The Fashion Informer

Meet Your Maker: Libertine

"It never starts with a color and it never starts with a graphic," Johnson Hartig explained of his design process. "It always starts with an idea and an emotion." 

I met Johnson, designer of the California-based label Libertine, over breakfast at the Regency Hotel—his crash pad of choice when visiting New York—a few weeks before the NYFW Fall 2012 shows to get the lowdown on his creative process and the evolution of the brand. (Johnson, who studied fine art and painting at Long Beach State, originally founded Libertine—famous for its graphic print, reworked vintage aesthetic—back in 2001 with Cindy Greene, who left to do her own thing in 2009.) 

"It usually begins by thinking things through that I had started the season before, and if something seems particularly strong that I’m already feeling good about, then I come up with more ideas," he said between bites of bacon and eggs while waiters swirled around us in the plush dining room, taking orders and refilling coffee cups. "I’ll kind of store those away thinking maybe it won’t come as easily next season and I’ll have these to rely on. That happens pretty much every season. So I’ll take those out of the closet and expand on them and just one thing leads to another…"

For fall 2011, his first show after a two-year hiatus from the runway, the high-spirited designer was inspired by the colorful Islamic tiles he'd seen while visiting mosques in Turkey. "For spring 2012, I thought that I would continue the emotion from fall in that the simplicity of the plaid and the colors appeal to me," he said. "But I knew that I couldn’t do anything very colorful for spring 'cause there had been such saturated color for fall. The idea of a black and white collection really appealed but I kept thinking I can’t do just black and white and then someone came to the studio [who really liked it] and it’s almost like they gave me permission to do a black and white collection. Then it just all came together."

This resulted in a winning array of pieces printed with circular, xo and barcode-like graphics, along with a skirt and t-shirt bearing the timely, tongue-in-chic slogan, "Tax the Rich More." Johnson clarified that the barcode print was not meant as a comment on our consumerist society, as I had assumed, but were "just graphic-y stripes."

As for the x's and o's, he added, "Sometimes when I’m at home and bored I'll put on music and paint. And I was flipping through this tablet that I’d done a few years before—I had painted all those x’s and o’s and stripes—and I thought these seem kind of interesting and fresh to me, and I took them to the studio and experimented with the Xerox machine and proportions. So it was something that I had done years before that I re-explored."

I told him the spring collection felt incredibly strong and cohesive.

"Well, that’s what I’m really good at—making something out of nothing," replied the multi-talented Johnson, who was an interior designer before turning to fashion. "I’m really good at taking these disparate objects and putting them together in a way that works. It’s the same with rooms—it’s just all a bunch of junk but [it's about] putting it together interestingly."

 For fall 2012, the designer found inspiration in the pile-it-on aesthetic of Eastern European gypsies, though the collection—full of heavily beaded dresses and skull and crossbone bedecked suits—was anything but literal. "I have 10,000 ideas a day that I could run with, so it really is more a process of editing and elimination and slowing my mind down," said Johnson with a laugh.

Between 90 and 95 percent of all Libertine pieces are one-of-a-kind, which means buyers scramble to be first to place an order post-show so their store has the pick of the litter (so to speak). In addition to Johnson, Libertine employs his assistant, Stephanie, and four or five interns. All of the label's signature silkscreening is done in-house "on a 10-year-old ironing board," as is the reconstruction and sewing of every single garment baring the Libertine label. 

"We’re really a tiny, tiny company, but we have a big impact for being such a small organization," the much-copied Twitter aficionado said, adding that he likes things to happen "really fast" and has no problem moving on if an idea's not working, which explains how his tightly-knit team creates 5,000 to 8,000 garments per year.

In a recent follow-up call, Johnson confided that for fall 2013, he found his muse in a "life changing" trip he took, alone, to India this past January. He also mentioned that Libertine's recurring tree branch motif was inspired by the switches his grandmother used to beat him with when he was a little boy (and he may have been laughing when he said it, but he was dead serious). 

"I know exactly what I want it to look like in my head," Johnson said of his collection as our breakfast wound down. "It’s much more complicated doing it the way I do it than with traditional designers because traditional designers can make something that they see, whereas I have to rely on the ability to find it, or something close to what I’m imagining. So it’s a bit more complicated."

