesthetic sense I think since always. Since I'm a little girl I used to, to choose my, my outfits and I always had a great sense of, um, color and, uh, and, and space, and texture, um, so it, of course this helped me a lot. But I think learn, learn, read, uh, research. This is really, really important for you to even understand what is it that you wanna do that what is it that you like because in the beginning for me for example, in my career in fashion, executive production, it doesn't have a course that you go... At least not... I'm 43, so 25 years ago it didn't have any course that I could do that would teach me how to do what I did back then.

So, it really was me being curious, being fearless that helped me to do that. And changing the field, of course I was a little bit like, "Oh my God, what I'm doing? Aline-

Liam: Mm.

Aline: ... are you crazy? You have such a successful career in fashion, what are you doing becoming a florist?" And also, I received a lot of critics. People saying to me like, "Are you sure you wanna do that in Zurich? Like this will not give you any money," "Are you crazy? You have plenty of florists out there." Is just... You cannot listen to these people because if they were, you know, knowing what they were saying, they would, they would be doing-

Liam: Sure.

Aline: ... as well, but they are not. They are all like working for some companies that they are not happy with w-, you know, whatever. But I just didn't listen, and I went fearless, and I did it. And when I started, um, one thing I realized is of course I'm a English speaking person in Switzerland-

Liam: Mm-hmm.

Aline: ... and this is... It's not easy, especially in the start because I didn't know anyone, I didn't had any friend and, uh, I just thought about reaching out the women group of people that I was admiring when I moved in here. Because, um, I had this, this time I said to you, uh, that I had like a, kind of like sabbatic to try to understand. So, I, I, I saw a lot of women in this, um, city that I s-, "Oh, she's doing something really nice. She's an artist, she's great in this," and I said, "Hi, I'm Aline." I sent messages in, in Instagram and, uh... Because I'm, I'm very imagetic person, so Instagram was my platform five years ago, so, I was reaching them and saying like, "Oh hi, how are you? And, uh, I'm doing this. Would you like to collaborate?" And that's how it started. And then Zurich has an incredible community of women that are doing and pursuing what they love, so I think I was embraced pretty much in the beginning. So, I really appreciate that, it helped me a lot. And that's how it started. Yeah.

Liam: That's fantastic.

Aline: (Laughs).

Liam: I think that's a great notes to close on.

Aline: Yeah. Thank you.

Liam: Thank you again for joining me today.

Aline: Oh, thank you for the invitation, was a lovely talk.

Julian Zigerli, Zürich Fashion Designer

Fashion designer Julian Zigerli on un-gendering clothes, cultural influence, and adaptation.

In this episode, part of San Francisco Design Week's Digital Edition, Liam speaks with Julian Zigerli, a designer in Zürich, Switzerland creating clothing that allows everyone to decide how what they wear expresses who they are. In the interview, Zigerli describes how the rich culture of Switzerland impacts his work, what it means when someone asks for "straight" clothes, and how his creative practice adapted in a time of pandemic. Content warning: In this episode, the word "queer" is used in a reclaimed manner.

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Liam Spradlin: Listeners will know that the show has been on hiatus for almost a year now because of the current situation in the world. A lot has changed. Our perspective on our work has changed, I think my perspective on the show has changed, but there are a couple of things that I still want to hold on to in terms of how the show is run because I think there's still a lot that we can learn from especially two questions that I want to ask. The first one is who are you and what is your work (laughing) and what is the journey that led you there, both the how and the why of like how you arrived at the stuff that you're doing now?

Julian Zigerli: I'm Julian Zigerli. I'm a designer from Zurich, fashion designer, and I'm doing fashion, menswear, women's wear, lots of accessories. Yeah, it's fashion (laughs). And how did I arrive there? I mean, I was always interested in fashion itself and, uh, I went to Berlin to study at the University of Art, and it was one thing I knew I'm going to be good at when I realized I want to do fashion. Yeah, it was my [inaudible 00:02:03] basically (laughs). And now I'm like 10 years in with my brand, back in Zurich since 10 years already, and, uh, started my brand 10 years ago and, yeah, it's been kind of growing the whole time and like evolving and like finding new ways on how my fashion or like the Julian Zigerli fashion can be adapted.

Liam: I think, from my experience of your work anyway, I, I think it has a very strong aesthetic and I think it has a strong point of view and I'm interested in knowing a little bit more about how you got there. How did you develop the like style of your brand?

Julian: I think it's been there since the beginning basically. I mean, and during my whole studies, I always knew like, at some point, I kind of want to do my own work, and that's what I've been working for, or what I've been, uh, studying for, like to really create your own spectrum or universe of, uh, how you think fashion or like clothing should be. And, uh, from the beginning on, it was always this very playful, uh, approach to design and like very comfortable, but also fun and happy. These are like synonyms, you would say, uh, which you can connect to the work I do.

Julian: And, um, it's been growing, but we always stayed on this path, or this track, and to keep it very aesthetic and very ... storytelling is always a big thing about like every collection has its own story and like its own kind of, uh, visual language, but it's all connected with everything else we do. We don't reinvent the brand every season from scratch. We keep on going.

Liam: How do you come up with that story or how do you conceptualize like what a collection is and what it does?

Julian: There are so many different approaches to it. Like sometimes a title comes into my mind or like an idea or, yeah, something, it doesn't really, (laughs) it doesn't really matter in the end, and then, uh, I start building something. Like I always call it I'm building a box and whatever fits in this box makes sense and, whatever doesn't fit in th box, I need to cancel out or like don't put into this collection. And, uh, yeah, it's always a spontaneous approach, I'd say, to a theme or to a topic and, uh, yeah, once I started with the title of a collection, then the whole thing started with this title and then, another time, I knew I want to work with a artist, we do a lot of creative art collaborations for print designs, so sometimes it's, uh, a artist collaboration I know is going to happen and then the whole thing builds around this. But, in the end, it's always the final collection, actually.

And that's also something which changed. It's been a crazy year, but we already started to change a bit our way of how our industry should work. Uh, we already started that a year ago, basically, like in November, last year, two years ago basically (laughing) and we don't really focus, uh, on collection, seasonal collections anymore. We take it on the go. We're like still processing how this, this works for us. So that's a bit like a new angle, to not think of a complete, full collection, but to think of a theme and put it in different parts.

Liam: So maybe the, um, distortion of our perception of time that I think we collectively experienced in 2020 have informed-

Julian: As I said, we already started of this in November 2019. I had this idea to not finish a whole collection, to just like start working on it and then see how we can evolve it, and then, yeah, corona happened and it basically underlined our new way of working. It was like slowing everything down, make it more easy for us also to work on it, and it basically helped to create this path (laughs).

Liam: The other thing that I'm really interested to get into, because it's one of the things that excites me about doing this podcast in the first place, is understanding the relationship that a creative person has to their work. And I love a metaphor, so (laughing) when, when you say that the style of your brand becomes a universe or (laughs) a space with this cohesive aesthetic, what are the planets or galaxies in that universe for you?

Julian: The whole Milky Way, I feel like, (laughing) also because the Milky Way is such a beautiful, uh, thing to experience when you look at it and also the, the idea of it. So, yeah, it's a ongoing street (laughs).

Liam: Are there also things that you can identify from your life or your experience that really inform your approach to the work?

Julian: I mean, um, really, like my work and my life is quite separate, but it's also, at the same time, I'm living it, so I'm really in it. I'm also wearing it all the time, like I wear my work every day basically, so I think, there, it kind of melds together.

Liam: What does that mean, you're living it?

Julian: I'm also putting my face on the brand a lot, so it's like, my personality, I think it all is kind of part of the aesthetics or the designs I do, so this fun and quirky kind of way of life basically, and also I love different things. I'm, I'm very interested in like outdoorsy stuff, for example, so I'm trying to keep it dynamic.

Liam: So the brand is at least partially expressed by your presence in it.

Julian: I guess. I mean, I don't really see that because I'm doing it (laughs).

Liam: Yeah.

Julian: I'm too close to it, so I guess, for the outside, I am kind of a big part of it, but, also, sometimes it speaks for itself.

