.
Photography / Creative Direction • Alex Freund
Fashion • Lisa Mosko
Makeup • Yasuo Yoshikawa Using Mac / L’Atelier NYC
Hair • Cecilia Romero
Production Assistant • Dakota Cash
Fashion Assistants • Karina Seljak & Anna Lownes
Special Thanks • Sandbox Studios
.
Interview by Rozalia Jovanovic
.
British actress Annabelle Wallis plays flight attendant and spy Bridget Pierce on the new ABC series Pan Am. Until now, Wallis was best known for her role as Jane Seymour in the Showtime series The Tudors alongside Jonathan Rhys Meyers. Born in Oxford, England, she moved to Portugal as a child and back to London before jetting off to India to shoot one of her first projects, a Bollywood film. It seems apropos that a woman who has traveled the world would wind up playing a globe-trotting spy on primetime television. But so it is. We sat down with Wallis at New York’s Maritime Hotel to discuss her creative kin (her uncle was Irish actor Richard Harris who played King Arthur in Camelot), working with Madonna in her upcoming film W.E., the difficulty of getting down with social media, and how it is that a cookie-cutter blonde came to fill the role of one of the most devious characters on television.
.
GRAVURE: Do you use Twitter?
.
WALLIS: There’s this whole debate for actresses to Twitter, blog.
To put yourself out there. And that has to do with the way. It all goes together. You’re meant to put yourself out there. But then as an actor, if you give people a pre-conceived idea of what you’re about, are they then able to step back and watch you perform and believe? I think it can limit you if you give away your mystery sometimes. But in our visual age you need to be part of that. It’s an interesting time for anyone in the arts.
.
GRAVURE: But you can control what you put on Twitter and use it to shape your image, no?
.
WALLIS: Control of your medium. That I like. Sometimes I can
say the most outrageous stuff. I mean. Here I’ve got this weird humor. Most people may not get. And all of a sudden ‘she’s a bit of
a nut-head.’ Then what do you do? Maybe it’s so of the moment, that that’s all it is.
.
But I do find that in the arts, when you become too self-aware, you kind of lose something. It’s almost as if you may question the decisions you make at the moment. We’re in such a self-aware society that nothing seems instinctual. And what I do, it’s all about instinct. I watch performances, and I can tell this person has become so self-aware that somewhere along the line, it’s like disassociated from the self they know and they’re the self of their image.
.
GRAVURE: Does it affect the decisions you make?
.
WALLIS: It’s hard to be free from the confines of your own image when you live in this world as an artist. I’m getting very conceptual about this. Because information is so accessible, your views, that definitely does affect the decisions you make about your art. And I find that scary. The days of the theatrical eccentric are gone. And it feels very contained.
.
My generation of actors, I love the fact that we’re at this kind of the forefront of this very kind of existentialist media world where we can create and sabotage ourselves. It’s far easier, not only in our work but in our personal lives too. Again, it’s survival of the fittest. There are those who are smart about it. But you have to be very very smart. Some people are so good at being strategic and knowing how to give so much and so little. Some people just give too much.
They give and they give.
.
GRAVURE: Can you give an example of someone who gave too much?
.
WALLIS: Of course the worst and saddest example is Amy Winehouse. She definitely was a product of an age in which she had nothing left for herself almost. She wasn’t allowed to be ill, alone and away from that world. The pressure she probably felt to deliver to a world that’s so demanding.
When you can’t get away from the way the public sees you at a time when you’re down, there isn’t time. You know time’s money as well. She’s a sad example of that ultimately.
.
GRAVURE: are the people you work with interested in how you go about your social media presence?
.
WALLIS: I think nowadays people are aware of choosing actors who are careful about the way they represent themselves. And you do feel a little more interrogated.
I was asked by some executives during an audition if I had appeared in the British tabloid OK. I suppose they’re just trying to see if you appeal to a certain demographic.
Or if you’ve been part of one demographic in which they’re thinking of. You know they ask for press packs now before you even go into a meeting. To start to process your image and how that can be related to their film, how they can market you way before the performance, which if you do well, it’s great. So yeah, Pan Am. They’ve cast it very interestingly. Each girl is a very strong character, and very different from the others. It makes it work in a beautiful way, because the vastness in character is so great that there are no collisions. It’s fun and intelligent and strong. And it’s going to be a great show for women. It’s a female centric show, it’s written beautifully, and it’s intelligent and it’s cool.
.
GRAVURE: How did you get cast in the role of Bridget Pierce for Pan Am?
.
WALLIS: I walked into the room. It takes place in the 1960s. I really went in looking like I don’t know what, and they were all like, ‘Whoah.’ And I sat down, you know. When I go in a meeting, I’m quite business like. I was like ‘Look,
I grew up in Portugal, I’ve lived in London, I’ve lived here,
I speak these languages, I’ve traveled the world, I’ve seen all of this. I like this project. This character is definitely someone I relate with. She’s very mysterious. She’s very complex. One moment she’s one thing and the next. She’s just very capable in all capacities. And they said it was in that meeting when I opened my mouth and I spoke about me, they were like she’s actually like Bridget. They say that, it’s in the first like 15 seconds. And then from that point on, yeah, they were just.
.
GRAVURE: Were there any other shows you were up for?
.
WALLIS: Other pilots came up, where it was like ‘just about you’ and it wasn’t an ensemble piece. But I’d rather be Bridget and be memorable in something that I really love rather than be the lead in something I don’t love.
And it’s hard to make the decision. This was definitely a project where I was like ‘I would rather be this girl any day of the week than anyone else right now.’ [CUT?: Once someone wants you they all start to go like ‘whah.’ Like chickens at the market]. So it’s difficult. Again it was instinct. I was like, ‘this girl’s cool.’
.
GRAVURE: What are some of her defining characteristics?
.
WALLIS: She’s a spy. And she’s the only Brit on it. She’s very much the image of Pan Am, but then you find out that she’s basically a spy. She’s recruiting the girls. She’s a bit of a loner, a lone wolf. She’s very much the center of the party, but she can kind of then disappear. She’s intelligent, and speaks five languages. I have to speak Italian
and French.
.
GRAVURE: What about her appealed to you?
.
WALLIS: I’ve been brought up to be independent and strong and clear about my decisions. Enjoy yourself. She definitely carves out her own path. And that makes her the perfect specimen of the time, the 60s—that it was changing for women, where women broke from the mold. And she kind of clears the way for some of the other girls in it.
.
You can’t smoke or drink on the set. You can have a cigarette or a drink in the scene, but you can’t be seen smoking or drinking. It can be around. But it really changes how you prepare for a character—how to show those subtleties. She’s a neurotic mess. This guy’s like
“I love you,”—that’s Dean, he’s the lead, he’s in love with Bridget. And you wonder why she’s always turning him down. The way she’s alpha, the way she does her own thing. And you’re like what is wrong with this woman. Naughty Bridget. [Laughs]. She’s a spy.
.
GRAVURE: It’s a period piece involving very strong women set around the time of the sexual revolution.
It sounds in some ways like Mad Men.
.
WALLIS: Using an airline takes you on a global journey. It’s not only telling the story in the history of America. You know, we go to Indonesia, and there’s a coup, we’re in Vietnam, Paris, Berlin when JFK comes in and says, “Ich bin ein Berliner,” you know, “I’m a donut.” I go to Cuba, that’s when you start to wonder about Bridget. I go to visit one of Fidel Castro’s rebels to get the CIA prisoners in the Bay of Pigs out. So, I think people are going to –Madmen is very contained and interesting and about the writing.
I think [the producers of Pan Am] wanted to take you on a voyage. It’s very much, our set, we’re in New York, but we made Soho Rome.
.
GRAVURE: Did you get to travel for any of it?
.
WALLIS: No. We were like ‘Oh, we’re going to get to go to Indonesia, Paris, Rio di Janero. I didn’t quite grasp it at the beginning, but it’s quite epic. It’s very cinematic.
It’s younger as well. It’s a bit more fast paced.
.
GRAVURE: What was the most difficult part of filming?
.
WALLIS: The hours. The Tudors was more like history. You can’t bungle history. It’s there. There was a lot more dialogue. In American-based TV shows it’s far quicker, far more conversational. We have more freedom with it, in the little things. Just noticing that the tone of your voice was different in the sixties, the way you would hold yourself. The kind of slang you’d use. What’s so difficult, on a show that’s just starting is that all the characters are evolving as you go along with it. You’re kind of delivering a line. You don’t actually know where she’s from, what’s going to happen tomorrow because the script hasn’t been written yet. It’s fun in that sense. It keeps you on your toes.
.
GRAVURE: How has it been working with the other actresses, like Christina Ricci?
.
WALLIS: You forget she was such an icon of the indie genre. She’s great and very witty. She’s cool and she’s really kept grounded. Kelly Garner and I are really good friends. It’s funny, the writers are really observant of your relationships and they kind of put that into the show, which is nice. You tell them about a night out that you had and they put it in. And it’s like ‘Ah, I don’t want people knowing that,” [laughs]. It’s been great. I love women. Some women find it hard to work with other women.
But I love it.
.
GRAVURE: Have you filmed at all in New York—scenes that are supposed to take place in New York?
.
WALLIS: Yeah, at the old Pan Am building. The Met Life building. It’s definitely New York based and they go out from New York. I think they don’t want to make it too like “oh we’re filming in NY, let’s have the Statue of Liberty in the background.” But they have JFK, the airport, in the 1960s, which is cool.
.
GRAVURE: You also recently worked on Madonna’s film W.E. about Prince Edward and Wallis Simpson? How was that?
.
WALLIS: She’s the coolest woman on earth. You know.
[In a hushed voice] I was like Madonna, Madonna. I was too young for the film. Because everyone was like thirty-plus. She was like come glamorous. I wore this like 1940s ball gown, with an ostrich feather thing in my hair—jewels to the nines. She was like ‘oh my god,’ I have to have you in my film. And there really was like nowhere to put me and she was a real advocate. She was so fun and lively. She had her kids on set. She was working on another project, dealing with people, doing exercises in the back room.
I think being a perfectionist like her is a dying breed. She knows what she wants in a world where people don’t know what they want. I play an American socialite, Arabella Green. An American socialite. A bit of a bitch actually. Whoops. [Laughs]. It was fun.
.
GRAVURE: One of your earliest films was a Bollywood film. How did you end up doing that? That’s an interesting career choice.
.
WALLIS: It wasn’t a career choice. It was a holiday choice. [Laughs]. I basically, was like 17. I had just moved to London from Portugal. That’s what life’s about—going off and being part of a culture that’s so loving of their film. It’s just amazing. I mean it was definitely an experience, I took a lot away from that.
.
GRAVURE: Did you do any dancing?
.
WALLIS: No, they didn’t let me do any of that. Nothing. I was like, “Come on.” It was about having a half Indian half British cast. They were trying to merge the two cinemas. And moving away from convention—it was the first time that the lead in a Bollywood film would fall for the foreign girl, because she’s always the villain. But I was so young.
I would never have gotten to experience the culture the way I did. That was my window of opportunity and I took it.
.
GRAVURE: Do you have any other foreign films coming up in the future?
.
WALLIS: I was in a Portugese film about the dictator in Portugal, and I was playing a French woman who he has an affair with. But I had to come off that because I got cast in The Tudors. But I would very much like to do European cinema. I’ve been talking to a few directors. When your show’s coming out, your agents want you to stay within, it’s like a school cafeteria. They want you in LA or in NY. It’s learning how to manage that while satisfying your professional interests.
.
My brother is a director and we’re developing scripts as well. We just shot something at my house in Portugal where I grew up. For now, if I’m unable to do that. But I still have an outlet into my own weird world that makes sense to me.
.
GRAVURE: Your uncle Richard Harris was a successful actor. Did that affect your decision to become an actor?
.
WALLIS: I grew up around a lot of people who are creative. My dad acted with the Royal Shakespeare when he was younger. My mom was like why don’t you do French cinema. “French cinema is the best in the world. What is this Hollywood stuff?” But she wants me to be happy doing what I want to do. My dad had to stop and take over the family company, but he’s like the true British eccentric. I think as long as it makes you happy and it’s your choice and your truth, go for it.

