You grew up watching your mother and aunt sew—what is one lesson from those early moments that still shows up in your work today?
Watching my mom and aunt sew was a passage of my childhood. I remember the room being full of cut pieces of fabric and having to turn belts through, which for me was always fun. I was always curious as to what bits went where and how it all came together. So, if anything, that's where my fascination for pattern cutting and seam placement stems from.
You’ve worked alongside iconic designers like John Galliano and Alexander McQueen— share what each of those experiences taught you about creativity.
The guys that ran the factory used to drop off cut bundles and samples, then my mom and aunt would sew them into finished garments. My work today, I would say, reflects that piecing together as it reminded me of jig saw puzzles, and I really like constructing garments.
I’ve been lucky to have worked for some of the most amazing talents in fashion design and the one thing I’ve taken away from all of them is story telling. Finding a story about a protagonist and an idea of a look, anything to use as a jump off point, and then letting my imagination run with it. It can cross ages, genres, cultures, or styles; it just has to have a connecting thread.
Your designs feel cinematic—how do film, art, and music influence your creative process?
Mmmm, I’m very much influenced and inspired by films, books, art and music. Music sometimes appears in colors and with visions, especially classical and soundtracks. I love old movies, historical dramas, and black and white movies from back in the day when studios had designers and sets that were amazing. With books, more so novels, sometimes I imagine the fashion and create the looks in my head. So a movie, a book, a scene, or a beat can open up my imagination or set the vibe and away it goes. It just plays out in my head and then I start to define bits and themes. I then sketch or write descriptives, take a look at it and start defining. It takes a few attempts before it becomes a cohesive collection and its always added to or dropped and redrawn or replaced.