Liam: But then I would also ask, or maybe say, that (laughs) the brand could be something that you use to express yourself. Maybe that sounds obvious.

Julian: Could be, actually (laughs). I mean, I'm designing loads of things which I really personally love to wear, so, yeah, I do use it also to express myself, of course.

Liam: I'm interested, especially since I moved here, I think that the experience of being visibly queer in a place like Switzerland is different from New York, where I'm from, I think that's probably true of anywhere in the world, but I'm interested to understand that experience as it relates to this location. Does that make sense?

Julian: I think so (laughing). Yeah, the brand is visibly queer. I'm queer myself, so I don't hide it, I also show it and I like to show it, but I think it has to come natural.

Liam: Mm-hmm.

Julian: Like I don't are play this gay card. It's just part of it. And, uh, being in Switzerland doing this, I guess it takes balls, (laughs) but, on the other hand, it's also, since I don't title it as a gay brand, like it's just clothing you can wear and everyone can decide for themselves what to think of it or how to wear it or when to wear it and where to wear it, if it's Switzerland or New York or wherever, and, uh, I think it's more like a way of expressing. And having this bold language and designs in Switzerland, it takes a moment (laughs) for people to understand what you're doing, but, uh, we've been here now since 10 years and, in the end, actually Switzerland became one of our biggest market of our work and I never really expected this to happen.

Julian: Like, when I started, I was always like, "Okay, I'm going to do it. I'm going to be based in Zurich. I'm going to do it from here using this, uh, not really big, uh, fashion industry we have in Switzerland to really stand out, I guess, from others as well and then never really think about ..." Like I always try to think outside the border, so it was never ... that Switzerland was never our foc- focus. We always try to really work internationally, and that still is the case, but it became important for us to also be in Switzerland.

Liam: And you mentioned this thing of like taking a moment for people to understand their encountering the work or like their understanding of the work and what it means and that it's okay to express yourself through fashion this way. Is that something that you think about?

Julian: Not necessarily, I, I think more in the beginning and now less. Like we know what we're doing (laughs). We don't have to rethink every time. We're like, "Okay, this is going to work. This is not going to work." We kind of know what we're doing and, uh, yeah, that helps a lot, having such long experience.

Liam: It's funny, one of my questions that I had prepared beforehand was whether you wear your own work often (laughing).

Julian: Uh, yeah, um, mostly toe to top (laughing). Working on some shoes at the moment, so.

Liam: Yeah (laughs).

Julian: Yeah. That's also the, the fun part of not focusing too much on collections, seasonal collections, anymore, but more conceptual work. I still want to keep on doing it and, uh, it's actually the most fun you can do like to have really a collection with a theme and, uh, really make it very conceptual. But then also, since we have the shop since ... three years, we have a shop in the Niederdorf in Switzerland, in Zurich, it helps to also create products which are not necessarily connected to any collection, just like think about the product it- itself or the design itself and ... I kind of lost my thread there, but-

Liam: Yeah (laughing).

Julian: ... I think you know where this is going (laughs).

Liam: Yeah, yeah. And I think it comes to my mind that a lot of successful creatives talk about creating work for themselves, (laughs) does that make sense, or creating the work that you want to exist?

Julian: Um, to a certain point. I don't have myself in my mind when I create that much. I think this is like something which comes organically, like is always a big part of it because I also kind of, kind of imagine how this piece, like how does it look when you wear it. So, basically, you know, I know myself the best, (laughs) so I, I guess this is always kind of a part of it, but there's also a lot of pieces which I don't necessarily want to wear or will wear or I just know they're not for me, but we're still doing them. It's not that the collection are always just for me.

Liam: Right. Maybe the work is not specifically for you, but it is created from your perspective.

Julian: Yeah, for sure.

Liam: That makes sense. There's another topic that kind of stems off of this whole conversation, in my mind, which is something that you posted on Instagram a few months ago. In your story, there was as screenshot of a DM that someone had sent you that asked, "When will you make clothes for straight people (laughs)?"

Julian: Oh, yeah, that was a good one (laughs).

Liam: And-

Julian: Very interesting question (laughs).

Liam: ... and I really want to unpack that to the extent that we can (laughing) in a 30-minute interview or whatever (laughing). Um, I've been thinking about this question like ever since I saw it.

Julian: Oh, really?

Liam: It was actually as I came to Switzerland. To start with, I want to know what your initial reaction was and how you perceived that question.

Julian: I mean, you saw the, the reaction I had. I actually really had to post it in the stories. I never really do that. I don't necessarily receive that many weird, funny questions, but that one was just like, okay, what the fuck am I going to answer, answer to this question? Like there was one million ideas, but like none really kind of matched, so I was like, "Okay, let me, let me ask the community (laughs). Let me see what they have to say about this." And, uh, it was also a bit, like a tiny bit, making fun of this very weird question, like what does that even mean, making clothing for straight people? Like what does it mean? Like I really, I still don't really know (laughs).

Liam: Yeah. But I think this ties into what we were talking about before, which is like this, uh, like kind of lapse in understanding. Like I think-

Julian: It's very narrow-minded, um, and that's basically what I try not to do. Like, when you enter my shop, we have sometimes people ask like, "Do you also do menswear?" or "Do you also do women's wear?" And I'm like, "Hey, just have a look." Like we don't separate the pieces in the shop. It's like all is hanging there, no matter women's or men's or gender fluid. It doesn't really matter, like it's just there. It's clothing. And we have men trying on dresses. They don't really care. Like we really try to open up these boundaries and, in the shop, it's really easy to do that, and then, when you receive a question like that, it's like, "Okay (laughs). I don't really know what to answer you."

Liam: Yeah. And I, I think that perspective of like, "We don't necessarily do menswear or women's wear," maybe you just do wear (laughs).

Julian: We, we wear (laughs).

Liam: It feels, it feels-

Julian: We wear and we wear (laughs).

Liam: ... it feels very intuitive, as queer people, to think of it that way, but I ... but, but it seems to me like someone who would ask this question is identifying something again the work that tells them like it is, it is gay or it is queer, but also like it is not for straight people or like, "I do not have access to this creative work," for reasons that were not-

Julian: Yeah.

Liam: ... identified in the question.

Julian: I mean, I didn't ask him, so.

Liam: Yeah (laughs).

Julian: It would have been interesting to reach out to this person. Uh, what I can say, like we honestly, 10 years ago, we started as a menswear brand. Like it was like my decision to focus on menswear, really only do menswear. We had really like a very sporty and sexy and like creative kind of approach to it, and still do and it's still very sexy. Like I love a good boy in my dre-, (laughs) in my clothing. And, uh, at some point, like we had female customers from the beginning on, like it didn't really matter, and then, at some point, we decided to include dresses, like really do women's wear pieces. And, at some point, I was like, "Hey, let's just do whatever we do and we don't really need to divide it in parts."

Liam: Yeah. There's something about like who feels like they can access certain clothes in a way that, that maybe other types of design or art don't experience.

Julian: Yeah.

Liam: So we've discussed how you relate to the work, how you create it and engage with it yourself and think about it, but also how the work engages with the world. How does it fit? What is it doing? What is the impact of the work, I guess?

Julian: I think it has its own little niche. There's not that many brands I would say you can compare it to. Like it's very its own kind of thing. And, uh, I guess the, the strongest language we have is our print designs, so there's always a message when you wear them, like you can tell it's a Zigerli. Like I heard, I heard that, a lot of times, that people who are wearing stuff from me, even if it wasn't without any print, like they're like, "Ah, people recognized it." So it's really its own little universe, (laughs) a little alien walking through the world (laughs).

Liam: Yeah. So there's like recognition. We've established like the work has this aesthetic. It is its own alien walking through the world (laughing) from some other part of the creative universe.

Julian: Uh, you can be part of the clan (laughs).

Liam: Yeah (laughs). Yeah, like you can join this universe.

Julian: Yeah.

Liam: Like that recognition, I think, is also serving a purpose too.

Julian: I mean, that's actually beautifully put because, uh, we really want to make it so people can join and like really share it and love it as well. Like it's very, it's a very kind, kind of, uh, happy feeling we want to do with our clothing.