Guest Creative : Nils-Petter Lovgren
Director : James Lowrey
Director of Photography : Skander Allani, Filip Tyden
Fashion Stylist : Tekla Knaust / New Blood Agency
Stylist Assistant : Emma Samuelsson
Set Design : Nils-Petter Lovgren, James Lowrey
Editor : Carly Baker
Color Grading : Ricky Gausis
Post Production : The Moving Picture Company
Music : Mudboy
Models : Ellinor / Nisch, Filip / Nisch, Agnes / Nisch
All Fashion • Nakkna S/S 2011
.
Interview with Camilla and Claes of Nakkna.
.
Gravure: What is your earliest memory where you were conscious of style?
.
Camilla: The first time I went to a disco I brought my ballet shoes and my leg warmers and asked the wardrobe staff where I could find the changing room. I was going there to dance, but people were wearing skin tight jeans and sneakers and smoking cigarettes. I should add that I was 12 at the time.
Claes: I don’t really remember any special moment, but I like a period of my teens when I had a “Dark Hippie”-era, all black, flared jeans and alot of death/doom-metal.
.
Gravure: What is the smartest design you’ve ever seen?
.
Camilla: I love the suntunnels by Nancy Holt. So easy, so beautiful. I’m not so much into smart design as tripple functional garments. But, of course Chalayan is very good at that.
Claes: Magdalena Abakanowitz, giant fabric-pieces Bois le Duc, really would like to have one at home.
.
Gravure: What is the best example of innovation and classic style meeting?
.
Claes: I like the broken buttons Margiela did a couple of seasons ago. and also the dressed animals by Ali Mahdavi
.
Gravure: What’s your favorite fashion faux-pas?
Camilla: When it comes to different styles I’m quite liberal, there is honestly just one thing I have a problem with: the Donald Duck-look, a top but noting below the waist.
.
Gravure: Who is your favorite designer other than yourself?
.
Camilla: Madeleine Vionnet for sticking to her classic techniques, always coming through very timeless. And Pierre Cardin, for the opposite, a very new design langauge for the time but getting the concept through many decades.
Claes: they realy come and go, but generally I like designers who have a certain feeling throughout their collection and stay true to that.
.
Gravure: Who is your muse?
.
Camilla: I don’t have one.
Claes: I don’t have one.
.
Gravure: You have priced your line accessibly, though your taste level indicates that you could design for a much higher price point. Can you explain?
.
Camilla: Up until now, Nakkna has mostly been sold at stores in Scandinavia, where there’s simply not all that many who would buy expensive clothing, regardless of the design. To us, the most important thing was to get Nakkna out there for people to buy and wear. Also, there is no point in being pricey if you don’t absolutely have to.
.
Gravure: What is the best thing about Swedish style and what would you most like to change about it?
.
Camilla: The best and at the same time the worst thing about Swedish style would be the fact that it’s quite conformist. Everybody dresses pretty much the same, but at the same time, most people dress pretty well.
.
Gravure: Why Stockholm? Why not Paris, New York, Milan or London?
.
Camilla: I refuse to believe that great fashion and good business couldn’t be done from Sweden.
Claes: Great weather and a nice calm atmosphere, you don’t get harrased and people are pretty quiet.
.
Gravure: How do you think we can take fashion to the next level? What do you think is the future of fashion?
Camilla: Fashion bloggers, e-commerce, instant online access to all fashion shows. Fashion will loose its exclusivity, it is happening right now. All of us working in the industry will have to find away to adapt to the fact that the consumers today are their own fashion experts. Excatly how that can be done, I’m afraid I haven’t quite figured out yet.
Claes: As in music where the online access really have made the alternative not-commersial music more accessible and consequently interesting, I think fashion will follow the same path and become moore a spectrum of progressive ideas and moore adapted to the differences of people.
.