I, for one, can't wait to see where Johnson's perception-meets-reality creative process leads him—and Libertine—come September.

Meet Your Maker: Katherine Fleming

I’ve really liked accessories ever since I was a little girl, because they can fit anybody,” said Katherine Fleming. “It’s sort of like architecture – especially handbags. It’s like creating a home for your objects.”

Is it any wonder, then, that the Miami native grew up to be an accessories designer - one whose work has been recognized by the CFDA and snapped up by the likes of Barneys and Opening Ceremony her first season out?

Growing up in an art-filled house (her mother co-owned the contemporary gallery Corcoran & Greenberg) instilled an early love of color and design, which is very much in evidence in Fleming’s own classic-with-a-twist creations, which are one part fanciful to two parts functional.

“I wanted to update the idea of classic and make a new kind of heritage collection that I hope my grandchildren will be carrying one day,” Fleming - who studied fashion design at Parsons and has worked at the Gap, Club Monaco and Michael Kors - told The Fashion Informer one recent afternoon in her East Village apartment. “I have a lot of things from my grandmother that are very classic, but she also had an interesting twist to her personality, like my mom. You know, they liked to have fun with things - whether it’s the shape or the color, there’s something bold about it.  So that’s what I molded my line around, making it a little bit more modern and, in some cases, kind of futuristic.”

Take, for instance, the bags with which Fleming launched her eponymous collection in spring 2009 after leaving her post as Design Director of Accessories at Tory Burch, where she worked for four years (during which time Burch was nominated for CFDA Accessories Designer of the Year). Fleming began by creating a signature – and instantly iconic – geometric interlocking K logo, which is seamlessly integrated into all her bag designs and was inspired by the voodoo symbol on a vintage Haitian hand towel she got from her mom and a watch ad from the sixties she found while leafing though old magazines in the FIT library. (Fittingly, the Haitian symbol turned out to represent “commerce” – a very good sign, indeed.)

Limiting herself to four styles - a clutch, shoulder bag, satchel and hobo - she then began sketching designs. The Kate bag, with its corrugated stitching and funky-yet-familiar silhouette, was her first creation, made all the more unique by the fact that its tonal chain strap was treated with car paint – a handbag first.  

“I just really like monochromatic things,” said Fleming while showing us one of her many collage filled inspiration books, which evolve from season to season.  “And at that time, it just seemed really new to have a bag be all one color. I was looking at a car and thought, ‘this is amazing.  It’s metal, why can’t hardware be like that? And why isn’t it like that?’ So I started researching what people use to paint cars and kept pushing until I found a hardware manufacturer that would do it on the chain.” And while the original Kate chain was brass – which is durable but very heavy – Fleming has since switched to (much lighter) aluminum.

During the making of the fall 2009 collection, Fleming and her fiancé were living in a haunted apartment in the Flatiron District and she kept having mysterious falls and mishaps, the most serious of which required her to be bedridden for two weeks (“I later found out that in the early 1900s, the landlord had set fire to the building in the middle of the night to get insurance money and a lot of people died,” she told us. “And before that the building had been a boys home”). This ooky-spooky experience – and the film Rosemary’s Baby – inspired the current collection’s deep purple and amethyst hues and the Loewy bag, a chic, Mia Farrow-worthy silhouette that debuted this season.

For spring 2010 (dubbed “Castaway Treasures” and based on her experiences snorkeling in Miami and a book her father had given her on trout), Fleming began as she always does, by putting together a book of myriad inspirations and then sketching out her ideas. After initially considering – and then ruling out – using fish skin (“Real fish skin smells really bad”), she hit on the idea of using python, which resembles fish but without all the icky olfactory issues, resulting in the Ocean Batik, Goldfish, Oil Slick, Sand and Clownfish collections. The holographic silver Jane clutch – “I call it the Minnow bag” – is especially gorgeous.  (The Jane clutch can also be seen in Fleming’s Art Basel Miami pop-up shop and on eBay, where she’s auctioning off 16 artist-customized clutches between now and December 24th to benefit the Bas Fisher Invitational, an alternative art space in Miami helmed by Naomi Fisher and Hernan Bas.)