Liam: Yeah, and I think, going back to this question, because there is an untold amount to unpack there, again, this like moment of needing to perhaps reckon with the existence of like a pink jacket or a dress that a man can wear. There's a kind of confrontation there that I think has a lot of potential.

Julian: Mm-hmm.

Liam: Like maybe ... I don't know if you remember any of the answers that you posted to that question, but I wonder–

Julian: No, I don't (laughing). Need to check the archive (laughs).

Liam: ... I wonder if that person saw those or if there was a moment of reflection-

Julian: Yeah.

Liam: ... that was triggered by that.

Julian: I was thinking about that, like to share I with him, but then I also thought like it's not really ... I don't know, I mean, it's not that nice to post someone's DM or a story. It's not something I would do in general. It was just this one specific question-

Liam: Yeah.

Julian: ... which I picked out. I was like, "Okay, I need to share this with the world."

Liam: Yeah. But I think my instinctive reaction to it is like there's such a big conversation to be had.

Julian: Yeah.

Liam: ... with that person. But, on the other hand, as you said, like you're creating this work intuitively from your perspective, you're creating things that you want to see in the world. That's the work, and it isn't necessarily your work or my work to guide someone on that journey. But it is interesting-

Julian: We could help them, (laughs) I, I guess.

Liam: We could.

Julian: But, I mean, there's ... we also don't create something which needs to be understood by everyone-

Liam: Mm-hmm.

Julian: ... you know, so, uh, fair enough, there's a question like this coming up at some point, I guess (laughs). It's, it's not designs which everyone wants to wear or can wear or understand. Like sometimes ... I hear a lot of comments like, "Ah, what's this pajama (laughing)?" because we do like prints from toe to top and, uh, fair enough, if you want to call it pajama. I love looking comfortable and, uh, wear prints, so (laughs).

Liam: Yeah, I mean, why not? I guess like one theme is like, yeah, you can wear this as pajamas-

Julian: Yeah.

Liam: ... if you want.

Julian: You can, of course.

Liam: You can wear this business suit as pajamas or ... (laughs).

Julian: I actually started some pieces as pajama (laughs).

Liam: Yeah?

Julian: Yeah, because it's like silk and comfortable, so why not? Maybe it's interesting to hear the opposite side, like what's the client's idea when he buys Zigerli or why would he buy something from me? And you are actually a client of mind, so what brings you to my shop?

Liam: I think, uh, I think this is interesting, turning the question around on me-

Julian: Yeah (laughs).

Liam: ... but I think my perspective on what I wear is similar to yours in the sense that like I see it as an expressive surface for me and who I am and what I want to look like and who I want to be every day and I choose what I wear on that basis. And so I think I picked up on the vibe of the designs at your shop are things that are accessible as you want them to be and expressive as you want them to be and unique. It has a unique point of view and perspective and I appreciate that in a design.

I think probably I've become more conscious of that type of expression, especially since coming here to Switzerland, because, as we discussed, there is this moment of perception leading to understanding or this kind of confrontation that causes someone to think like, "Those clothes aren't for straight people," and I kind of indulge in that a little bit (laughing). I think it's kind of interesting, I think.

Julian:Yeah, yeah.

Liam: Reading, uh, a book called Insult by Didier Eribon, he talks a lot about this idea of the relationship between subverting and assimilating to dominant culture and the fact that like those things are always happening at the same time and, when it becomes effective is when you are aware of the proportions of those things, when you're doing it, how much you're doing it, and why you're doing it. And I think that clothes are like a very effortless but high impact way of engaging in that. So that's why I dress the way I do (laughing).

Julian: Also, love the fact that we can talk forever, like there's so many reasons why you would buy Zigerli that it's actually nice. And I love the fact that you say like it's you decide on, uh, what you're going to express with it or like how you're going to wear it and like that's the whole idea. Like you can wear the most craziest piece, but the way you interpret something else in it, you make it your own.

Liam: Yeah, it's open-ended and I think it takes a lot of awareness to come up with that interpretation or that, you know, approach to wearing clothes, as simple as it sounds.

Julian: Yeah, (laughs) that's true. You have to think of it, about it.

Liam: I'm going to get a little more specific-

Julian: Mm-hmm.

Liam: ... about the work and talk about maybe a specific collection that stands out to you and then dig into that and get into the details of like-

Julian: Mm-hmm.

Liam: ... where it came from and what it might mean, if anything.

Julian: Um, there's actually maybe like two or three collections I keep thinking about or like ... I mean, I love all my babies which I created, nothing stands out more than something else, but there's one which I like to tell the story about these art collaborations we do like every second or third season at least. We have a artist where we collaborate with. And there was this one collection in 2014, the summer '14 collection, we collaborated with Katharina Grosse, which is like this really big name in the art world. Uh, she lives in Germany. And, there, I literally turned the clothing we created ... uh, uh, I made like a kind of, uh, a canvas (laughs). So we, I basically created a blank canvas on a body and put it in her studio and she painted on it, so that was a very, very beautiful collection of fashion and art and like how, how you can connect it and it's also a very visual connection. Like you could really see how this happened.

Not every artist collaboration works the same way. This was this one specific one. And then there's also, talking about Switzerland again, like where I am now since 10 years, and also one of the reasons, basically, I came back is like this, uh, flora and fauna we have in Switzerland is beautiful and, two years ago, I really wanted to work with Switzerland as an inspiration and I started Carrot Believe It collection, where I used Switzerland and Japan as an inspiration. And I realized how fucking beautiful it is to work with, uh, Switzerland as an inspiration and you could create so many also a bit ironic (laughs) prints with ... like, there, we did all the prints ourselves. Like there was no col- collaboration and, yeah, it was just, it was, it's never-ending.

And, uh, ever since then, I keep thinking about doing it again, another collection like this, because, after finishing the summer collection, it was summer '19, I immediately said like we'll do, again, Switzerland for the next season (laughs) and we did a completely different story. It was the Ring My Bell collection. It was just more, uh, [foreign language 00:25:40] we say in Switzerland, really like countryside, like wood and ghosts, like really mystic kind of vibe. So it was a completely different story, but, again, like I love to have my home country as a inspiration, but really translate it so differently.

Liam: You talk about combining the design sensibilities of Switzerland and like all of the inspirational things that exist here with a place like Japan, and it strikes me that, even within Switzerland, there's such a rich diversity of local cultures to explore as well.

Julian: There is. It's such a tiny country and (laughs) there's a lot. Yeah.

Liam: So we've talked about creating the work, but I think fashion is editorial and I want to talk about how you edit the work as well, like the planets that don't get to stay in the universe or (laughing) things, things that you have to take out of the box. Are there ideas like, for example, have there been prints that you're working on and you see it going it in a different direction and you might either stop working on it or keep it for something else or ...

Julian: I mean, for the 10 years we've been working, there's really not that much which we created which we didn't use. I always call it this is our kind of sustainability, like to not create stuff which we throw out and don't use anymore, but to create something and, if it doesn't really work in this moment, we keep it and reuse it in a different season or in a different project. And, uh, there is one or two prints which I know we've created which were nice and will work and, at the moment, I edited it (laughs) and I took it out and they're, uh, on hold, but they will come back. Everything is always coming back.

Liam: How did you come to the decision to save those for later?

Julian: I mean, we already had so many prints in this collection (laughing). Like that's what I said, like this whole, uh, Switzerland collection very kind of started where we ... like we never had this many prints in one collection. Usually, it's l-, it's like a third of what we did this season and, that season, and, uh, so these prints I'm talking right now, they're like a few seasons later where I realized, okay, we don't have to put all our gunpowder in one gun. We can use different guns for it (laughs).

Liam: Yeah. That speaks, again, to the abundance of inspiration in Switzerland.

Julian: Yeah, (laughs) again.

Liam: It seems right to address what is happening in the world and I'm curious what effect that has had on you as a creator and on your creations?