GRAVURE #5 : COMPENDIUM
A year of content from GRAVURE in print.
330 pages, hardcover.
Now Available at:
BARNES & NOBLE
AMAZON
CLIC

GRAVURE: What is your earliest memory where you were conscious of style?

ALEXANDRE PLOKHOV: My mother stitched me a pair of jeans when I was 12 or something. I thought they looked uber stylish. Bear in mind that jeans were very rare in the USSR.

G: What is the smartest design you’ve ever seen?

AP: The AK-47, sadly, because smart does not always equate to beneficial. In the hands of revolutionaries, tyrants and hoodlums it has proven timeless and foolproof, two hallmarks of smart design.

G: What is the best example of innovation and classic style meeting?

AP: The Guggenheim Museum by Frank Lloyd Wright who was a master of combining innovation and classicism.

G: What’s your favorite fashion faux-pas?

AP: I do not have any – one man’s faux-pas is another’s style statement. Provided you pull it off with panache and swagger…

G: Who is your favorite designer other than yourself?

AP: I have an ever-evolving pantheon in my head. Right now, Yohji is a particular obsession.

G: Who is your muse?

AP: I do not have one. I do not design with a specific person in mind. It is a purely selfish endeavor to keep my mind occupied with trying to achieve something new.

G: Why does American style suck?

AP: I do not know if there is such a construct as American Style any more. Maybe it existed before, but now I think young people around the world dress in similar fashion. I do not actually think it ever sucked, though; in fact, I ‘d say it’s virtually became a global uniform (see answer below).

G: Why is it great?

AP: The 1940s and 1950s America (through Hollywood) gave the world such wardrobe staples as the T-shirt, blue jeans, Perfecto motorcycle jacket to name a few… I think that is a very significant contribution.

G: Why New York? Why not Paris, Milan or London?

AP: New York is where my home and heart are.

G: How do you think we can take American fashion to the next level?

AP: American fashion is doing just fine. I do think, though, we can help it along by striving for a better balance between design and commerce.

Published in Gravure #4
Interview by Alex Freund
Portrait Illustration by Jenny Mortsell • Jed Root
Photography by Spencer Higgins • Jed Root

GRAVURE: You’re both Dutch and are based in Amsterdam. How do you feel being based outside the Paris-Milan-New York axis has affected your work?

V&R: It’s quiet! Being outside allows us a kind of freedom to step outside of fashion and concentrate on our work. It’s easier to see things from the outside.

GRAVURE: How does this affect how you approach your work?

V&R: We work upside down!

GRAVURE: How so? Your collections are always very conceptual, but how do you approach a fragrance project? Can a smell be conceptual?

V&R: We think so. We always start with a word. With our fragrances, we can’t smell it until we know the word, so the idea is very important.

…

GRAVURE: There’s such a strong history and a design sensibility unique to the Netherlands – how does that play into your work? Do you feel burdened by it? Liberated by it?

V&R: Well, the most important thing is be authentic and to have a point of view… to be original. However, being here does allow us to see things differently and it helps us adapt to different locations. In the end, what is most important is to be unique and to have original ideas. We travel a lot so it helps us to be based here.

GRAVURE: It shows in your work – for instance, you show in Paris and the Eau Mega advertising shows the New York skyline. Do you approach your projects with a specific location in mind?

V&R: We don’t have a specific location in mind but we do feel energized when we come to New York.

GRAVURE: Do you think the energy in New York has changed in recent years?

V&R: Yes! Very much. But some things are constant.

GRAVURE: Like what?

V&R: New York is about being aspirational and larger than life, which are two qualities that we admire in the American character.

GRAVURE: Raquel [Zimmerman] is definitely “larger than life” in that ad – in comic books, New York is always the city filled with super heroes.

V&R: [Laughs] Yes. It seems that way!

GRAVURE: Coming back to the subject of ideas, design, and originality, what is the most innovative thing you’ve seen in fashion lately?

V&R: We have been finding the internet and fashion websites increasingly interesting.

GRAVURE: How do you see the internet fitting into fashion?

V&R: The internet also takes away some of the mystery, which is sad. But on the other hand, it is a new reality and it has created a lot of opportunity. It’s definitely changing things a lot. You can be anywhere now.

GRAVURE: Your first fragrance was a bottle that didn’t open. It was all brand and made a statement about fashion branding. Has your point of view changed at all since you started?

V&R: Not really. It’s always a balance of form and content. We think design and branding can have meaning of its own – the bottle is its own content.

GRAVURE: Very meta! Do you think branding leads content or vice versa?

V&R: They’re both important. There has to be a balance.

…

GRAVURE: You’ve previously described your fragrance, Flowerbomb, as “romantic, but volatile” and “glamour, but with rage”. How do you describe Eau Mega?

V&R: Flowerbomb is a much stronger, more powerful scent, while Eau Mega is sweeter and more uplifting and more complex. People need complexity. Especially now…

GRAVURE: Given the state of the world, do you think people need something a bit uplifting?

V&R: Yes. Definitely. People need a bit of fantasy, always.

GRAVURE: Is the need more urgent now with all the “reality” people are facing right now – the economy, war, and so on?

V&R: Well, we always need to dream. We think it’s especially important with the current crisis. We think it comes through in our shows – there is a reality that we’re questioning.

We always have to question what we’re presented.

All Clothing • Rad Hourani / Collection #5

Gravure: Tell me about your “no-background background,” as you’ve described it. How does that philosophy shape your sense of innovation—of what is and what isn’t possible?

Rad Hourani: I didn’t study fashion. I didn’t study how to make clothing. After I moved to Paris in 2005, to do styling, I erased all of the past in my head, and all of the ways I had been conditioned as a human—how I understood men’s dressing codes, women’s dressing codes, religion, whatever. I started my own way of thinking, by observing what was going on around me, from traveling, from meeting people, from experience. That’s what I mean as “no background.” It’s a background of erasing the past and starting again with my own observations.

G: I don’t know if I’d call it “rebelling,” but would you say you were “reacting” against something?

