Images by Agnes Thor

Michelle Lane’s Spring/Summer 2012 collection evolves the New York-based designer’s signature rope accessories by combining inspirations as disparate as the effortless chic of Slim Kieth, Villa Noailles, the Art Deco pool at The Raleigh Hotel in South Beach (made famous by Esther Williams in the ‘40s), the simple, modern architectures of Charlotte Perriand, Yves Klein’s quest to reach the far side of infinity and more. The result is the Garibaldi Collection, which symbolizes the place where rationalism meets freedom. Meanwhile, the individual names of the pieces—like the Prometheus bangle and Haplodion necklace—were coined by Michelle’s friend, the musician Matt Fishbeck. Exclusively for Dossier, both Michelle and the collection were captured seaside at the Vizcaya Museum in Miami by photographer Agnes Thor.

Some of Michelle’s inspirations.

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Designer Michelle Lane

From left: Rolls of denim at 3×1; 3×1 founder Scott Morrison. Images by Ian Allen.

In the past 20 years, the terms bespoke, custom and limited edition have been misused to the point of pointlessness—not dissimilar to how the ubiquitousness of the phrase “premium denim,” applied to everything from embellished to destroyed models, has rendered it insignificant. It stands to reason then that the industry’s next forefront would be simplicity—jeans that take the consumer back to the garment’s origins: the roll of denim from which they are cut, the individuals who design them and the factory where they are produced.

3×1 does exactly that, inviting customers to experience their jeans from the roll up. The latest venture from Scott Morrison, the man behind Paper Denim & Cloth (1999) and Earnest Sewn (2004), 3×1 is not only a denim line, it is a factory and retail space producing truly bespoke, custom and limited-edition jeans. Limited-edition styles are manufactured in runs of 8, 12, 16 or 24 and hemmed to order. Custom and bespoke styles include a consultation with Scott and pattern and fit expert Yan Liang. Moreover, all jeans are produced on site in the middle of the 3×1 store at 15 Mercer Street in New York City, presenting their construction in a gallery-like manner that, contextualized by the store’s SoHo neighborhood, could easily be mistaken for an art happening. In the time I spent at 3×1, chatting with Scott and his team, two things became apparent. One: Scott possesses a passion for jeans that arrives at obsession. Two: Everything about 3×1 denim is actually “premium,” from its origins to its social and environmental implications to its quality.

Erin Dixon: As a founder of Paper Denim & Cloth and Earnest Sewn, you’ve had a very illustrious career on a very grand scale. What made you want to create 3×1 and how is it different from your previous brands?

Scott Morrison: What we wanted to do was something quite smaller than anything we’ve done before. We wanted to make everything here and, basically, put the factory in the middle of the store and have total transparency into the whole process—to show the whole world what it’s like to actually see a pair of jeans made. We do three different types of products and everything is limited edition. For the basic kind of “off-the-rack” stuff, we make anywhere between 8,12, 16 or 24 pieces of any one particular style. When it’s done, we don’t make it again.

Everything comes with a sew-on button, which we clip off, and everything comes with extra-long hems and extra-long inseams. So you pick the fit, pick out your buttons and your rivets. Then, we hem everything on spot to your measurements. That’s the biggest over-the-counter stuff. The next step up [custom jeans] is to pick the jean style you like and match it with any denim you want. In men’s, we do about 65 different selvage denims from around the world and we have about 105 total denim [choices).

The next one up are [the bespoke] jeans, which we are limiting to 100 per year because of the time required. You come in before the store’s open so you have it all to yourself. We take you through the whole process and you design your own jeans. This is the cutting and sewing room, so you can see what’s happening. We also have a finishing room, which is basically the buttons and repair work. Then in the back of the space is the women’s area.

We’re really all about construction, obviously, with the factory being right here. So one of the things we try to do—much more so than I’ve been able to do at any other company I’ve had—is really make beautifully constructed garments, like a two-piece contour constructed waistband. You’d probably see it on a Balenciaga pant, not on a jean. It’s really, really time consuming to do; it has to be done by hand. [It has] stitchless belt loops, all tucked in—stuff that no factory, especially a denim factory, would ever want to try and do.