Julian: As I mentioned earlier, we already followed this new path of creating collections, but not necessarily putting them into the fashion circle season. So this, basically, had the biggest effect that we definitely did this. We're still launching, soon, the third part of the current last winter collection, which we, when we started to work on it, it was still autumn/winter '20 collection, but then, during the whole process, we realized that we need to divide it in different parts, and then now part two is coming and, uh, then we are currently working on the third part of this collection. So we, we stretched the whole thing and it kind of helped us to relax a bit, to not be too stressed about it, because fashion is a very, very stressful business. Like you're basically always running behind. Like to create a whole collection, putting it out, producing it all in one season is really ... it's, it's tough. It's really fast.

It's very a fast business and, uh, this kind of helped us to relax. Like, you know, there were productions were closed. There were ... like not every fabric were, they were able to deliver, so we were like we take it as we go, and everyone kind of understood that maybe some delays will happen and it was okay for most of them and we're just going to keep on this more healthy kind of, (laughs) uh, work way also for the future. Even if this pandemic ever is going to end, we will keep on with this more, uh, (laughs) relaxed way of working.

Liam: Yeah.

Julian: So this was one of the biggest effect it had for us. Also, to rethink products, like what do we need these days, what can we create so the customer will buy it? It's not necessarily only fashion. We did a lot of little accessory things this year, like just a bit more ac- accessible to possess, I say, like you need less money for it (laughs). So this also kind of pushed us into this mo-, in this direction a bit more, which is just helpful for the shop.

Liam: And I'm the proud owner of some Zigerli masks as well.

Julian: (laughs). That was basically our business for 2020 (laughs).

Liam: Yeah–

Julian: And, luckily, we started very early with, uh, with the whole production of it. It took me also a moment to process are we really going to do this, are we really going to make money off of a pandemic and really create masks? But, when we tried it out and we did it the first time and we used up all our archive of fabric, so that was the whole idea, to not produce something new because everything was closed anyways, but to use what we had, leftovers, and then we did it and we did like maybe 10 or 15 designs in the beginning. We took pictures of it always with a matching piece of clothing, like same print. I looked at the pictures and I was like, "Okay, this is actually going to work. This is actually ... we created fashion." So, for me, it was like just another beautiful accessory we created.

Liam: Has it been challenging, on a personal level, to continue working during this?

Julian: Um, we are a very, very small team. My studio is quite spacious, so this was actually kind of a safe place for us (laughs). It was nice to be able to go somewhere and keep on working and ... since everything else was closed or now, again, everything else is basically closed, so there's not that much else you can do. And to have like a very warm environment and really beautiful workplace, it helped. Like it felt good to, to go to work (laughs).

Liam: That's probably something a lot of people are feeling. I don't think I would ever miss an office as much as I do now (laughing)-

Julian: Yeah (laughs).

Liam: ... as, as nice as it is to be able to work from home.

Julian: We never really experienced that. When the first lockdown came in spring, March, was it, the first one or two weeks, we were like, "Okay, what are we going to do?" We stopped everything. Like we didn't carry on working on the collection. We're like, "Okay, we're not going to spend any more money on any collection." The shop is closed. There's not really that much coming back in. Online was good, but not major. Like our shop's very important. So, for two weeks, we were cleaning the studio (laughing) until we came up, okay, let's start with, uh, [inaudible 00:32:38] Early, which was like our pillows and blankets. So we created pillows and blankets, and then the masks came and then, literally, we worked our asses off to satisfy our clients, our customers, so we've been busy the whole 2020, and we never had the issue of like staying home too long (laughing).

Liam: Yeah, I think that's very fortunate.

Julian: Yeah.

Liam: All right. Well, thank you for joining me for this conversation.

Julian: Thank you (laughs). It was a pleasure.

Kerry Murphy, Founder — The Fabricant

Kerry Murphy on how his virtual fashion house, The Fabricant, explores ideas of embodiment through clothing that can only exist in virtual space.

Liam speaks with Kerry Murphy, co-founder of digital fashion house The Fabricant, to learn how ones and zeros are spun, woven, and stitched into virtual couture. In designing couture that doesn’t—or can’t—exist in physical space, The Fabricant also explores ideas of embodiment and self-actualization. Murphy pushes these concepts even further, by interacting with his own “virtual twin,” composed from 3D-scans of his body.

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Liam Spradlin: Kerry, welcome to Design Notes.

Kerry Murphy: Yeah. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me.

Liam: To start out how I always do, I'm interested in what your journey has been like to your current work and how that journey has influenced the kinds of things that you're working on.

Kerry: So, my background is in film and visual effects and I worked in advertising for over a decade, and I felt that advertising industry is a little bit solace and doesn't necessarily have a purpose in most of the work that we do. And I think I was always searching for purpose in my work. And basically, I just happened to make one animation test with clothing, and it was a complete miserable fail. And through that, I established conversation with some fashion designers, who happened to be digital fashion designers, to basically see how I can animate clothing in much better way, only to realize how far fashion industry is from actual digital transformation 'cause I thought that all fashion designers are designing in 3D software these days, but it happened that it's only the start of the digital transformation of fashion industry currently.

And there I just understood that the whole fashion industry is completely unsustainable, very toxic environmentally, and plus also culturally. So I saw that there was a lot of opportunity to change and I actually saw that there's a lot of opportunity to create that type of change through 3D and fashion because basically if you completely democratize the design practices into digital practices you can be basically saving a lot of materials and waste in the process itself. So meeting up with my current co-founder Amber, who's a, let's say a true Visionary when it comes down to creating that digital change in the fashion industry, it gave me a new opportunity to basically start a 3D animation company focusing completely on fashion. So I think that's basically the short story of how I came about going from visual effects to becoming a fashion design company.

Liam: So you talked about using 3D and digital to reduce waste in the process of creating fashion, but I also want to get into what digital couture is.

Kerry: (Laughs) Well, I mean, if you look at the word couture, it only means sewing, then this of course, haute couture which is like this high-end luxury fashion which is only like I think 30 companies in the world can call themselves haute couture companies. So digital couture is basically the exact same, uh, couture on its own but basically we're doing digital sewing. So we don't use any material samples in the design process whatsoever. Our whole design process is in 3D software and digital couture.

Liam: And how is that work eventually consumed?

Kerry: Oh, I mean, the case change his quite a lot with it because it's digital clothing, so essentially it's not something that you wear on your physical body and it's not something that keeps you warm. We believe that all lives are becoming so virtual these lives that at some point people will actually want to start dressing their virtual identities. And what I mean by virtual identities right now that can be your Instagram profile picture, your Facebook profile picture, your LinkedIn profile picture, but in the future we believe that everybody will have a digital twin of themselves that they will actually want to do create in in a certain way that will go with their identity which we believe it's going to be somewhat different from a physical identity.

The way we identify ourselves in our physical world of course, it's much more limited than in a virtual world. The way we speak on social media is different way that we speak in our physical lives, and we believe that digital clothing is just gonna be a big tool and a vessel to create our digital identities and to communicate to our peers, our different communities, our friends, our family, you name it.

Liam: The distinction between our physical embodiments and the virtual identities that we have is really interesting, especially thinking about how that idea is already manifesting where we're using the physical aspects of our embodiment to create that digital twin that the you mentioned. And I think right now from what I understand when someone buys a piece of digital couture they still need help putting it on because it's still being put onto some representation of their physical embodiment. So I'm wondering do you think that that will change in the future, that the tools that we have for creating these will be such that will be doing that ourselves?

Kerry: Absolutely. I think I always use this example from the film industry because I have to go to university for several years to learn all the tools, and cameras, and editing software, and I really was proud of the fact that I knew all of these tools that nobody else really knew around me. And then with the first smartphone now everybody's basically a filmmaker, everybody has a camera in their pocket, and editing tool in their pocket. YouTube is a great distribution tool, you know, you can basically be marketing all your videos. So it's really the age of consent making and the smartphone has democratized that.

And we're on the same path to create that for fashion basically. We want to enable everybody to have a digital avatar of themselves so they got actually wear digital clothing. We want to make clothing for our lives, our identities, and the question then is what is that experience, what is that tool that enables everybody to live in the virtual realm and allows everybody to be a content maker? We want to be co-creators where we actually bring that fashion craftsmanship as it exists today in the physical world, bring it into the digital space and make those tools that allow everybody to think along and create garments with them for them for their virtual use.

