“I have realized the great power that clothes really do have to transform you, not only the way that you feel but also the way you are perceived… It’s not just dressing for other people, it’s dressing for yourself.” Hannah Marshall

occupation: fashion designer

Hannah has a quiet strength, that is conveyed in her love of all black (“black demands respect”) and the powerful shapes that define her as a forceful visionary. The blazers, often with herculean shoulders, the ring (a collaboration with Hannah Martin), that could pass as a weapon, the bionic Raphael Young boots, with mirrored heels and wings, and most potent, her architecturally shaped eyebrows and blunt cut hair, says super woman 2010. Hannah commutes for two hours everyday from her hometown in the countryside of Essex, to her studio in London, which keeps her grounded in the ultra intense world of fashion design. She is soft spoken underneath her extraordinary chic, and she artfully balances the extremes. Anything bold or masculine, is always off set with something softer, simpler and sometimes slightly more feminine, like her sheer blouse with Church’s brogues. In keeping with her committment to the empowerment of women, Hannah’s most recent autumn/winter collection was inspired by the iconic, androgenous and heroic overtones of the visual collaborations between Grace Jones and Jean Paul Goude. Hannah is committed to the power that clothing has to communicate, “clothing, actions and your body language speak louder than words.”

If you like Hannah, you may also enjoy Kristine Barilli and Christine de Lassus.

occupation: designer

Angela, our Milan correspondant, said that Cristina’s love of the clean and linear comes from her experience of living in Berlin, which has been the capital of “rational aesthetics” since Walter Gropius of the Bauhaus. In fact, her love of shapes can be seen in her designs, where she creates conceptually conceived geometric pieces that allow a person’s personality to form the garment, rather than the garment forming them. For Cristina, it’s all about discovery, whether it’s finding fifteen different ways to drape a rectangle or digging through a pile of clothes at a psychiatric hospital, one of her favorite places to hunt (at one point in her video, Cristina points out how this institution uses the exercise of uncovering old clothes as a way of escaping their reality). I love how Cristina rolls up a pencil skirt and belts it, and the way she takes a man’s tie and throws it around her neck. In keeping with her Sardinian heritage, she loves black, but will venture out to white, navy, gray, and brown, always with the underlying minimal line. There are not many moments where I am tempted to leave my layers, Victorian bustles, and chunky rings behind, but after seeing Cristina, now is one of those times.

If you like Cristina, you might also enjoy Lauren Boyle, Fatima Al-Qadiri, or Crayon Lee.

occupation: student

“I’ll be getting dressed to go out somewhere and I’ll get dressed three times. Then finally, I’ll just take everything off, make a big slit up the back, turn it upside down, safety pin it, and walk out the door feeling perfect.” Olivia Weeden

I love how Olivia’s entire wardrobe changed when she bought a motorcycle to travel on in the City. She went from floral dresses to layers of drapery, hooded sweaters, and leather. Her ingenuity takes her as far as to take a blanket that she found from Eastern Europe and turn it into a strapless dress to stay warm, and to turn an antique scissor into a necklace, in case of emergency. In fact, her accessories seem to be both time-honored and utilitarian, like the camera bag she uses as a purse. However, practicality doesn’t always rule. Despite Olivia’s recent obsession with shades of gray and degrees of warmth, she is suddenly in the mood for neon pink nail polish, orange lipstick, and denim jackets over peach chiffon.

If you like Olivia, you might also enjoy  Tay Trong, Zana Bayne, or Angela Nam.

occupation: editor of upcoming DIS magazine

“I think that what makes our generation kind of special or new is how we appreciate the lowest, you know, trashiest stuff and the most refined things and one is not better than the other, they are all sort of on the same level. Its just up to your interpretation and your usage.” Lauren Boyle

When I asked Lauren what happens if she goes out and doesn’t feel herself on a given day, her response was, “Maybe I should try it. That could be really fun. Just go out absolutely not me at all.” So uncontrived and confident in who she is, there is no armor when exploring Lauren and her style. She is who she is, low or high end, it’s all interesting, and it makes her energy and ideas so fresh in the most explosive yet natural way. For example, she makes “conservatism” the epitome of cool in her mother’s matching suede ’80s Ruff Hewn ensemble and her signature Bally loafers. Everything she wears is about an idea or a feeling and her instincts are acute, like her McQueen suede apron/dress and black leather vintage trench, which are both archetypal and elemental in shape and design. Lauren is a connoisseur and collector of fashion magazines, particularly the older originals and pioneers. She is soon to launch her own “pseudo-fashion magazine” called DIS. Lauren’s too much of an observer not to be a leader and express her own vision and it’s in keeping with her comfort in being a “real outsider” as opposed to the “accepted outsider.” I have a feeling it will be groundbreaking in terms of what is happening in print right now, but in the most unpretentious way.

To learn more about Lauren, click on the detailed captions page.