Erin: As far as the customization goes, will the entire staff be trained on the process or are there a limited number of specialists?

Scott: No, the whole staff can do it. What’s been interesting for us is to have a lot of people coming in because they hear the word “custom” and they’re like, ‘What is this? We want to see this.’ Ironically, I think more people are buying stuff that’s already made because they end up liking something, trying it on and they say, “Oh, I really like it the way it is already.” Of course it’s a little bit cheaper, too, than the custom-mades, but we are seeing a ton of custom-mades. We’re seeing less bespoke business, but it’s been great.

Erin: What about jeans keeps you passionate? What keeps you motivated on your third venture?

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Scott: This is a total passion project. I didn’t want to do another jean line so, literally, it was like: What was the first thing that I really loved and fell in love with in denim? Quite frankly, it was probably my first experience with a factory, walking into a factory and making whatever you wanted. So we’ve put a factory in the middle of our store, which I don’t think anyone has ever done that before. We really wanted to start off small, do it in a very specialized way. I wanted to make a denim product that you couldn’t get at any other place. So the fabrics are fabrics that I’ve never been able to really use because they’re so expensive. So it’s kind of like I’m falling in love again with something great.

Erin: Can you tell me a bit more about these denim fabrics that you love?

Scott: So, a lot of the mills that we normally get fabric from, especially the Japanese mills, I’ve run those fabrics for years and years and years and this is kind of a curated collection of my favorites. But there are also some mills that are so expensive, like Collect in Japan. Collect is an artisanal weaver, they only make a few hundred meters of something and it’s around $20 to $25 for a meter for fabric. Typical men’s jeans use three meters of fabric, so it’s extremely, extremely expensive. If you run a wholesale business like an Earnest Sewn or Paper Denim, it would be a $600, $700 jean, easily. So this is almost cheaper, in theory, and we are able to use fabrics that you can’t typically use in a big, commercial business.

Erin: What particularly do you love about these fabrics?

Scott: I think it’s the uniqueness. We have these linen cotton blends. Some of these lend themselves more towards really vintage, authentic-looking garments. Some of them are really novelty shades, like heather grey or seafoam, that never look vintage per se, but that’s what’s kind of cool about it. There’s a lot of novelty in some of these denims, even though they just look regular to some people. We have green casts and red casts—there are color differences, there are shade differences and over time everything kind of wears differently. You’ll see some that are really, really streaky, some that are more processed. We want to be able to educate the customers if they want to listen or learn.

Erin: Would you say Japanese denim is your favorite? Do you have a favorite—or do you have different favorites for different things?

Scott: I definitely I have favorites for different things. If you want real red-cast, traditional Americana Levi’s-y kind of stuff, Japan is very, very good—as is Cone Mills (in the United States). If you’re looking for something that’s really, really artisanal and special, I think Japan is probably the best, but also we have one mill from Italy that does really incredible novelty stuff—linen cotton blends or cashmere cotton blends, beautiful colors that you wouldn’t normally find coming out of a denim weaver. What we’ve tried to do is to really offer a great variety of things so that people can come in and pick and choose what they love and also maybe discover something they’ve never seen before.

Erin: Have you ever created a custom fabric?

Scott: I’ve worked with mills to create fabrics from day one. A lot of the fabrics at Earnest Sewn and also Paper Denim were pretty much exclusives. Typically what you do is talk about ounce weights or if there’s a shade that you really like, and they run what they call warp yarns and weft yarns. So you can design your own fabrics and then it’s about picking shades.

Erin: And how do you find your factory workers for 3×1? Have you worked with them for a while?