Liam: I'm also interested in, again, this idea of, of having a virtual embodiment and trusting it and having that represent you online, because I think that the initial conceit of social media was that this person who's posting is a representation of you authentically. So when that is maybe less the case, or it's more accepted that these embodiments have capabilities that we don't in the physical world, how does that act of creating your virtual self end up interacting with your real self?

Kerry: No, it's a good question. I think the immediate answer would be, let's say an augmented reality of, um, overlaying digital items on top of our physical lives. So if we talk about it from that perspective, that, okay, everybody's going to have AR contact lens, not that it's like my favorite future, but if that is the case, and then everybody could be wearing digital clothing in their physical lives as well. I think what the blurring between the two right now is I would say the smartphone, we already have AR filters on smartphones. The face filters for Instagram is super popular. And I think a lot of the people that we engage with have asked like, "Oh yeah, when are we going to make the body filter for Instagram for clothing?" Of course, there's a lot more complexities when it comes down to the technical execution of that, but we're starting to see it already.

Uh, I think one of our partners Carlings who also did a digital fashion campaign last year, that was immensely popular, they just released a Instagram filter to go together with their physical t-shirt. So basically you go to Instagram and you open up their filter function and you scan the logo on the t-shirt itself, and then the Instagram filter places a graphic on the t-shirt. So that's already layering a digital layer on top of the, of the physical body, but you still need that medium, which right now is the smartphone. So I think a lot of the answers are going to lie there. And when we talk about the fabric and let's say 100 year vision, I think it was Amber who mentioned at first that she was imagining that we all be wearing holograms, that were basically wearing a basic body suits and on top of that, they will be a form of a hologram on top of us. Technologically, right now that's not really possible, but we can't even imagine what we'll look like a hundred years from now. So I can completely imagine that our clothing can be completely digital at some point.

Liam: Focusing on the creation of digital clothing, in past conversations when I've talked to folks who are working on physical garments, we talk about things like how the garments move, how they drape over a body, how they fit and the texture of the material, things like that. I'm interested in what those are in a virtual environment. What are the constraints, if any, or like what kind of parameters are you thinking about?

Kerry: Good question. I mean, for us, the language is the exact same. We talk about drape, fit, stitches, seams, materials. I think that's basically 80% of the conversation, but we talk about it from a technical pipeline perspective. How do we insert the stitches from our 3D fashion software to our professional software? You know, we're, we're trying to create a pipeline where somebody says, "I want to top stitch there," that that stitch gets automated throughout that whole technical pipeline. So I think that's a little bit of a different part of the discussion, but we also say that we take the language of fashion craftsmanship, and we just do the digital craftsmanship side of it.

So basically it's the same type of craftsmanship, just in a different space. The way we construct stuff is completely different. So when I go to fashion universities and I see these kids there basically with their sisters and their paper patterns, cutting patterns out, kind of reminds me of how film industry was before the '90s that, you know, there was an editor cutting a spool of film, you know, pasting it back together only to check how the edit works. That's kind of where fashion is right now. But when you look at the 3D software itself, you basically have two layouts. You know, one, one side of the window is to draft your 2D pattern, and the other side of the window is to draft the 3D volume, where you basically 3D stitch it together to create the 3D volume of the garment itself.

Now, I don't know exactly how much faster that is, but I can tell you that you're not going to be able to put a physical t-shirt together in two minutes, what's possible basically in 3D. So I think that whole ideation process, that whole design process from a creative perspective becomes so much more powerful because basically you can put your ideas down in 3D almost as fast as you can sketch them down on paper. Within a day, you can go through hundreds of different ideas, color ways, uh, details, uh, blocks, silhouettes, something that typically can take weeks, if not months, to put together in the physical world.

Liam: I'm interested also in the new material possibilities afforded by virtual fashion and what it's like to invent a new material and think about how, how it exists on its own and also how it interacts with the environment and maybe with other virtual materials as well.

Kerry: That's probably my favorite part of the whole process itself is to actually create stuff that's not possible in the physical world. And I believe that's where 3D actually provides the most value for fashion, is to actually do stuff that you will never be able to do physically because of gravity, for instance. Uh, w- with materials, you get to play around a lot with it. It does need to be much more technical and a little bit more engineering type minded from a different perspective to actually ideate and be super creative.

And I guess in 3D, the rule is as long as it looks good, it's good. Oh, at least you need to be able to get some type of emotional engagement out of it. You know, it can be super ugly, it can be super beautiful, as long as you're creating something that resonates and that has visual appeal in one way or another. And again, it's the same thing, you know, you get to play around and try hundreds of different things within a day. Unlike fashion, if you're going to talk about material innovation, you know, can be months, if not years before you're coming up with something that's visually appealing to actually put on the clothing itself.

Liam: I also wanna talk about how people are responding to, uh, these, to these products right now, both as they see things like digital installations that are showing off new garments, or when they actually see themselves or a representation of themselves wearing these garments?

Kerry: It is still a very niche that not many people have a virtual representation of themselves yet alone, a photorealistic representation of themselves in 3D. So not many people have gone through that process of actually getting an avatar of themselves and putting digital clothing on themselves. But this is something that I already did in 2017, as a proof of concept for myself to see how the process goes from technical perspective, only to find out that there was a real, let's say, psychological aspect to it as well. First of all, having to do the body scanning half naked and knowing that I was going to put those results out into the web was kind of scary and yeah, kind of hit my own insecurities in a lot of different ways.

But then the learning that came through, it was actually a lot about body positivity. I started seeing myself in a 360 view and I started understanding how my body works. And then when a digital fashion designer was tailoring digital clothing on my body, and she put clothing on to my body that I wouldn't wear necessarily my physical life, my first reaction was like, "No, I would never wear that." But my second reaction was like, "But hey, what if? How would I feel?" So all of a sudden I started becoming much more open to things that I was not necessarily open for before. And I was kind of able to start breaking those, let's say, stereotypical barriers that I had set for myself, uh, throughout my life, just by being able to observe myself from a third person perspective in the 3D space, doing dance moves that I can't do in my real life, wearing clothing that I would never, ever actually want to wear in my real life to actually start thinking of like, "Hey, what if?"

So, I actually started taking dance lessons to, you know, try different things out, to express myself differently from a creative perspective. And I can just basically, you know, matrix style, almost just upload different dance moves on my body and really just look at myself doing crazy stuff that I can't do in my physical life in third person perspective. It really... There is something like super strong from a psychological perspective that's very hard to put into words. It's just something that people will need to experience for themselves. And I believe that in the future, we're definitely moving towards that space where a lot of other people will start seeing themselves in third person perspective through these avatars. Eventually, I think everybody will have that one-to-one translation of themselves in virtual life, and beyond that they will actually want to start curating their virtual avatars in ways that don't look like themselves, but something that they can still emotionally connect to, something that resonates with their own identity.

Liam: Right. As you were saying that I was thinking a lot about a book by Tom Boellstorff who did an ethnography of second life. And I think earlier when I asked about the interaction between our virtual avatars of ourselves and our physical presence, I was thinking a lot about how other people will experience that. But it strikes me that as Boellstorff says in his book, a lot of the things about the act of creation and second life and about the act of creation of your avatar specifically is about self-actualization, and maybe this is the same thing. The outcomes that you're getting from it are not so much about how they impact your physical embodiment with regard to other people, but how you are able to perceive yourself and understand yourself.

Kerry: It's so powerful to be able to basically just put yourself into a safe space and observe yourself from a distance to kind of see what is it that you do. It's, it's, it's almost just another layer to when you first hear your own voice, or when you first see yourself on video, or when you first see a picture of yourself, this is just like another elevated format of that.

Liam: There is an interesting idea that I came across when I was researching fabricants work, and that was that data can be used as a raw material for creativity or creative work. What's meant by that?