RH: Maybe “doubting.” I think it’s very important to doubt everything you believe in. You can believe in something, and see a beauty in something, and someone else will never see that beauty. What’s important is to doubt everything, and question everything. Not in a destructive way—it’s not a negative thing, but a positive thing. It’s related to this unisex thing that I started—many people are not used to unisex clothing; they don’t understand it when they see it. But I’ve been lucky because [other] people have been reacting in a really good way—people who react to it using their minds, who are not necessarily trying to be intellectual, but who understand that what I’m doing is erasing the codes of men’s and women’s dressing.

G: Is there a particular piece in your collection that exemplifies this sense of starting anew?

RH: When I began using zippers to create transformable pieces—pieces you can transform into many different styles, masculine, feminine, aggressive, sensual. It shows individualism. It takes someone who understands it—who doesn’t necessarily follow trends, but someone who enjoys a beautiful piece of clothing that can be worn in many different ways.

G: Was there a moment for you when you said to yourself, “This is what I am going to do,” a finished piece, a sketch?

RH: Since I was a kid, I was always attracted to fabric. I never wanted to wear what other kids were wearing—every time my mom brought something home for me, I wouldn’t want to wear it.

G: What did you end up wearing?

RH: I remember wanting to wear these high boots, a kind of black cowboy boots with a high heel—not necessarily a feminine high heel, just a high, unisex heel. I always wanted to wear them with these very long, slim jeans. I took all of my pants to be tailored, to have them made very slim, and [the tailor] was, like, “Are you sure you’re going to be comfortable?” And I was, like, “Yeah, of course.” I was very sensitive, but also very tough, in a way—even if someone said, “It’s too weird, it’s too this, it’s too that,” I was very tough about it, and I’d wear it with comfort.

G: And at some point, that preoccupation with what you wore became an interest in making clothes.

RH: When I was 20—I’ve never said this in an interview before—I started to sketch these dresses. What I sketched had nothing to do with what I’m doing today—except that it was black.

G: Dresses! That’s hard to believe, coming from you.

RH: I didn’t know myself very well then. What I do today is a reflection of the way I see myself and the world. I was in Paris, shopping all the time, looking for the clothes—but what I found was always too rough, too punk, too vintage, too feminine, too masculine. In the men’s collections, I’d find beautiful shapes, but not good fabric, or I’d find good fabric in the women’s section, but [the pieces] had these curvy lines. I never found exactly what I wanted. That’s why I started my line.

G: At that point you understood yourself better.

RH: I really found myself and my own style. I think the most important thing in life is to have a signature—as a writer, when someone sees your text, and knows it’s you, even without seeing your name. If someone sees my jacket and knows it’s mine without seeing the label, I’m thrilled.

G: Your father is Jordanian, and your mother Syrian, and you’ve lived and worked in Jordan, Montreal and Paris. Do you see any value in describing yourself as a Canadian, French, or Jordanian designer?

RH: I’m anti-nationalism. I think it’s very limited to see the world by different countries, or names of cities and countries and boundaries. We exist in a universe, where there is no country called “U.S.A.” or “Canada” or “Jordan.” That’s what creates war between people and all of these social troubles that exist in the world. I’m not interested in doing something where you can say, “It’s so American” or “It’s so Middle Eastern”—or even, “I see the ‘60s” or “I see the ’70s.” I’m not interested in any nationalism or culturalism—it comes, again, from the no-background background. What I’m interested in is a new world of today and tomorrow. It has no nationality. It has one world and one vision—no gender, no seasons, no trends. I’m not interested in one language or one culture. Someone said to me, “Your clothes are made for a niche of people, a certain kind of people.” But I think we’re all the same. My clothes are made for anyone who understands that.

G: I understand that. But I feel like it’s possible that cities—Paris, where you live, or New York, where you show—feed your work in a way that the idea of nationality does not.

RH: Absolutely. It’s not necessary to separate the world by country or nationality or skin or gender or season—but if you talk about different cities, every one has its own charms. What I love about New York is the way people there always move forward—New Yorkers have that mentality of taking something forward and making it big, making it really powerful. That’s what I love about New York—how people will always come together and be excited about new things, and always want to build and move forward. And that’s why every time I leave, I’m exhausted. You really empty everything into it.

G: And in Paris?

RH: It’s a different way of doing things. People like to take their time. Paris is much older than New York, and there is so much more—I wouldn’t say culture, but history. People like to make things, but they like to take their time, for a long time. I can’t live without the way New York does things; I can’t live without the way Paris does things. So creating here and exhibiting there makes sense to me.

G: One of the words I’ve seen used most often in describing your work is “goth.” What do you make of that?

RH: For me, it’s a bit a miss. It’s almost like when people see a black garment with leather straps, they’ll automatically say it’s gothic. It’s not gothic at all. I see everything in one garment—I see everything that I lived in the past, and today and tomorrow. You can see architecture and modernity, sleekness, futurism. My clothes are really a mix of everything that I am and everything in my past. I think my clothes are not necessarily gothic at all. I’m a very happy person — I’m not gothic. I’m not dark at all. It’s not that it’s black so it’s dark—it’s just a graphic, modern shape that makes sense to me.

G: Do you have an ideal client, whether it’s Rihanna or the coolest guy on the street?

RH: It’s a great compliment when you see someone wearing your clothes—it’s very touching. What I’m interested in is that I make clothes that can be adopted to any style of people. Someone said, “You make clothes for skinny people.” But they’re not made for one sort of people. I have a client who is 65 years old—I’m not into age; this client is ageless, and she wears the clothes extremely well. She says, “I feel new, and I feel modern, and I feel so good when I wear your clothes.” Whether it’s the cool girl on the street, or a gentleman, or a cool kid, or a fashion student—or a singer or an actress—what’s very important is to see different kind of people wearing my clothes. They’re made for anyone, anywhere, any time.

G: There’s a lovely sense of otherworldliness to your clothes, and also to the philosophy behind them. But they do reference a world quite different from the one we live in, and a world I would say is often at odds with your vision.

RH: This really is the world I live in, every day. It doesn’t make sense to me that a women can wear a dress, but not a man—or a man can wear a tie, but not a woman. This is exactly the way I see the world. I don’t need to follow what others tell me, but I can adopt what makes sense to me, in my life. You don’t need to follow what I do, but take what makes sense to you and adopt it to yours. It takes people like you and me and more to build this world together. It sounds like John Lennon — but I do believe we can build another world.

Gravure: You were born in California. Can you tell me something about that, about your upbringing?

Julian Louie: I was born in Santa Cruz, California. Kind of a small university town. A surf town, politically liberal. I grew up a block from the ocean.

G: Did you surf?

JL: No. That’s one of my regrets of my childhood is never learning to surf. I was in the ocean all the time but I never really integrated into that culture. And it was the dominant culture in the town.

But it was a blessed childhood. It’s a very beautiful, idyllic place. And both my parents’ families are from the East Coast, so I was always here visiting family and I fell in love with New York. I always knew that it was somewhere I wanted to be. So upon applying to colleges, I stupidly applied to only one school here and somehow got accepted and came here. New York shaped my consciousness, certainly with respect to fashion. I was always interested in fashion from a peripheral standpoint. I’d sit around with my friends and draw but I never considered it as a career. I had an aunt who was a fashion designer, even then I never thought about it as something I wanted to pursue.

G: Especially when people in your family do one thing, your instinct is to do something else, to be different.

JL: Well, both my parents are writers. My father writes fiction, my mother writes fiction and poetry. Growing up, my parents were university professors, and I was a university brat, running around the campus. But writing for me has always been the most painful process. So I always kind of resisted it.