If you like Lauren, you might also enjoy Fatima Al-Qadiri, Lucy Carr-Ellison, Sarah Hamilton, or Bradley Smith.

occupation: founder and creative director of Studio11, and creative director of Kang Kiok, her mother’s clothing line

“I don’t do whatever is popular, with the top, bottom, shoes, and the bag, all matching with a Starbucks coffee.” Crayon Lee

One of the thousands of things that is so fascinating about interviewing the range and diversity of talent on this site is seeing the juxtaposition of someone like Crayon, who sees fashion as “real” and not a fantasy, with Miranda on the previous post, who finds it all about dreaming and imagining. Crayon has a quiet chic that makes a huge but understated impact. Her black uniform of leggings and a turtleneck, topped with a simple but forceful piece, porcelain skin, angular hair, and absence of jewelry and makeup, is strikingly clean and uncomplicated and reflects how honest and direct she is. Crayon doesn’t have an air about anything related to fashion and style, despite the fact that she has grown up with a high fashion designer mother. In fact, she tries to find the humor in it, and you can see it in the plastic blowup pillow jacket filled with feathers that she and her mom designed (it was inspired by the way pills are wrapped in Korea). What Crayon says about Christine De Lassus is true about her: “fashion follows her, she doesn’t follow it.”

Check out these music videos that Crayon produced here and here.

To learn more about Crayon, click on the detailed captions page.

If you like Crayon, you might also enjoy Sharon Wick, Nana Taniwa, or Katia Hakko.

occupation: musician and artist

“[My favorite thing about fashion is] its capacity to transform. For instance, moldy ducklings into randy swans, and vice versa.” Fatima Al Qadiri

Fatima was born in Senegal and grew up in Kuwait. Her adolescence in the early ’90s was right after the first Gulf War and during a very conservative time where she and her sister were in the house and had nothing else to do but draw and make music. “My entire adolescence was like an internal existence, because we couldn’t go out. I can count on both hands the amount of times I went out alone, it was really hardcore.” Fatima remembers reading a lot of avant garde magazines like I.D. and The Face, and attributes some of that exposure to her present interest in fashion. A minimalist in every sense of the word, from her understated and modest demeanor to her chicer than chic short haircut, those insular days seems to have contributed to creating a thoroughbred of taste. The feeling of always being an outsider in her home country has worked for her style-wise. Fatima has one of the best-kept secrets around – she is able to uncover some of the most state-of-the-art designer pieces in her hometown of Kuwait for 90% off because they are underappreciated there. Thus her couture Yohji Yamamoto skirt for $20, that someone stopped her on the street about, alerting her to the that fact that there were only 10 to 15 ever made. I love her sense of the impact that the subtleties make, like buttoning her shirt all the way up, not wearing jewelry, and her appreciation of the ultimate WilliWear trench (she is a first on SLU to have something from this design icon). Fatima achieves in her dress, in my opinion, the perfection of balance between feminine and masculine and thus is an emblem of our times in her dashing androgyny. I can’t help but see the comparison of how equally iconic her youth was as a teenager, locked indoors in a Middle Eastern war-torn country.

To learn more about Fatima, go to the captions on the detailed page.

If you like Fatima, you might also enjoy Malcolm Harris, Adia Tischler, Lux Leekley,
or Erik Bergrin.

occupation: fashion designer, pattern maker, stylist, and tailor

“Some people do the outfit as a wall [that] they can hide behind, but it’s not like that for me at all. I just do it because I like it. It’s not supposed to be anything. It doesn’t stand in the way of who I am. It’s not a ‘look’ I do. It’s not a costume. It’s just what I’m wearing that day.” Mack Dugan

“Nondescript” is what Mack is feeling these days in his Levi’s 501 dark jeans and heather gray Gap T, but to me, pretty much the pinnacle of clean and minimal chic. When paired with his DIY open-toed Converse, the look is the “artist’s” equivalent of the eternal Wall Street’s pinstripe suit in archetype. With his chunky silver rings and vintage shades, he could be photographed in the mulitiple series of Calvin Klein jean and underwear ads from the early ’90s that Mack feels so inextricably linked to in his aesthetic from when he was first falling in love with fashion. He was born in South Dakota but grew up in New Zealand, where Mack feels he got his gothier and heavier side, like his beyond obsession with the original Dirk Bikkemberg boots, strong in their avant garde reappropriating of the timeless construction, military, and ski boot. You can also see his “darker” side in some of Mack’s own designs, like his medieval-inspired capelet coat with a hood and his love of Lang and original Margiela. Equally aesthete in its height of subtlety, is Mack’s sportier gear. His quintessential canvas Palladium boots , APC windbreaker, and Marc Jacobs white back pack make it hard to believe he worked for Heatherette for five years. “Modern hiker” he calls it – ironic that there isn’t a mountain in sight.