Kerry: Well, just like cotton is a raw material that basically that's where it starts for us. Data is our raw material because all of our work happens in the PC. So we could just call that all of our work starts with ones and zeros, and it also ends up in ones and zeros, but in just a different format. And it goes through that whole process from going from raw ones and zeros to processed ones and zeros, I don't know exactly how to word it, but, uh, in the end, there is a visual output that in its essence is still ones and zeros.

Liam: So assuming that virtual couture and its new capabilities, which are personalization, collaboration, all of the sorts of things about this new virtual embodiment that we've talked about, and also including the possible future where we're wearing holograms and body suits that generate some sort of visual output for clothing, in the meantime, what do you think the impact is going to be on the world of physical fashion and systems by which it operates right now?

Kerry: I think there's gonna be a lot of change coming, and I think it's going to be very disruptive in a lot of ways. I think we're going to move more towards local manufacturing because basically we won't need that overstock anymore. We won't need to produce in high quantity because we're moving towards a production on demand business model where actually all the clothing can be 3D renders until the purchasing point. So once the consumer actually buys the clothing via e-commerce or online store, then that gets manufactured. But I also believe that that whole manufacturing process is going towards atomization, where robots will be making our garments. So that disruption, I think will be, let's say fairly destructive for a lot of countries.

And I hope that there will be companies and organizations who can make that transition as friendly as possible for the people that actually rely on that income on a daily base, because most of our garments are still handmade. It's still manual labor. And I think that's kind of one of the biggest things that some people in our network are asking us, what are we doing about that aspect? And honestly, I don't really know, you know, we're barely surviving as a company to begin with. So that will definitely have to be something that from an ethical perspective, we really need to take a stance on and to be aware of the type of change that can come through virtualization and hope that we can really help support that transformation when it comes down to the places that are very much relying on that physical production at the moment.

Liam: Right. Well, thank you again for joining me, Kerry.

Kerry: Cool. Thank you so much for having me.

Fashion designers Lizzy and Darlene Okpo

Exploring the intersection of expression and utility in fashion design

The third episode features Lizzy and Darlene Okpo, the designers and sisters behind New York-based fashion label William Okpo. In the interview, Lizzy and Darlene detail what gives their line its identity, the personas that shape a collection, and the intersection of expression and utility in fashion design.

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Liam Spradlin: Darlene, Lizzy, welcome to Design Notes. Thanks for joining me.

Lizzy Okpo: Thank you.

Darlene Okpo: Thanks for having us!

Liam: Just getting right into things, something I always like to ask is what do you do, and what has your journey been like to get where you are? So, let’s start with Darlene.

Darlene: Absolutely. I am one half of the William Okpo label, fashion designer, along with my sister, who’s my partner as well. And for me personally, the journey has been long, but it has been a very humbling experience to be able to just own your own business and design alongside, you know, your family member, too.

Lizzy: As Darlene said, our journey has been long, but so short. I think, quite often I’ve been just thinking, rewinding back in to 2010 in the beginning stages and now coming in 2017, it’s like, never ever … I mean, yeah, I- I felt like we were gonna have a brand, and I still feel like we’re gonna have a brand that’s gonna last for 100 years; that’s the goal. But even seven years ago seems so long. You know, I think about how … You know, what we thought about the brand.

It was like, “Okay, it’s gonna be this whole masculine thing and we’re gonna be undercover. We’re gonna be like, two females and it’s gonna be named after our dad so everyone’s gonna think it’s a man,” which is still the same thing. Everyone thinks that we’re men, and everyone thinks that we are William, which is cool. Being the face behind the brand, actually shifted the direction of the brand, um, and it has been really inspiring for other young women around the world as we receive so many emails constantly just saying that, “I love you guys’s story.”

So, we never really thought that it was our personal story that was gonna tell the brand story. We thought it was just gonna be the designs, you know. That’s what every designer thinks, that we’re gonna make some amazing designs and people are gonna like, “This is amazing,” and then never think about the backstory. We’ve grown to love so many people. We’ve met amazing people. Uh, we met crazy people. We’ve fallen. We’ve risen. Um, and we’re still learning.

It’s like the biggest education we’ve ever received in life. Never thought it would be this.

Darlene: Right.

Lizzy: We learn everyday.

Darlene: We didn’t really go to a traditional design school. Everything was pretty much self-taught. You know, Lizzy went to Pace University in the city and she stud- she studied entrepreneurship, and I went to Lehman College in the- the Bronx, and I studied African American studies with a minor in Women’s Studies. So, we didn’t really have that FIT, Parsons, Central Saint Martins type design background. We kind of just said one day, “Okay, we wanna design.” You know, um, it wasn’t just like two girls that just love clothes and playing in the closet. It was more of, we wanted to design clothes for women that look like us, and women who are just really outgoing, confident, um, just loved color, print, you know, everything of that nature, and for us, it was kind of like, we just went into the garment district. We did a lot of research, and like Lizzy said, we met some really great people, but we also have some really great mentors who actually sat us down and told us- taught us about the business. ’Cause most of the times when it comes to fashion design, a lot of people don’t look behind the scenes of the business side-

Lizzy: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Darlene: … and what it takes to actually produce a collection, sell it to masses, um, dealing with buyers. I mean, that’s a whole ‘nother conversation-

Lizzy: Marketing.

Darlene: (laughing) Dipping into marketing. So, within that seven years starting from 2010, we’ve done so much. That was our journey from collaborating with Puma to Pepsi to, um, GenArt, which was a- a fashion fund that used to house, like, young fashion designers to do a runway show, from just selling at Opening Ceremony-

Lizzy: And opening a popup store-

Darlene: … and opening a popup store at the seaport. It’s kind of, um, unheard of for two young fashion designers out of New York City where, you know, they’re still not in the mainstream stores in America. We kinda really just did our own thing, and that’s our story where we just don’t follow what the rules are in the fashion industry. We just kind of just do it and what feels right to us.

Lizzy: It’s like, that’s the epitome of our journey, if you think about it. When we started, I wouldn’t say we started in a chaotic situation. I mean, Darlene and I, when we started we were both in school. So, you can imagine us having New York Fashion week, having shows, having to present, and also having to take finals. And at the time I was like, “This is ludicrous,” but, that- that story is still our story. We’re still doing five different things and also having to do other- ten other things. None of them even align with each other, and still have to make the brand work. And that’s kind of been a theme-

Darlene: Yeah.

Lizzy: … of our brand. It’s like, very unconventional. Nothing is really like this then this. It’s like, “Yeah, you’re gonna be producing a collection overseas, and then you’re gonna have to like, figure it out in 24 hours, and then you’re gonna have to present it. Oh yeah, and meanwhile you also gotta go to work.” (laughs) “And, you know, do your other job, and also gotta go to school and fix that final.” That’s what’s keeping us motivated in a sense that nothing’s ever set in stone. Things are getting thrown at us from left to right, and it’s like how do we face our challenges? Can we get over those challenges? We have. We’ve learned from them, which has been the greatest part of the journey.

Liam: So, knowing all of this, I want to explore your process and how you work on a day-to-day basis as all this is going on.

Lizzy: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Liam: From a high level, what goes into designing a new piece? Like, what are your thought processes? How do you get started? What are the considerations that you make?

Lizzy: Everything.

Darlene: Yeah.

Lizzy: Darlene and I used to come up with ideas and our mood boards on the train. Um, anything. It’s never really like, “Okay, I sketch or Darlene sketches. Then we, you know, go fabric swatching.” Sometimes … Darlene, you can explain it.

Darlene: One day we were on a train, and this guy, he had on about three pairs of jeans, but each jean on a lower bottom was cuffed, and it was (laughing) like three layers and it was cuffed, and I was like, “Man.” Lizzy and I looked at each other and at the same time we said, “This guy looks so cool.” And we were inspired just by his silhouette and how he dressed, and we ended up making these denim pants called the triple cuff pant, just off of just visualizing and seeing people in New York City. I’m always inspired by just people in New York City and just how they’re able to just express themselves freely. Um, Lizzy, literally is inspired by travel.

Lizzy: Travel, color, and also- also, I get bored so easily.

Darlene: She does get bored.