Fleming – who confided she’s “dying” to add shoes, scarves and costume jewelry to her line - is continuing with the fish theme for fall 2010 (utilitarian fly fishing, this time), coupled with the Aurora Borealis (a recurring inspiration). She walked us through yet another evocative inspiration book, filled with lush images of the colorful night sky and migrating schools of fish. “I do books instead of boards because I can take them with me when I travel,” she explained while her super mellow Chihuahua, Rocco, napped in her lap.  

After unfolding an old sketch (which looked more like a life-sized handbag blueprint) Fleming pulled out some magical looking python swatches she’d just received from her tannery in Italy and waxed eloquent – “It’s python, but to me it’s like some mystical winter snake who lives in Iceland or something; it’s chic but a little bit off and otherworldly” – before telling us about the shearling, back issues of National Geographic and multi-strapped vintage wicker fly fishing bag that will also feature, somehow, in the finished fall 2010 collection.

How, exactly? Sorry, bubula, you’ll have to wait until February to find out.

Photos © The Fashion Informer/Lauren David Peden

   
   
        

Meet Your Maker: Yeohlee Teng

“I always feel that the collection evolves from the previous collection, so it was Schindler followed by Gaudi with Schindler influences, then [for Spring ’08] I did something informed by Gaudi and the Spanish influence from Mexico and the mission architecture of the American Southwest,” explained Yeohlee Teng of a few of the recent inspirations behind the namesake collection she’s been designing since 1981.

For Fall 2008, the boxy ponchos and geometric coats of the previous season segued into cube skirts, arc tunics and a series of quilted cover-ups, all of which paid homage to the design and spiritual values of the Shakers and SANAA, the architectural firm behind the recently opened New Museum of Contemporary Art on the Bowery, where the designer, not coincidentally, held her Fall show.

Although architecture is the main recurring theme in all of Yeohlee’s collections – a theme that has led to her work being exhibited in museums around the world - the designer insists she only recognized the connection when it was pointed out to her by others.

“It’s really strange because when I burst on the scene it was because of ‘Intimate Architecture: Contemporary Clothing Design,’ an exhibition at the Hayden Gallery at MIT,” Yeohlee told The Fashion Informer as we sat in Philippe Starck ERO/S/ chairs at a glass table in her light-filled studio in midtown Manhattan. “That was the first time that my work was linked to architecture and that exhibition was in 1982. I grew up amongst architects, but I didn’t really see that. I thought that I was happily designing and making clothes, but the curator sought me out because she saw something in my clothes that, to her, spoke about this idea of intimate architecture, which is the first shelter that you build around yourself.”

Since then, Yeohlee’s shelters...err, clothes, have been exhibited in “Energetics: Clothes and Enclosures,” alongside the work of architect Ken Yeang in 1988, and were featured in shows at the Galleria Museum in Paris and London’s Victoria & Albert in 2000, at New York’s Museum at FIT in 2001 and at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in 2005.

Her designs are currently showcased in “Skin + Bones: Parallel Practices in Fashion and Architecture,” which launched at MOCA-Los Angeles in 2006 and traveled to Tokyo’s National Art Center in 2007 before moving to London’s Somerset House Embankment Galleries this week, where the exhibit (also featuring the work of Alexander McQueen, Boudicca, Hussein Chalayan, Zaha Hadid and Future Systems), will be on view from April 24th through August 2008.

We asked what the typical jumping off point was for her when designing a new collection (e.g., which comes first, the fabric or the shape, such as the spiked shells from Fall ’08 that serve as sartorial armor for the designer’s “urban nomad” fans)?

“It changes all the time,” Yeohlee replied, brushing a piece of hair out of her face. “I’m not rigid about it. Like, it would be difficult for somebody to stalk me because I never pick the same path. You know how, if you’re a creature of habit, you might start your day at 8:15 and go to the same deli for coffee and read the New York Times? I don’t do that.” She laughed. “And with [my work], each season the approach is different. I’m sure there are similarities but my thinking is different. For Spring 2008, for instance, we were going along working on the characters and crafting shapes but then the collection took a quantum leap.”

Based on what you were doing?