If you like Mack, you might also enjoy James Ott, Stephan Jenkins, and Houman Farahmand.

occupation: client coordinator at Bumble and Bumble New York

“My mom always told me, ‘You need to always look your best when you go out of your house, no matter what it’s for, because you never know who you are going to meet or who you are going to run into.’ I always think about that. I’ll get dressed and [say to myself], ‘Oh, no! What if I get locked out and I have to go into the city looking like an urchin?’” Hunter Thompson

Hunter is a ladies’ man when it comes to his mom, a Southern gentleman when it comes to class, a touch of Brooklyn when it comes to his love of black, and a movie star when it comes to distinguished good looks, in the vein of Donald Sutherland. There isn’t anything in his wardrobe that doesn’t look expensive, yet nothing is. A standout for me are the women’s plus-size thrift store pants with the two panels that he imagines were from part of an “extremely tacky evening outfit, ill-fitting and just ugly.” If he had told me they were Yohji, I wouldn’t have batted an eye – they are as chic as any of the edgiest designers or as my own (sigh) Margiela pants with the built in skirt. A lot of the time, I feel sure that spending more is worth it, especially on certain investment-type pieces, but Hunter has an extraordinary eye for proving me wrong. When he told me that his black leather jacket was $20, I cringed at how much I spent on mine. Of course, how Hunter puts it all together puts it over-the-top, like mixing his biker jacket with a “Woolrich-esque” red and black checked blanket as-a-scarf when running to the local bodega. It’s all in the details, and any scarf less chunky and original wouldn’t have the same effect. Above it all though, and symptomatic of a true artist, is his profound sensitivity. You can see it all over his room – an impeccable taste for history, science, fashion, and art, and in his answer to our question as to who his favorite person on the site is. His answer: “Terry T. His passion for the feelings of others wowed me more so than any outfit he could of put on. With how genuine he was, he honestly could have been in sweat pants, and I would have been sold.”

If you like Hunter, you might also enjoy Sonny Groo, Alex Chapman, or James Gillespie.

“It’s like my line for Whole Foods…There’s only fabric buttons that you pull through, and the only plastic that I used was recycled. I have tank tops that were made out of Thank You bags from the deli.” Telfar Clemens

occupation: fashion designer

Telfar’s current collection is inspired by the book (un)Fashion, which is an anthropological-type view of how people from different cultures adorn themselves traditionally, and without knowing it or trying, have iconic style. Multiple eternal concepts can be seen in Telfar’s clothes, with many of the ideas blurred together into one piece. He takes the classic polo and makes it modern and green by using recycled fabric that is hand dyed, and garments that are sizeless and genderless in construction and shape. In another case, his shorts are lavishly layered and drapey like a sarong, but easy for a man to wear and with back pockets like a jean. The result is “high fashion meets granola” – the designs are both archetypal and wearable. He is so taken with the evolution of what has endured over time, that he sometimes builds underwear into pants (modeled after a certain Hasidic Jewish piece worn under clothes), and often pockets are within pockets within pockets. Telfar feels that with fashion, people build up a certain tolerance of what they feel they can and can’t wear, and he’s all about erasing that slate. As a kid, he hated feeling that some things were for a woman and not for a man – his trench coat, with a tinge of kimono, ties on the male and female sides. What’s is so special about Telfar is how deeply conscious he is about his collections, while remaining so avante garde.

Check out Telfar’s website, where you can see his collections and purchase his clothes.

occupation: musician, artist, and Communist

“The trouble of my life is trying to reconcile the extremes, love for constant change and big cities and lots of people all at once, and the natural, wanting to dig yourself in dirt and stay covered.” James Gillespie

James says that there isn’t any separation between his clothes and his personality. I can see exactly what he means when he espouses wanting to feel like he is on a rowboat off the coast of Iceland covered in mist with his preference for dark colors, natural fabrics, and shrouds. He is about to embark on a journey of his nomadic existence by leaving NYC and moving to the woods outside of Seattle to make his album, where he feels that the different set of boundaries and a quieter place will encourage his creativity and tap into his affinity for native music. His hoods, exaggerated turtlenecks, asymmetrically draped coats and chunky cardigans work on the boat in Northern Europe as much as they do in Manhattan and in the forest. I don’t really see how he survived the suburbs of Orlando, where shocking as it seems, he did try fitting in for a minute in cargo khaki shorts. James was born in Ohio, raised in New Mexico and Florida, and then at 16 moved to Sweden. Scandanavian culture is his biggest reference point, everything from the natural beauty of the intense darkness and cold to the indigenous culture of the Sami tribe, where everything means something, from their intricate dress to their shaman drumming to their attunement to nature in their traditions. Feathers are James’ fetish accessory and he wraps himself in them when he performs. However, he is still striving to achieve the unapologetic dark artistry of his favorite singer, Karin Andersson of Fever Ray, whose originality manifests in things like her performing in a Buffalo hide. James’ favorite cartoon character is his tattoo, Snufkin, the Finnish archetype who follows his heart and his dreams and wears his clothes until they fall apart. When you wear your clothes until they fall off, the meaning of them takes on mythological proportions, much like everything does in James’ life.