G: In your first collection, in 2009, you made use of wet-suit material. I’m assuming there was some hometown inspiration in that?

JL: When I was growing up, surf culture and surf fashion were very relevant. It’s a huge industry and there’s a lot of energy put into that, even though the end result is this nonchalance that seems to be embodied by the surfer bum. There’s an interesting look to it.

I was really intrigued by the technical aspect of Neoprene as a fabric. But that was just one element of the collection. I was also inspired by a sketch by [Giovanni Battista] Tiepolo of Perseus and Andromeda, particularly by the color palette. The collection was about this odd contrast: on one hand there’s the technical athleticism and on the other is the baroque outlines. So the first collection had the elements of athleticism–plastic zippers and seaming of the wet suits, but done in silk failles, Swarovski crystals, ruffles, etcetera.

G: Those are very different elements for a single collection.

JL: I definitely have those two sides to me. I’m drawn to those extremes. I’m either completely austere or completely baroque. The middle ground doesn’t interest me so much. I’m always looking for things that are opulent and ornate, or clerical and monastic. I think in a way they’re two sides of the same coin. I’m fascinated with landscapes, and their extremities. I love the desert—the austerity of it. The endless sand and the horizon and sky. But it’s also a very baroque experience in its intensity. There’s a similar intensity to severe austerity. That’s the similarity. With the questions I ask myself, I try to bring those elements together. Severe geometry. Harsh lines. And intense surface detail. It’s an ongoing exploration. Sometimes more successful than others. [Laughs].

G: When did you graduate from Cooper Union?

JL: I graduated in May 2007. And then went to Calvin Klein. I worked with Francisco Costa who brought me in to do a project called The Protégé Project, which was organized by Franca Sozzani and sponsored by Australian Wool Innovation. There were five young designers in total.

G: Did you begin designing while you were at school?

JL: I interned at Imitation of Christ the summer of 2005. [Tara Subkoff] did a couture collection
that was shown in Paris. I spent my summer hand-painting the floral chiffon. And then we went to Paris for the show. That was my first experience in the industry.

The following summer, after my fourth year, I got a grant from [Cooper Union] to do a project in Berlin that was largely about collage. It was basically research on the facades of Berlin. First I just wandered around the city taking photographs, documenting. But it was the way surfaces are manipulated and modulated and kind of scarred. You read the history of the city through that skin. Because of the drastic history of the city with the war with the reconstruction, there’s a lot of rebuilding, encasing old facades in new glass facades. There are facades scarred with bullet marks. It was all about how you read something within that very very tiny space of the façade. Think about facades and building skins as surface. In a way, with fashion I do think of it as a surface thing, but I do think there’s a lot of interest in that tiny depth. It all comes down to the subtle changes, subtle textures juxtaposed and overlapped.

G: What came after the Berlin project in terms of fashion?

JL: The summer after I did the Berlin project, I went to Calvin. For the first few months I worked on the Calvin Klein spring 2008 collection, and then subsequently spent my time designing the Protégé Project collection. The collection I did for The Protégé Project was the first collection I had ever done and it was sink or swim in some ways.

G: Going into the Berlin project, was fashion already on your mind?

JL: I did a lot of research on the writings of Walter Benjamin and he writes about fashion and buildings and facades. Clothing is a motif in his writing. He equates clothing to memory, equates clothing to death, which goes way back to the Berlin war scenario. Looking back on it, it was probably a tenuous link. But I think now my approach to fashion is much more instinctual and much more emotional. And I think in architecture, I was trained to have every move I made be justified and backed up. Everything has to have purpose and intention. It’s intent within a rigorous framework. At that point I knew that I wanted to be a designer, so I started thinking how I should work in that realm while still in the context of my formal education. I think the tendency was to try and work on instinct and that kind of doesn’t fly in architecture school.

G: Architecture to me feels similar to fashion in that you have to keep function in mind. How the creation is going to be used, or worn? To your mind, how does fashion compare to art?

JL: One of the beauties of fashion is that it is that fundamental framework of the body and therefore there is a constraint that you work within. And I think there’s something to be said for the fantasy and the dream but I think it’s also a balancing act: how do you balance the art form and the fantasy with the functional aspect? I think fashion has an art element to it. And I certainly push that in my work but I would never call it art. There’s a very strong pragmatic aspect to it that is the nature of the industry. One can never forget that. How do you navigate all of these things?

G: Do you think coming from a background in architecture as opposed to fashion affected the way you were received in the industry? Was it a benefit or a drawback?

JL: I think it was both. Francisco [Costa] responded to that, that’s why he asked me to do The Protégé Project. Architecture and art are definitely interests of his. And that was the work I showed him. I showed him paintings; I showed him my architecture work. I think that’s why he brought me on. I had no fashion sketches. But just from a logistical point of view, I didn’t know what I was doing. But the best education is working. I’m very happy I have an architecture education and not a fashion education. I’m learning everything as I go. And I think fashion by nature is a discipline that draws on everything else.

G: Are there aspects to your designs that people and critics have noted as being consistent through each collection?

JL: I think as seasons have gone by it’s interesting to hear the reactions and to hear what people perceive as the consistencies and what each season is new for them. And it’s definitely something I think about. I would never want one collection to look like another, but at the same time I want there to be a through-line. I think that’s really important. Otherwise there’s no point of entry or legibility to it if it’s completely different each time.

I think the way of handling embroidery and beading and embellishments is a consistent sensibility that runs throughout. There is a certain color sensibility and a specific approach to seaming, construction, and paneling.

G: What inspired the last collection?

JL: It was a chair I had seen of Marie Antoinette’s. I copied the floral motif of the embroidery. That was the point of inspiration. Every collection happens upon one point of inspiration. And it’s free association from there. But you never want it to be a one note thing. You always have to have things in tension against each other to give it depth and interest.

Published In Gravure #4
Portrait • Stephen Rose
Collection Photography • Honer Akrawi
Fashion • Lisa Mosko
Interview • Rozalia Jovanovich
All Clothes • Matthew Ames F/W 2009 Collection
Makeup And Hair • Yuko Mizuno / Rona Represents
Fashion Assistant • Emma Fernberger
Model • Martha Streck / Supreme Mgt
……..

GRAVURE: You were born in Washington, D.C. and raised in the Midwest in Illinois and Michigan. How did your surroundings, including your home life, influence your ultimate decision to become a designer?

MATTHEW AMES: Both of my parents work in very different professions from me. But my father’s mother was an artist, a painter. I never had the chance to meet her, she died before I was born, but she apparently wanted to be a fashion designer. We have a lot of paintings of hers that are fashion illustrations. She did a lot of watercolor illustrations in the thirties, forties, fifties. My parents had them in our home, so I grew up knowing who she was. On my mother’s side, her father had a men’s clothing store in Illinois. So she grew up working in her father’s clothing store. Even though my parents don’t work in those fields, they have an appreciation for it. When I expressed interest in art as a child, they understood it. It was something they supported.

GRAVURE: When did you first discover your interest in fashion? Do you recall a specific moment when you decided you were going to become a designer?

MA: I remember always having a strong interest in art, fashion and design as a kid. As a student I initially attended Kalamazoo College, a small liberal arts school in Michigan. I was studying art and spent three years there as an art major—I was doing a lot of photography, a bit of everything really. Eventually I decided that I wanted to go to an art school that was more focused.