“Based on how you cut, so the collection evolves in that way,” she explained. “At a certain point you get a breakthrough and then it changes. So on the one hand, it’s always different. But on the other hand if you look at my work, there’s a very strong signature - and that signature is a constant. However, with what I discover during the design process [each season], we do make breakthroughs.”

So tell us about how this piece evolved, we asked, pointing to a mannequin wearing a silvery-black knee-length sheath that was fitted in front and seriously voluminous in back.

“That’s called the bellows dress,” she said, leaping to her feet and motioning for us to follow.

“I decided to create a lot of volume in the back, but if you’ve seen Gaudi’s work and how he created his shapes, you know he lets gravity create the shape.” Yeohlee pulled the back of the dress further away from the mannequin’s body, where it stayed, as if held aloft by invisible hands. “Well, this is a standing shape, meaning I allowed the fabric to determine the shape and the cut. Now this is not structured, there’s nothing in it to make it stand out like this, though the fabric itself has got metal in it.”

She then showed us a perfectly simple strapless wedding dress with a train that could be looped over the shoulder for dancing, followed by a reversible black and white felted topper that was one part coat, one part cocoon.

“This piece was informed, really, by the width of the fabric; it’s called an ovoid. Here, I’ll demonstrate.” And with that, the petite designer held the coat up by its hem, so that all we saw were her hands and feet peeking out from a circle of ivory wool.

So does she have a particular woman in mind when designing her collection, famous for its modern shapes that appear somewhat simple at first glance, their intellectual rigor and incredible craftsmanship apparent only upon closer inspection?

“I actually think that design is universal, so I design for people,” she replied mischievously. “I know there are designers that have a certain muse or client in mind, but I don’t think that way. I think [my client] is you, it’s your sister, it’s your future daughter, it’s your mom, you know what I mean? I really feel that if your design is successful, then it works for a lot of people.”

Yeohlee then pulled from the rack a rain cape with a hood that, when tied around one’s neck, completely covers the head, making an umbrella unnecessary. “It’s also very efficient in its design because there’s very little fabric waste and it’s one size fits all.”

“I try to really use fabric efficiently so there’s no waste and then I try to design efficiently with very few pattern pieces, one size fits all, that you can kind of stack them up and tuck them together [when cutting],” she added. “So I incorporate some personal philosophy into the design process. I have a real respect for fabric and process.”

And, clearly, Yeohlee’s fellow designers (and, it would seem, curators and architects the world over) have a real respect for her work and her process.

We mention that she always looks so happy and contented whenever we see her.

“Well, I kind of like what I do,” she replied with a grin, “and I really feel that that is such a privilege.”

Skin + Bones: Parallel Practices in Fashion and Architecture” will be on view at the Embankment Galleries at Somerset House through August 2008.

Photos © The Fashion Informer/Lauren David Peden

Meet Your Maker: Meredith Kahn

“When I was a little girl, I’d be like, ‘Mom, when I grow up, I want to have an empire!’” said Meredith Kahn with a laugh. “That’s my thing; I want to have a whole platform of pieces that really communicate to people, head to toe.”

So far, Kahn’s got the upper body covered, thanks to Made Her Think, the quirky-yet-classical jewelry line she launched on a whim in 2004, which became an instant hit with fashionistas from California to Kuwait.

Known for its use of iconic imagery - skulls, talons, pyramids, roses - Made Her Think was originally fashioned from found trinkets and one-of-a-kind vintage elements that Kahn, a long-time flea market fanatic, had collected over the years. But the line has since evolved to include seasonal costume and semi-precious collections she designs from scratch, along with a just-launched fine jewelry range, dubbed Meredith Kahn, that puts a more luxe spin on her trademark girly-goth aesthetic.

“I think a lot of what Made Her Think gives people is that relationship where they can look at [a piece] and even if they don’t understand its origins, they feel something,” the pretty brunette told The Fashion Informer when we sat down with her at 5 in 1, the wood-paneled Williamsburg, Brooklyn concept studio/store where she works alongside her graphic artist husband, Norman Rabinovich, and the designers behind local indie labels Eventide and Uluru.

“I love when a person picks up one of my pieces, puts it on, and they’re like ‘Oh!’” she added, a quiet shock of recognition in her voice.