Lizzy: I get bored, so it’s like, “Yeah, sure, we can see another button-up shirt. We can see another a-line dress. We can see another whatever’s in style.” But I’m just like, “How do I make that one …” And I hate to use the word special or unique but it’s like, “How do I make that one so rude” that people are like, “Oh, that’s such a cute dress, but like, why are there, you know, garments in the most obscure part of the dress?” Like, some of it can be so unflattering, but then, it’s like allowing the consumer and the designer to feel comfortable with just actually realizing like, “Actually, this is the most prettiest part of my body; I should’ve showed that off more.”

Darlene: Right.

Lizzy: So I think that’s what we play with, you know, when we’re designing. Just figuring out … Before we start a collection, like, how to make something that’s so everyday for all of us, but just tweaking it a little bit that it will allow us to show off our bodies or feel comfortable in- in a new way.

Darlene: So a lot of it is a thinking process. It’s like throwing all of our ideas into this big thinking pot and then coming out with like, this beautiful masterpiece in our mind. And, most of the time, it’s pretty much like, not even on trend. It’s- we predict the future of what we wanna see on young women. So, a lot of our design process is just saying, you know, I don’t wanna see what’s in stores, I want to start something that is going to be predicted in the future, where it’s like, okay, it may not work right now and they may not see it, but two years, three years from now, everyone is gonna start doing it. And that’s pretty much always-

Lizzy: Been the case.

Darlene: … been the case with us. We have so many, um, big design people in the industry say, “You know, you guys were doing this before it became a trend.” Because we always want to make sure that we’re not doing the same thing as everybody else. And sometimes it’s really hard, you know? Um, to constantly always think that way because you get burnt out sometimes as a creative, ’cause it’s like you want that masterpiece and you want it to sell, and some items don’t sell, but we’re okay with it.

Lizzy: And one thing is like, we don’t want clothes that you throw away. I think in our day and age, we overproduce, and there’s just so much of so many things. There’s just so many clothes around, so it’s like, do … I don’t want you guys to empty out, or our customer to empty out their closet and like, “Oh yeah, I can get rid of that old dress. It’s so 2000-whatever.” Like, that would be the last thing. I want someone to say, “Oh yeah, this dress is forever. I’mma keep it. It makes sense now and it will make sense later. It’s just my favorite piece.” So I think that’s what we design for.

Darlene: Color’s important to us too.

Lizzy: Yeah.

Liam: I’m interested in that. In the- the focus on helping people embrace color.

Lizzy: Our dad- When we first started the collection, he would always tell us, he’s like, “You know, when I first came to New York, and America period, everyone was wearing black, black, black.” That’s how he said it. “Everyone was just wearing black, black, black.” And I was like, “You guys don’t have no style?” He goes, “I want to wear a gold suit. I want to wear a green suit. You gotta play with color.” And then growing up, we’ve always seen him wear that purple, magenta-looking suit. (laughs)

Darlene: That purple suit.

Lizzy: And we look back and he had that banana yellow suit with bell-bottoms in the ’70s, and- and then we got it and we’re like, “You know what, we don’t wear black either. Why would we?”

Liam: I’m interested in when color comes in in your process. It might be tied to factors like selecting color and material and things like that, but I’m interested in where that comes in, and also how you use that as an expressive tool in your pieces.

Darlene: For both of us, we both have very vibrant personalities. When I say that, we’re pretty much always outgoing, bubbly, um, always full of laughter. So for me, I want to express that in our clothes, and we want it to be a conversational piece. You know, when you’re walking down the street it’s, “I love your shoes.” Most of the times, someone loves something because it’s a certain silhouette or it’s a color. So for us, it’s always something that is just bright and happy.

The first thing I think about in the morning time when I get up is, “What am I gonna wear today?” Even if it’s sweatpants or a sweatshirt, but you best believe it’s gonna be a color, you know, because it just brightens up my mood. So for me, when it comes to designing, I want something that’s kind of subtle but it has that warm, energetic feeling, and um, color plays a huge part in our design process.

Lizzy: Right.

Darlene: We probably used black for like two seasons, just as, you know, as a …

Lizzy: A request from other people, like-

Darlene: (laughing) A request.

Lizzy: … “Can we have this in black?”

Darlene: But yeah, if you look at our previous collections, we use patterns, neon pink, (laughs) like, we use crazy colors.

Lizzy: Lime green.

Darlene: Lime green. You know, colors have meanings to them too.

Lizzy: Yeah. Confidence. I feel like … We design for women with confidence, so it’s like, nothing- nothing against people who wear black or dark colors; that’s fine. But it’s like, I can’t see the product. We like to play with details, so I feel like if something’s in black, you’re not seeing the shape. You’re not seeing the little details and the hints of the playfulness that we’re doing in the garment. You just see a little black thing hanging, and that’s not fun.

This year, we’ve been playing with a- Darlene loves this red denim, and every time I see this denim, it just goes with everything. It goes on everyone’s skin. It just does no one wrong. It makes everyone happy. Uh, and it’s just a really hard, rigid, red denim. It’s like crimson red.

Darlene: Yeah, it’s a rough texture.

Lizzy: It’s- and it’s so rich in color that it’s like-

Darlene: It’s beautiful. And most of the times, everyone’s like, “This is pretty hard,” but we never sacrifice, (laughs) the texture of the design.

Lizzy: Yeah, but it’s like, but it’s beautiful!

Darlene: It’s beautiful, and maybe it’s not for you, but it’s for someone that wants to feel like they’re wearing a piece of art on their body-

Lizzy: Exactly.

Darlene: … when they leave home, so.

Lizzy: And that comes first.

Darlene: And that’s what happens with a lot of designers is, you have to be comfortable with your designs. You can’t really say to yourself, “Well, this person doesn’t like this.” You know. You kind of have to be true to yourself and you kind of have to be like, very persuasive and convincing.

Lizzy: I would love to convince one of our customers to wear the most neon colored wedding dress if I could. Like, “Just go with that neon pink.” (laughs)

Darlene: That’s tacky.

Lizzy: It is tacky, but you gotta- you gotta be happy. It all goes.

Darlene: (laughs)

Lizzy: It’s just, you know, it’s a happy day.

Darlene: And that’s another thing, it’s two of us, so sometimes, we always have to meet in the middle, so sometimes I’m a little bit more simplified and Lizzy’s very avant-garde with her design process-

Lizzy: I like that you called it avant-garde.

Darlene: She is.

Lizzy: (laughs) She uses other words.

Darlene: (laughing) Most of the times, I have to come in and I have to kind of bring Lizzy down to a level of, like, “Okay Lizzy, that’s a little bit much.” So I think that’s what really helps with the process is that it really is both of us. Sometimes, you know, I could get a little boring sometimes, to be honest, and Lizzy comes-

Lizzy: You can.

Darlene: … in and she really shuts it down. She’s like, “That is just bland. I don’t like it. Come back with something new.” So we’re constantly always pushing each other, and I think that’s the beauty of being partners and being family too, ’cause you’re able to be very honest with each other, where sometimes, you know, I’ve seen a lot of design partnerships crumble because there’s two totally different personalities and they just can’t compromise. You have to learn how to compromise in the design process or it’s really not gonna work, to be honest.

Lizzy: And take risks.

Darlene: Yeah.

Liam: Coming from an interface design background, I know that there are expressive elements in the interface, like color, imagery, voice, things like that, but then practical constraints of like, user experience and is the interface usable and things like that, so, I’m interested in- in exploring what the counterparts of those would be for fashion design, and how those interplay with one another when you’re making a piece.

Lizzy: That’s been the theme of our year.

Darlene: (laughs)

Lizzy: Recently we had a focus group, and it was just gathering about twenty something women at one table, and we said, “Guys, just give us what you got. Tell us what you think. Tell us what matt- Like, what about this collection matters.” The reason why we had to do the focus group is because, again, Darlene and I, we design, we close our eyes and I say, “I see a silhouette. I see a fabrication. Go.” And then when it comes into fruition, it’s this beautiful piece but it’s like the shape of a cardboard. But it’s so beautiful. And then I’m just like, “Yeah, so what? People walk around with cardboard. What’s wrong with that? What’s the big deal?” And then she’s like, “Uh, it’s commercial-ability, Lizzy. People have to be able to walk and sit.” I’m just like, “Well, they can go somewhere else for that. Like, you’re buying a piece of art.”