While I was looking at The School of The Art Institute of Chicago I saw that there was a fashion department and something just clicked—I thought, “That’s what I want to do.” So, I transferred to The Art Institute of Chicago.

GRAVURE: You’re look is defined by a monastic minimalism, by impeccable tailoring, and purity of line, cut and texture. I can’t help but think of another designer, also born in the Midwest, who also attended The Art Institute of Chicago, who also had a penchant for purity of form: Halston. I was wondering if you knew about Halston before going to SAIC, and if he was at all an inspiration for you.

MA: Certainly I was aware of Halston, and certainly I became more aware of his work. I think there’s a similar sensibility. I think there’s an American style that’s maybe not American in today’s world. But I think there’s a deeper level of American sensibility, not just at the surface level, in the idea of practicality, versatility and ease. And certainly there’s a minimalist aspect, which I think is also very American in design. I grew up in the Midwest, and I think the Midwest is very American in all of those ways. So I think when I design, it is about practicality, simplicity and ease—those kinds of more abstract American ideals.

GRAVURE: American design is obviously very important to you. But you traveled, if I’m correct, to Europe after school to work in the fashion house of Jurgi Persoons in Antwerp, Belgium. And your first shows were in Paris. Why did you make the move to Europe?

MA: I didn’t actually move to Europe, but I spent a period of time there. I worked for Jurgi Persoons, in Antwerp. It was in 2002, the summer before my final year in school. I think at the time I wanted another perspective. I didn’t want to go to New York City right away. For me I was very interested in what was happening in Belgium at that time. There were the designers Dries Van Noten, Ann Demeulemeester and Martin Margiela—who had been working for a long time. But then there was the next wave of designers like Jurgi, a lot of whom aren’t working anymore unfortunately. But it seemed like an incredibly creative place—a unique place where people were thinking about clothing in a new way. And at the time, you know, I had never experienced anything in the fashion industry outside of Chicago. In Chicago, you’re really removed from everything. You’re able to develop your own identity, your own sensibility, your own ideas. In New York, it’s hard to separate yourself. It’s hard to create your own world, because you have so many things that are going to influence you whether you’re conscious of it or not.

GRAVURE: You wanted something different, but not quite New York.

MA: Really, I was interested in the design that was happening [in Belgium]. I think the Belgian designers each have a really strong identity that they’ve created for themselves, and it’s really about clothing. It’s not fantasy. Clothing to them and design to them is something that has a function in the world. And that’s something that I cultivated while I was there. The idea of form and function in clothing. It is design. It’s part of peoples’ lives. It serves a function, not just a creative fantasy.

GRAVURE: Fashion is considered by some to be an art form but it is structured around the seasonal model. And you have to answer to the demands of that model. How do you feel about that as an artist? Is the tension between art and commerce something that you consciously think about?

MA: Well, I don’t think of myself as an artist. I think of myself as a designer. I think that there are a lot of ways that fashion design is similar to art. And design is a creative field. But it serves a function and you have parameters that you are working within. If you’re an architect, if you’re a fashion designer, or a product designer, you’re creating a product. You’re creating something that serves a function, that people can use in their lives.

GRAVURE: How did you ultimately make the move to New York?

MA: I think the time that I spent in Antwerp really influenced me, really changed the way I thought about fashion, thought about design. At that point in my life it was very important to me. So, when I finished school, I moved to New York and started working for Miguel Adrover. This was in 2003.
GRAVURE: When you worked with Miguel Adrover, was that at his peak as a designer?

MA: No. 2001 was really when he was at his peak. He did a show two days before 9/11. It was one of the most beautiful shows I’ve ever seen. But it was very influenced by Islamic culture and Islamic dress. It’s incredible—his forecasting. But at that time, it just didn’t go over well, obviously. And after that show, his backer pulled out. And there was this whole combination of events. They went bankrupt. Everything just kind of crumbled. Then in 2002, he restarted with his own financing. So when I was working for him it was during the second time around. His name was still very important but I think there were a lot of factors surrounding him that made it difficult for him to get going again.

GRAVURE: What was it like to work with Miguel Adrover at that time?

MA: It was amazing. It was my first experience working with a designer in New York. At the time, [Adrover] had a loft in Chinatown. It was just me, him and two other main assistants. And we were pretty much doing everything from making the patterns, sewing, making samples, handling private orders for clients, and dealing with shipping. Miguel—Jurgi also—both of them have very strong integrity as far as their craftsmanship, and the quality of their product. If you look at the garments, if you look inside the garments, they look like they weren’t made of this time. There’s so much handwork that goes into them, into the finishings and details. So that was very important to me—the idea of the craft.

GRAVURE: Do you own your own name? And do you think that owning your own name helps you maintain the kind of purity and high-quality crafstmanship that was exhibited by Miguel Adrover and Jurgi Persoons?

MA: Yes, I am independent. I think it is important that I have control over everything. Because when everything’s developing, it is very easy to lose a sense of yourself or your sense of control. I am working by myself. And it is a very small operation. I have one assistant that helps fulltime. But I do all of the patterns myself, all of the draping. Everything is produced by one factory in New York. And I have the commercial showroom here. But as far as the creative part, it’s just me.

GRAVURE: And do you see it staying that way?

MA: At some point you have to grow. Of course it’s important to me to maintain the same integrity of design and craft and control of all creative aspects, but there’s only so much one person can do. In order to grow you have to learn to let go of some things at some point. And I think it’s okay. And even now I feel like I know what I’m doing and I know what I want and what the collection is about. I think there’s an identity that’s been formed that’s very clear to me. So, I think at that stage it’s okay to let go of some things. But when you’re starting out, I think it takes some time to find your direction and what exactly it is you’re communicating. I think it’s okay to experiment and try different things early on. I think that’s important.

GRAVURE: Do you consider yourself an American designer?

MA: I do consider myself an American designer. I am American and there is a strong sense of American design and sensibility in what I do. And I’m working with people here and I’m working with factories here. And I think it’s important to me to develop a strong foundation here, where I plan to stay and to work. There’s a certain part of America that influences me and inspires me. But at the same time, I’m certainly not making clothes only for Americans. And that’s important to me—the understanding that we’re more globally connected now.

GRAVURE: I’m wondering if you have a person in mind when you design.

MA: I don’t have one person in mind when I’m designing. There isn’t this ideal woman who influences things. I hope that the clothes say something to a larger group of people. I think there’s kind of a freedom in the clothes—that you can take a garment and make it your own and incorporate it into your own style. I am more interested in having people take the clothes and make them their own. I hope that the clothes inspire a sense of independence. I also don’t think it’s a woman of a certain age that the clothes are for. I think one dress can be worn by a woman who is thirty, or a woman who is sixty, and it makes sense.

GRAVURE: What inspires you? I read somewhere that you are inspired by “nothing.” Could you explain that?

MA: Well that was in reference to the writings of [the painter] Agnes Martin. There are always exterior things that inspire us. Sometimes it’s art that inspires an idea—whether it’s painting or sculpture. Certainly there are things like that that have inspired me or can inspire me. I’ve been reading the writings of Agnes Martin. Though she’s a painter, she also did a lot of writing, and she talks about being inspired through an untroubled mind. Trying to clear your mind of exterior forces, and references, and being inspired by clarity of mind. Out of that comes something very pure.

GRAVURE: Do you mean pure with respect to your own vision?