So how does Kahn, an FIT grad who designed clothing for Old Navy before launching her quasi-eponymous line (Made Her Think is an anagram of Meredith Kahn), go about creating her collection each season? Does it start with an idea? An inspiration? The skulls and daggers and materials themselves?

“Its a combination,” she replied thoughtfully, twirling the gold diamond pendulum that hung from a black waxed cord around her neck (part of MHT’s upcoming fall ’08 collection). “It’s not only about one thing. It’s like, you go through life and you receive all the things that come your way - it could be carving in a piece of wood, the shade of the sky at a certain time of day, a reflection, some architecture you see while walking down the street - and you grab them and place them in the little box in your brain. And then, when the moment is right - whenever that is, and you can never know - it just kind of all comes together, and then you have your color palette, you have your material, and you have your forms, soft or structured, whatever they’re going to be.”

For spring, Kahn drew inspiration from the idea of a tainted garden, with the elements of nature being, as she put it, “brought into a darker field.” And so the collection, as seen in a look book titled “Sweet Nothings in the Voodoo Garden,” is full of resin cast roses - fashioned into bejeweled-taloned cuffs, feathered earrings, rosary-like necklaces and skull-studded bracelets - along with black diamond Swarovski rings (the stones of which have the grey cast Kahn loves), an edgy-ethereal spiked rose cuff that’s part punk, part princess, and an Art Deco pendant that manages, much like the designer herself, to be both sweet and sinister (not to mention subversively sexy).

For the fall ‘08 collection, called “Faux Illumination,” her subconscious rummaged around the old brain box and found inspiration in a trip Kahn had taken to New Mexico some four or five years ago. “It was amazing,” she recalled, a dreamy smile lighting up her delicate features. “I just love the idea of things that look like they were touched by a hand, so I wanted it to have an earthy, desert influence and the feeling of crystals.”

The latter she accomplished in her usual left-of-center way by casting the shapes in resin so they’d feel “more surreal, like they’re little crystal spears just floating in the element. I didn’t want use real crystals, because that would have been too literal.” Heaven forfend.

She also fashioned silk chiffon into big, ruffled brooches and wove the aforementioned black waxed cord into subtle macrame-like patterns to further invest the pieces with a handcrafted touch. “I wanted the collection to have the feeling of a nomadic woman in the middle of the desert with her rocks and her gems and her fabric wrapped and flowing around her. So that presents the imagery for you.”

It certainly does.

Kahn’s creativity also takes flight via her beautifully produced look books (or Notebooks, as she calls them), which resemble 19th Century writing tablets and come complete with moodily evocative photos and thought-provoking annotations, some rendered in traditional typography, others scribbled by hand with lines crossed out, making it feel as though you’re peering into someone’s private diary.

“I don’t have a specific background in jewelry,” said Kahn. “I have a background in clothing. But I wanted these collections to be these worlds of expression, because I felt like if I gave a story to it, then it would help the person understand the pieces even more, and they would develop even more of a relationship with it. So my first look book was really intense - 24 or 36 pages with hand written notes where I told what the inspiration was and what my purpose was for making the jewelry, along with this huge story about the girl.” She even directed a short film for her fifth Made Her Think collection, called “Illusions of the Heart,” which was shot in a “totally creepy” old house on Staten Island.

For her spring ’09 collection, Kahn - who just gave birth to her first child, daughter Grayson, a mere three months ago - plans to incorporate her current obsessions: Dirty diamonds (“it’s almost like the crushed bits at the bottom of someone’s drawer”) and paste, the term used for lead-and-glass stones that were the Cubic Zirconia of the Victorian era.

Kahn would also “love, love, love” to do a fragrance (something musky, she hints, to be housed in a flask based on the beloved vintage perfume bottles she’s been collecting forever), and says she could easily see Made Her Think jewelry being translated into hardware on a handbag collection. “I want to develop something that fits back to the collection and extends the brand,” she said. “I’m starting to do leather and I just got in some exotic skins for next season, so it’s definitely traveling along that path.”

Her finale? Clothing and home goods.

“You know, you have all these products leading up to that, so it’s head-to-toe,” she explained. “You can be smelling right, you’ve got your jewelry, your bag, the clothing and then into home goods, so you have a whole brand.”