So we gathered all these women together and we said, “Guys, what do you think about this denim, the red denim that we’ve been using?” Because it means so much to us because- it’s only- it comes in blue and it comes in red, but it’s so rich because it’s a raw denim. It’s like a Japanese raw denim. And we actually … Buyers also said, “I love it, but customers are all about feel,” and I’m just like, “I lost you at ‘love it.’ Like, all you have to say is you love it and everything else doesn’t mean anything.” And I’m- We’re trying to learn, like, it’s not about just loving things. People want to be able to wear it no matter how pretty it looks.

So I think that’s been our ongoing challenge of like, how to meet in the middle, and I’m on the side where it’s like, there’s no middle to be met.

Liam: I want to get a feel for what a collection means, like a fashion collection, like, what does that represent conceptually, and what goes into making pieces that go into the same collection together?

Darlene: A collection is pretty much a body of work, right? And for me, how I look at it, it’s basically a- a group of women that are- have very different personalities, but they all have the same taste, right? Did that make sense?

Lizzy: Yeah.

Darlene: I know, that sounds pretty cool. (laughs) But um, when building a collection, it is pretty difficult because you want all of your pieces to be married together. You want them to be cousins, sisters, brothers. You don’t want each piece to- to be kind of like sidelined, to the side. It has to be cohesive. So we do this thing where, if we’re doing straps or hardware, we have to make sure that it’s across the board throughout the whole collection, and again, for- for me, I think of the many different women who represent our brand. It’s not just one person, but they all have this one common interest which is, you know, looking beautiful and having a piece that is- really just describes their personality.

And I kind of- It becomes like this scientific research type project to me, ’cause I really do think of different women, like our friends. Like, this person’s very outgoing and they’re into tech. You know, this one’s an artist. This one’s a lawyer. So that’s how I build upon a collection.

And it does get pretty overwhelming a little bit because you have to tell this story, but you also have to sell, so from a buyer’s standpoint, I feel like sometimes they don’t even care about the collection; they just want something that’s gonna sell-

Lizzy: Right.

Darlene: … and is doable, so it- it kind of … We have to be two different people. We have to be a designer … Not even! Three different people, sorry. You have to be the designer, the consumer, and the buyer. But now we’re kind of going back to our old roots where we’re just simply the designer.

Lizzy: We started a new process, because as young designers, we started trying to compete with the big guys, um, and we realized, ’cause there’s usually four seasons in a year … Four- Would you say? Yeah, four seasons-

Darlene: It’s four. It’s like, four. Some designers do about four collections a year.

Lizzy: Four collections a year. And to us, that was a really quick roll around for us, so it’s like, “Geez, I just showed that! How am I gonna tell a new story and- and make it cohesive and make it sellable and make it cool and make people remember us?” And before you know it, we’re just popping out anything.

Darlene: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Lizzy: And that kind of diluted the storyline. It took away what we wanted to do, and we just became factory workers, like just trying to push out things for the sake of saying we beat the deadline. It was like, honestly, doing a paper for school, and you were just like, “Ah, let’s just get this out the way.” So we said, “Hold up. We’re not them. We shouldn’t have to try to keep up with people. We have to do it our own way.”

So now we started doing something where, the collection is the whole entire year. So it’s no longer four different collections. It’s like, we are telling a story from January to December, and it’s all gonna be a consistent story.

Darlene: And that goes back to what I was saying about, when building a collection is- everything has to be married to each other-

Lizzy: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Darlene: … and it’s all of these different personalities, and it’s really just making a piece for, “Okay, this jacket, I know it’s for our art curator. The dress, I know it’s for our, you know, mom that lives on the Upper East Side that just is very quirky and once in awhile, she just wants to wear something extravagant.”

I observe on the train. That is like, my design inspiration. I just watch, and I look at what they’re reading, their hair type, their glasses, what type of bag they have, what dress they have, and I really observe, and I build that character and really come to Lizzy and I’m like, “You know, I seen this lady on the train and she had like these really cool, funky shoes. I wanted to design an item for her shoes.”

Lizzy: Right.

Darlene: Yeah.

Lizzy: Right.

Liam: When you talk about fashion pieces being art that you’re wearing, I think like, in my practice of interface design, like, we’re used to using shapes that are positioned very predictably. If they move, they move in programmed ways that are very strict and predictable, but I get the feeling that fashion isn’t like that. Uh, the shape of a garment interplays with the person’s body, it interplays with what they’re doing, so, I guess I’m wondering like, how that impacts how you think about a piece, knowing that once it’s actually out in the world and in use, as this art piece, it still remains like very dynamic.

Lizzy: That would be a reason behind, like, the Pope jumpsuit, how everyone thinks it’s a dress, and then … A lot of the stuff that we sell, people think it’s one thing and we’re like, “We’ll just let them figure it out later,” and they’re like, “Oh, it’s a jumpsuit,” or like, “Oh, it’s a skirt,” and it’s because we kind of play with a lot of secrecy. So it appears to be one thing and then you stick your leg out and another piece of fabric is flowing through it.

Darlene: But if it is something where it has a specific shape, we do, before we even put it out into the market, we do a trial and error where we have to make sure that it’s fitted on a body. Like, we do a fitting, or we just do multiple prototypes to make sure that we have the exact shape and on how we want it. And um, sometimes that takes up time when you’re doing a really intricate item or piece, where you pretty much have to try it on different body types. So for a woman that is 5'4", you know, she may not like a triangle shape jacket. Or a woman who is 6'1", you know, and slender, athletic build, it may look a little different. Sometimes it doesn’t work for every body type. So you kind of have to find your way around it to make sure that your piece is still what it is that you want it to be, but your customer is happy too.

Liam: So, speaking of making these kinds of alterations to the art while maintaining, like, the core of what the art piece is that you created, what would you say is at the core, underneath any of the alterations that you might make for specific customers? What- what gives a piece its identity, or is it- or is it a combination of everything we’ve talked about?

Lizzy: It’s a combination. Like, we’d never compromise the shape, you know, and I think the customer understands that. Like, they probably wouldn’t order something if they’re like, “Hey, this is a long dress. Does it come in a mini skirt?” I’m like, “Well no, that’s a different product.”

Darlene: (laughs)

Lizzy: “No, it doesn’t.” For the most part, like, the triangular shapes and the really like, narrow top fittings with the bellowed out jumpsuit- like, wide-leg jumpsuits, I think they understand that, so they’re like, “Okay, that’s what I’m looking for so I’ll get that.”

Darlene: They know that- that it’s our aesthetic.

Lizzy: Yeah.

Liam: I want to wrap up by just asking … I think we’ve covered a lot during this conversation of how your creative process has kind of grown and changed over time, but where do you see it going in the future as- as the fashion industry continues to evolve?

Lizzy: Even outside of apparel and accessories, and I realize over the last seven years, we’re just people. We’re just- We’re always around people and we love engaging, and working with people from all over the world. So, and I think when we’re so involved in fashion and clothing, we get sometimes uninspired; I gotta be honest with you, and we feel like, are we really doing something that’s sufficient? Like, like- After I was like, “Alright, who cares?” You know? We love what we do, but it’s like, I don’t want to talk clothes all day. I want to engage with people. I want to get to meet people. So, I think it’ll be really nice for us to like, figure out again, reestablish, like, having foundations and programs when we’re working with, like, young students, like Darlene’s program, Building Bridges for the Arts, where she worked with teenage students, just working with them in- in the art field, helping them explore different art industries and teaching them that, “Yeah, you can be a graphic designer. You can be this.”

And even probably expanding in the sense of, working with the women that we’ve- we work with today. Again, over the last seven years, we’ve met amazing women who happen to be our customers, friends, mentors, so it’s just … We’re trying to figure out how we can make more of a community.

Liam: That’s great. Thank you both for being on.

Darlene: Thank you!

Lizzy: Thank you, that was fun.

Darlene: That was fun.