MA: Something that’s not referential to something else. I mean [Agnes Martin] lived in an adobe in New Mexico in solitude with nothing, just her work, for almost forty years. In that kind of environment, you can really have clarity of vision. In the environment I live in, it’s difficult. But it’s something I admire and something I’ve been striving for, to work with fewer references. The collection is really becoming about the body, fabric and shape—these really basic elements of clothing.
GRAVURE: Before we began this interview, you told me each collection develops out of the last one and how you’re gradually ridding your collection of unnecessary elements like buttons, for example. What is the idea behind that?

MA: Each collection moves forward the ideas set forth in the previous one. This idea of removal has to do with the desire to focus on the essential. I think in a lot of ways we’ve lost sight of what’s really necessary. I want to establish a new vocabulary with respect to clothing and design. I’ve been working to simplify the form, creating a clean slate. Part of it is this idea of freedom of fabric in relation to the body, trying to create a very pure form of fabric and trying to allow the fabric to interact with the body—not breaking it in any way. Closures with zippers and buttons unnaturally change the way fabric falls on the body.

GRAVURE: We’re in difficult times right now, economically. Has that affected your designs, either ideologically or financially—what you’re able to do?

MA: No. Not really. I always have an awareness of what’s happening—socially, politically, economically. As a designer part of what I do is respond to what people need or the way they live. So I have an awareness of that. But as far as really being consciously influenced by what’s happening economically right now, no. You know, I’ve been very lucky this year. In January, I won the Ecco Domani Award, which was obviously a great opportunity.

GRAVURE: How did that feel—to be hailed as one of the future leaders of fashion?

MA: It’s a really special honor for me to be recognized by the industry. And it also allowed me to have my first show in New York. I had done presentations in Paris before. And I had also done a presentation in New York, before. But I had always wanted to show in New York, and needed the right opportunity. Ecco Domani gave me that opportunity.

GRAVURE: You had done presentations in Paris. What were you doing in Paris?

MA: That was when I started a collection under my own name. Up until then, I had been working for Miguel. When I was working for Miguel, in 2004, I was selected to show my collection—it was actually a men’s collection—at the Festival [de la Mode à] Hyères. Festival Hyères is a fashion and photography competition in the South of France. It’s a very big festival in Europe, and internationally. I met a lot of people there, and I was inspired after that to keep working under my own name. After the festival, I was invited by a showroom in Paris to present my collection during men’s fashion week. I did that and got a great response from people in the industry.

GRAVURE: So you started with menswear?

MA: I wouldn’t say that was my first collection, but after the Festival, a lot of people in the industry, guided me. It felt like it was the right time for me to take the step out on my own. It was a catalyst. Then the following season, I presented a women’s and men’s collection. That was in 2005. And I did women’s and men’s for two seasons and then I decided I was just going to focus on women’s. Women’s wear and menswear are very different, and for one person to try and design two lines like that at that stage was just too much. And for me, I was more interested in what I could do with women’s wear.

GRAVURE: I noted that you made great use of Ultrasuede in your Fall 2009 collection. What inspires your affinity for Ultrasuede?

MA: I think I read somewhere that Ultrasuede is apparently my favorite fabric. But it was just something new for the fall collection, whereas silk, crepe and cashmere have always been part of my collection. I think a lot of people have negative associations with Ultrasuede. But, it’s a great fabric, because you can wash it, you can fold it, you can crumple it up, and it doesn’t wrinkle. It’s just really easy to care for. And Ultrasuede can have a kind of heavy quality to it. But I found an Ultrasuede that is very light, drapes really beautifully, and is really soft and not so stiff, and heavy and bulky. It has an interesting compositing that allows one to create shape and volume or something very fluid.

GRAVURE: Would you say that designing is the hardest job in fashion?

MA: I don’t know if it’s the hardest job, because I’ve never worked in any other job in fashion. So I have nothing to compare it to. But without question, I think it’s a very hard job. When you’re working on something very personal and then trying to communicate that to other people, it’s never easy.

GRAVURE: You say design is very personal. Do you have any particular direction for this next collection [Spring/Summer 2010]? What was the personal inspiration?

MA: It’s always an evolution. There’s a lot of color in this collection. I think the color I’m using, and the bold mix of color, is very new for me. The colors are very pure tones—red, yellow, blue, pink, orange, green. It’s a sort of choreography between shape and color. It’s hard to say, because the collection hasn’t been shown yet. And it’s almost finished, it’s sometimes hard for me to put something into words until it’s finished and I can see it.

GRAVURE: You seem to take inspiration from different places and cultures. Sometimes I see a soutane or a Moroccan djellaba.

MA: I’m not conscious of what cultures inspire me. I’m not inspired by places, but I think a lot of times the way that I drape, or the way that I work, certainly reflects knowledge and awareness of other cultures and of the different things that other cultures do with draping and fabric. In that way you end up seeming to be inspired by different cultures. But it’s not a conscious decision.

GRAVURE: Are other designers designing right now with whom you see yourself aligned ideologically?

MA: No. I think that what’s interesting about fashion now is that there are some very strong designers developing their own identity, and their own world. There’s no style that dictates fashion right now, that says people have to dress like this, in this length or this kind of shape. Creative independence, I think, is what people want.

GRAVURE: Your designs are classic and have a timeless quality to them.

MA: And that’s important to me to, to create things that are lasting. It’s not just about today. I think the timeless sensibility is something that I’m drawn to. It’s not something that I’m aware of. But I do think it’s important to be making things that are lasting. There are so many disposable things in the world.

Interview by Rachel K. Ward

Portraits by Todd Cole • AFG Management Collection Images by Tiago Molinos

Rachel K. Ward: You are based in Pasadena.  The Huntington Estate is such an amazing place.  Is there anything specific about California that has influenced your vision?

Kate Mulleavy: I grew up in Northern California so I think, on the whole, California in general had a huge influence on our perspectives on design.  We grew up in a small town right next to Santa Cruz.  We tell people this a lot, that Santa Cruz is where the movie The Lost Boys was based and filmed.  It is a really great, amazing place filled with so many different characters, like street punks, psychedelic skaters, surfers and yuppies, anything you can think of.  It is a really weird, interesting place, in terms of politics and the extremely beautiful environment.  It is Steinbeck country in a way, like Monterey, Carmel, Capitola and Santa Cruz. My father was a botanist so we grew up with these really amazing redwood forests and incredible greenhouses and always at the beach.  A lot of our early memories are of spending time at tide pools.  Northern California landscape is staggering.  It is probably one of the most beautiful places in the United States. It’s incredible.  Our grandparents and parents were raised in Los Angeles so we always spent a lot of time in L.A. and in Pasadena. After we finished school our parents had moved and so we moved to Pasadena.  That had a huge influence on us as well.  Pasadena is an interesting place because it is one of the older suburbs of L.A. It was originally built as a tourist destination for people coming from the east coast so there are all these older hotels and it is an older community in terms of houses, a place where every house is different.  For L.A. if something survives a hundred years it is a pretty big deal.  In Pasadena, the Huntington Gardens is one of my favorite places in the world.  Laura and I were always really obsessed with “pink perfection,” one of the oldest Camellia trees in California.  The Huntington estate was built on that property because of that tree.  It’s really amazing to see the left over railroad systems that were used to have all the art brought in on trains that led up to the house.  Something that is also interesting to me is the mythology of the west and how it spilled over.  I think of people like Van Dyke Parks, Terry Melcher, and John Lennon and their time in Los Angeles.  There are all these amazing layers to it, so I feel like it definitely had a huge influence on us.