So you want to be the Ralph Lauren of Williamsburg?

“Donna Karan, actually,” Kahn replied with a laugh. “She really embraces it. When you see her, she is the brand, which is very inspiring for me.”

“Obviously, I did it kind of backwards, starting with jewelry, but this is how nature intended,” she added. “I was making something in 2004 and putting it out there and people were responding, and I just listened. I think that’s probably one of the most important things with being creative and trying to sell your product. Because you can be as creative as you want, and you can be locked up in your house creating things and expressing yourself, but if you don’t know how to communicate it to other people, it’s a little bit of a problem. There has to be that relationship.”

Judging from the relationship Kahn has already forged with her growing legion of devoted fans, who seem unable to stop themselves at buying just one (or two or ten) Made Her Think pieces, that empire will be hers soon enough.

Photos © The Fashion Informer/Lauren David Peden

Meet Your Maker: Juan Carlos Obando

“This collection does not have a book, a movie or a tangible object as an inspiration. Instead, it is filled with the true feeling that comes from the word sincerity.”

So wrote designer Juan Carlos Obando on the meaning behind his 2007 fall/winter collection (aka, “Case Study #6: An Untitled Dream”), which debuted to great acclaim during LA Fashion Week - as did his spring 2008 collection, “Case Study #7: Persephone’s Return” - both of which earned him an MAFI/Los Angeles Fashion Award in October, alongside fellow recipients Max Azria and Fred Segal.

Not too shabby for an advertising creative director-turned-designer who launched his first collection just three years ago.

In fact, despite the accolades - Obando also won a 2007 International Design Award and has seen his collection reviewed on the cover of WWD - the Colombian-born, LA-based 30-year-old still hasn’t given up his day job. Currently, Obando works at an interactive ad agency overseeing accounts for Sony Pictures, Bud Light, Epson, MGM, Mountain Dew and Pepsi, and he was up to his elbows developing the interactive online blitz that’s set to accompany the next James Bond picture at the same time he was putting the finishing touches on his fall 2008 collection, “Case Study #8: Liz Goldwyn vs. Frank Miller,” which he is unveiling in New York next week.

“As always, it will showcase my love for the dark side,” Obando told The Fashion Informer a few weeks before his New York debut (normally we conduct our “Meet Your Maker” profiles at the designer’s studio, but given our location on the East Coast and Obando’s on the West, we opted to meet over breakfast in a Greenwich Village café the last time he was in town). “I was influenced by Liz Goldwyn’s sophisticated style meets Frank Miller's dark edge.” Obando’s pal Goldwyn even turns up on the show invites, a Miller-esque cartoon poster featuring the filmmaking, jewelry designing fashionista as an extremely well-dressed superhero.

And, as always, the garments themselves are sure to deceptively simple at first glance, but carefully worked with myriad handcrafted, subtle details, upon closer inspection. Take, for instance, the intricate pleating, lace work and twisted, braided chiffon that festooned much of the designer’s spring collection, which nodded to nature as well as Greek mythology’s queen of the underworld (herself a harbinger of the changing seasons).

“I was influenced by how roots grow over landscapes, and how they somehow take over, like the inside of things coming out to the surface creating a new shape and form,” explained Obando, who has an affinity for backless dresses, oversized tailored jackets and coats, and interesting sleeve details, all of which show up in his work time and again.

He describes his typical client as “a woman who has character and who is very comfortable in her own skin, which, in turn, allows her to have and maintain criteria for what works on her and what doesn't, regardless of any current trend.” Not surprising then, that stylish iconoclasts like Goldwyn and Cate Blanchett are fans.

When asked how he first fell in love with fashion, Obando replies, “It was a simple equation how fashion got my heart: The way Tom Ford showcased it, how Yohji Yamamoto imagined it, how Mario Testino and Steven Meisel’s eye captured it, and how Alaia used handwork execute it.”


The affably thoughtful designer sewed most of his spring 2008 creations himself (making it something of a demi-couture collection, a la Alaia), and he allows that the main difference between being a creative director and a fashion designer is that “the final product comes out of a sewing machine or my hands, not a printer or a video tape.”

Naturally, Obando is justifiably excited about his upcoming New York debut.

“LA is an amazing launching arena and it helped me polish my craft,” he said. “But New York is the main stage where everything will be judged for what it is.”

So why show in New York now, after three years as a headliner on the other coast?

“I believe it's the right time for me,” he answered. “It's just a gut feeling. Professionally, I hope my work is seen by major editors and buyers that don't make it to LA. And personally, I just want to continue taking my work to a new level each season, to accomplish new things and learn more.”

Well, professionally and personally, we can’t wait to watch it all unfold.

Juan Carlos Obando is scheduled to present his fall 2008 collection on Saturday, February 2nd.

Meet Your Maker: Tucker by Gaby Basora

"I'm trying to get into the swing of the proper marketing schedule," said Gaby Basora. "I'm unrecognizable to myself, marching to the beat of the industry drummer."

Basora laughed, but she wasn't entirely joking. Since launching her line, Tucker by Gaby Basora, at Barneys New York in March 2006, the former stylist who has become known as "the loose fitting peasant blouse girl" (her words) has gone on to watch her label become something of a cult phenomenon, with industry insiders and fashionable girls across America snapping up her smocked-neck tops and dresses like they were going out of style. Which they most certainly are not.

In fact, it's the inherent timelessness of her signature garments that helped propel the laid-back mother-of-three into the situation in which she currently finds herself. Thrilled by her overnight success (Tucker is now carried in more than 60 stores nationwide, including Intermix, Scoop and Ron Herman), but more than a little baffled by the speed at which the line took off, Basora has gone from making tops and dresses as a hobby to designing a full-on collection in the space of 12 months.

"Going into a showroom was a nice motivation to work on new shapes," Basora told The Fashion Informer when we stopped by to check out her new midtown digs, a cluttered work space she shares with jewelry designer Alyssa Norton and VPL's Victoria Bartlett. "I'm always inspired to design things that I would want to wear or because I like a shape for myself."

To wit: a slim smocked tunic, which is decidedly more streamlined than the original Tucker dress (now simply referred to in-house as "The Dress") and a spaghetti strapped camisole that has the same versatility Basora demands from all of her creations. "You can tuck it in, you can leave it out, you can put a belt on it or adjust the neck so it's straight or more gathered, it can be lowered in the front, lowered in the back," she recited while doing all of the above with a printed red cami she up for demonstration purposes. "It's a totally different body [than The Dress], but it does have the same vibe that you can dress it up or dress it down so it can be as precious or not precious as you want it to be," she added. "It's all about finding a cut that's really flattering and beautiful on but that looks effortless."

The thirtysomething Basora also has an affinity for the shapes and styles of the 1970s, as can be seen in the high-waisted pants, disco dolly skirts, va-va-va-voom jumpsuit, hippie-haute Henley and scoop neck vest she introduced for spring and fall, all of which pair very nicely with the blouse version of The Dress, thankyouverymuch. "A lot of the pieces are complimentary to the original Tucker blouse," she said. "Whether it's the wool crepe jumpsuit or the little vest, which allows you to wear the blouse in the winter and the pretty things about it don't get lost under a cardigan or sweater."

Basora has begun developing her own prints and fabrics in-house ("My hope is that by spring '08, all of the prints will be my own"), and plans to work with Norton on a few limited-edition pieces, such as a strappy dress that would incorporate Norton's jewelry as the cording. "We are absolutely intent on doing a collaboration," she said.

Now that she's got the designing and delivery dates thing down, Basora also wants to open her own store in the not-too-distant future, which would allow her to recapture a bit of the instant gratification she's had to give up in light of her recent success. "The exciting part of this is when you come up with an idea, have a sample made and the sample looks great," she explained. "You just want to be doing it now. But you have to save them for the appropriate selling season, which is kind of a letdown, creatively. I'd love to take a handful of bodies that are really great and produce them immediately, in small runs, to sell in my own store."

But whether she opens a boutique this year or next, it's clear that the pint-sized brunette is in it for the long haul - though she still sounds starry eyed when talking about her trajectory. "It's really funny because when I first started I just made something for myself that I liked, and I didn't really know that it was gonna translate out into so many different shapes and bodies. I see it on different people and it takes on a different life on everybody."

Basora paused and offered up a huge, beatific grin. "It's pretty exciting to watch it all unfold."