RKW: What are your feelings about New York?

KM: I love New York city. I think Laura and I had an idea of the east coast that was shaped by E.B. White or J.D. Salinger. I would think about the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It is hard for me to describe, but I felt like it was some type of contained world, almost like Charles Shultz’ Peanuts. As kids, we never went.  We only visited for the first time because of work.  So it was interesting that the first time I went to New York City was to go show a small collection that we had done.   For me, New York was like having seen a city in a snow globe.  I just had this magical view of it shaped by films and books and the amazing thing about New York City is that it really lives it up to it.  The more I spend time travelling there the more it seems like one of the greatest places, so that is what I think is magical about that city.

RKW: Beyond east or west coast, in terms of the world at large, do you think your work has an American identity to it?

KM: In a lot of ways it does.  The fact that Laura and I started something out of a gut feeling that we felt we were meant to do something.  We kind of jumped into it in a lot ways.  We didn’t have formal training. I think that that is kind of indicative of an American.  Some of the interesting things about America is a naïve quality and then at the same time a more fierce determination.  So I feel like that is reflective of that but also in terms of our sensibility, personally.  I feel like there is a sensibility to our clothes that was shaped so much by where we grew up and the experiences we had. I think we never really polarized the difference between New York or L.A. in our minds; we always wanted to show in New York because was always associated it with the tradition of American fashion.  But in terms of considering ourselves New York, or L.A. , it was never really a question. It was almost like a combination of the two, which is American.

RKW: So how do you see the positioning of your work among designers?

KM: I think that what we like to do is try to create from a place that is very personal.  Every season we try to discover and push our vision and voice a little bit further. I don’t think we were ever married to the idea that in a few years we would understand what our vision is because I think as a designer you spend your whole life figuring that out and working that out and pushing yourself outside of your comfort zone in terms of those things. I really feel like there is a creative drive.  We have always believed that no matter where you are from, as a designer you are creating your own world.  Laura and I are very tied to this idea of creating clothes that we felt like were very thought out and meticulous and also reflective of what our inspiration and interests are, but I wouldn’t tie it to one philosophy or the other.  There are some American designers and some European designers that I feel a parallel and importance and dialogue with in both aesthetics and approaches.

RKW: Since you are sisters working together, I’m wondering, when you were children, if you had a lot of fantasy play, if you started early in your collaborations?

KM: We were always really connected in a weird way.  My mom always tells this story that she gave us each a journal.  I was six and Laura was five at the time.  I sketched out all these crazy outfits throughout the entire journal.  My mom thought this was kind of weird.  Then Laura went in the house and made maps where everything was, like “the sugar is here,” or where we kept the spoons.  Later in life I realized it was so tied to our personalities.  I can’t see creating without Laura and I think Laura feels the same way.  So in a weird way we are always together in some sense.  I can remember small things like on Laura’s birthday I decided to direct a play.  We were 8. We made all of our friends practice and we designed dresses and costumes and it was this huge thing. I felt like we were always trying to make something together.  I remember building a lot of forts with Laura.  That’s what we did together. We had adventures and lived in our imaginations.

RKW: When did you start actually creating clothes together?

KM: Not really seriously until after college.  We had grown up being able to sell our clothes and things like that.  I knew I wanted to be a fashion designer when I was really young and Laura did too but we also had a lot of other interests and so because of that we weren’t sure. When we were in school I was an Art History major and Laura was an English major and her interest was the Irish modern novel and she was taking art history classes too, plus she was going to do stuff in science.  We just had so many different interests and I think it took us awhile through the experience of being undergraduates in school to really say, toward the tail end of that, that we were certain of what we wanted to do.  We knew we wanted to make clothes and I think at that point we just decided to move back home to do it.  The truth was we thought about going to school at that point and we thought we don’t really want to wait because we thought “now we are sure of what we want to do.” We had taken some costume design classes with the theater department at Berkeley but we had kind of dropped out of that.  I think at that point we realized we wanted to do something where we had complete creative control.  We didn’t want to change the color of our taffeta dress because of lighting director.  We did do some stuff in college but we made that decision at the very end.

RKW: How do you feel about working with other people like an artist or sponsor?

KM: I think the thing that you realize is that in some ways collaborating with different people like the artist…with artistic collaborations when design is important and interesting it helps you grow as a designer because when you’re working with someone else who has an expertise it pushes you in terms of gaining more knowledge and taking your idea to a different place.  But I also think that as collections have become more varied and broad and I think you also become someone in charge of every detail and in that sense you have numerous collaborations to make this thing possible so I think it is part of the everyday working experience in a way.

RKW: In another interview you mentioned that one of my favorite films Metropolitan (1990) was an inspiration for you. What about that film, or other things, inspire you?

KM: This last collection was inspired by the idea of site specific and earth art, someone like Robert Smithson. Laura and I really thought of the aerial view looking at the Spiral Jetty (1970);  it looks like a fossil.  This is the idea of ruins, a futurism that instead of it being about a robot, is the future where what is left are these kind of fossils or skeletal forms. We explored a lot of science fiction like The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976) or even something like Donnie Darko (2001), which was a huge inspiration on the collection, so there were varied films that came into play in relationship to this idea of earth art.  In my mind the connection was this incredible movement with earth artists not that long after the first Apollo missions which was the first moment that anyone saw the earth outside of itself which was a huge intellectual shift for an entire world. There was an immediate link in my mind about space travel and at the same time artists like Robert Smithson. So we tied in films like THX (1971), and different science fiction films that were interesting to us and the collection was based on these skeletal forms.  Then the season before it was based on Japanese horror films.  Usually film and art are huge visual references for what we are doing.  I think a lot of the actual ideas for the pieces come out of our own minds.  I can’t really say why we built a dress the way we did, it really is just something we have in our head and we sketch it.  In terms of making a garment, the ideas usually just come from an internal place but the way we tie together the story behind color, which is something we did all hand dying for in the last collection, those kinds of things are guided by the story we are trying to tell.  In terms of the film Metropolitan, that is a good example of trying to create your own world.  I like the kind of claustrophobia of it and the interior world, that is what is interesting with it.  I guess a film like that has a lot of influence for us for the fact we really love it so we will probably do a collection that has really big poofy 80’s dresses and striped teddy bears.

RKW:  Imagine we are looking at a history book about 21st Century fashion, how do you think Rodarte is going to be described?

KM: I think the thing that we would hope that people would describe about what we are doing is that it felt like it somehow belonged to us, in a sense that there was something that was unique enough about it that it looked like our vision that was a specific voice and that we had a place among the designers that have done something that is recognizable to the designer. But to me the thing that we seem to be drawn to doing is a balance between something that is very fragile and delicate but also beautiful but also slightly strange.  I feel like that tight rope act, between doing something that has such delicate beauty but that is also slightly off kilter or weird, is the balance that I hope people associate with our work.

RKW: Where in the world would you like to take your clothes that they are not yet available?

KM: We are small enough there are a lot places that would be very cool.  We don’t sell in Mexico City yet. That would be really fun for us. Laura and I are part Mexican so it would be cool to have our clothes in Mexico.  That is one place that comes to mind. If we could go back in time, that would be cool and take our clothes by time travel.  Maybe we can get a shop on the moon which I know is really evil, but there are just so many different places. But the first answer is Mexico City.

. . . . .