To learn more about Tucker by Gaby Basora, visit www.tuckerbygabybasora.com.

Studio photos © The Fashion Informer. Still shots courtesy of Tucker by Gaby Basora.

Meet Your Maker: Tom Scott, Knitwit Extraordinaire

"For me, it's all about the shape. I think my aesthetic is quite clean, but there's always something happening in the fabric - and the shape is dictated by the idea of the fabric."

So said knitwear designer Tom Scott when The Fashion Informer met him in his showroom, Kaleidoscope Consulting, earlier this summer and asked him to walk us through his creative process, which has resulted in one of the most unusual-yet-wearable sweater collections we've ever seen.

A Pennsylvania native, Scott studied textiles in Philadelphia before transferring to the Scottish College of Textiles, where he graduated with a degree in knits. Following stints as a freelance textile designer (for Calvin Klein and other major designers) and a gig as men's and women's accessories designer for Ralph Lauren collection (scarves, hats and gloves being his main thrust), Scott launched his own women's knit accessories line in 2001, and added clothing to the mix two years later. The line retails for $300 - $2000, and is now sold at Barneys New York and several boutiques nationwide, including Ikram, Shelly Steffee, Zero Maria Cornejo, Noodle Stories, Stel's, Impulse, Butter and The Grocery Store.

"I've always hand-knitted and hand-crocheted; my grams taught me how to crochet when I was little," said Scott. "My grandma was actually a lace maker - she's Scottish - and my father was a carpet weaver."

Clearly, the textile apple didn't fall too far from the tree in the Scott family, though the designer says when it comes to his eponymous line - which boasts an upside down label on every garment - he's as much about the process as the end result. "I think I was more fascinated with the knitting machine and figuring out how to manipulate stitches on the machine," he explained. "And it also gives you instant gratification, where weaving is such a [labor intensive] process and it takes such a long time to complete a fabric."

We had attended Scott's fall '07 Fashion Week presentation back in February - funded with the $25,000 winnings from his 2007 Ecco Domani Fashion Foundation award and inspired by the idea of introspection and not taking things at face value (hence the amount of back interest on a lot of the pieces) - and when we asked about the inspiration behind his spring '07 collection, he whipped out a little handmade book and opened it on the glass table in front of him.

"It was a mix," he said while flipping through the pages, which featured bleached-out Polaroids and type collages using the same old-school font found on Scott's clothing label. "I first started thinking of the Antonioni film, 'The Red Desert,' because I love Monica Vitti's character - she's quite prim but a little bit crazy. And I was also playing with the idea of underpinnings or underwear - a clean foundation upon which to build. So there's this whole melding of concepts, though the overall theme is controlled chaos. At least that's the term I kept using."

In practical terms, this translated into sleeveless asymmetrical cardigans that curve around the body, sheer pullovers with "dissolving yarn" seams that drape from the neck or torso, upside down dresses and pullovers that turn the classic crewneck, quite literally, on its head and - our personal favorite - a tri-panel twisted front racerback top with a detached button placket that functions like a knit necklace.

For spring '08, which Scott previewed last week at AB Projekt Galerie during Berlin Fashion Week, he'll continue to expand on the underpinnings theme from this season and riff on the idea of proportion and body consciousness. "Like a really fitted tank dress with a baggy, almost droopy one on top," he said.

"It's a stream-of-consciousness process," added the designer, who works mostly by draping and often takes old sweaters apart and puts them back together in different ways to see how they fall on the body. "Sometimes it's a big mess," he laughed. "I always have a very clear idea of what I want, then I put it on the form and it's like 'Oh, that's totally wrong.'"

What happens then?

"I manipulate it, and sometimes I scrap it," he replied. "I'd say 25 percent of the time it works and 75 percent of the time it doesn't. But sometimes, I cut something out wrong and it's like, 'Oh, I love that!' A lot of my things are mistakes. I'm always just playing around, really."

For more info on Tom Scott, visit www.tomscottnyc.com. To read The Fashion Informer's review of Tom Scott's fall 2007 presentation, visit http://thefashioninformer.typepad.com/informer/2007/02/tom_scotts_intr.html.

Photos © The Fashion Informer