Scott: Yeah, actually most of them, about six of them have worked for me in the past. Yan has been my patternmaker for the last seven years. Jenny Chen, who’s our bespoke sewer, she’s been with us since Earnest Sewn days as well. She’s in charge of all the developments and all the sample sewing. It’s all local. Some have been involved in the jeans business and some we’ve had to teach. We’ve had a pretty high attrition rate as well. It’s not an easy garment that we make. One of the things that’s really interesting is we sew basically the entire jean from start to finish with one sewer, which is very different from a typical jean factory, where it’s all assembly line. We sew at an extremely high stitch count per inch. Everything is done single needle, so you can see we actually sewed this garment pretty much from start to finish twice. The stitch count typical of denim is somewhere in the middle of seven to nine stitches per inch and we’re running 11 to 15. So it’s a much slower, much more complicated jean to make. There is much more detailing, which not everyone really loves and appreciates as much as I. We chalk everything—every single piece is chalked. It’s basically perfection. We do 100% inspection on all the jeans; every single jean is inspected from start to bottom, from start to finish. I look at every single pair.

Erin: Was bringing the factory and the transparency in-house more about quality or was it about sustainability and being local?

Scott: All those things. I wasn’t really trying to be local or sustainable. It was just one of those things where we really wanted to do it well and we wanted people to understand that this is an expensive product in every way, shape and form. We wanted people to see what they’re getting. There’s something to be said about not having a feel and a form of a big assembly line, which most factories are really geared around. The beauty in this is that customers get to see it done right in front of them, and they understand that this is a small factory, if not a sample room. We make 20 to 25 jeans a day. It’s really, really straight forward. We do everything on site—any alteration, any hemming. We do it all here.

Erin: In that vein, in comparison with the huge companies you have owned in the past, is this more or less work?

Scott: [This is] way, way more work. We think of new ideas every day and develop concepts every two days. In one sense it’s easier because, in theory, you can come up with something and literally come upstairs and put something into work. It doesn’t always work quite that easily, but for the most part that’s how it happens.

What’s typical in a wholesale business is you come up with an idea, you make a few hundred [items] and you sell them. It takes a lot of time to develop something, which is both good and bad. This has a lot more complexity in the sense that we’re running a factory and retail store and a design studio and eventually a wholesale business. It is neat for people to come in and have a voice and pick and choose the way that they want it done. Quite frankly, I’ve been pretty impressed. We had a guy come in and the choices he made were actually great choices and he made this really, really cool jean. It was one of those things where I was like, ‘Wow, this great. I think we’ll want to do something like this for the main collection.”

Erin: You actually just answered my next question: Do you get inspiration from other people and/or how does that design process work?

Scott: It depends. [Our set up] gives you a tremendous amount of flexibility as a designer to be able to say, “Hey, we can almost do anything.” We can’t do anything, anything, but we can definitely do a lot more than you could do at any place I’ve ever worked. So that, in itself, is exciting.

Over the last six or seven years, women have been consumed by basic five-pocket jeans. Guys still typically fixate on a traditional five-pocket, which seems to make more sense for us. But for girls, right now you have much more fashion sense—people looking for something that they don’t have. What we really try to do is rethink the way we do basic jeans, so a basic jean is really not a basic jean; it’s definitely not going to be the same as anything that you’ve got in your closet right now. We have some good starting points and we’re slowly evolving in the brand. We’re just starting to see what we can do, and we’re just starting to get the team really comfortable.

Erin: What are men looking for right now?

Scott: I’m a dumb guy, most guys are dumb. They don’t want fashion— we’re much more straightforward. The guy who comes in here is looking for something that he can wear all the time, something that he thinks he looks great in at night or whatever he’s going to do. Skinny jean, slim jean, we’re not doing anything that’s too trendy. Our guy customer is varying in age from 60 to 20, but they still all want a basic, straightforward, good fitting pair of jeans.

Erin: And what is the philosophy behind the subliminal, sort of gallery-esque feel of the shop’s décor?

Scott: What I really wanted to do was fuse a bit of the SoHo gallery feel into the workspace. The two big thoughts were the factory in the middle of the store, so people can see it, which lent itself to this space really, really well, and we also wanted to showcase the process—the elements of the process: the denim wall or the way we present the products on the wall. We wanted the space to feel like a gallery—we wanted it to be a little bit different. Obviously, the retail experience itself is a little bit different; it’s a little unique. It’s not like you can just walk in here and help yourself, like in most stores. There’s a lot that needs to be told about the process. I do want people to come in, even if it’s just to see the whole thing—to just look at it and go, “Wow, this is great,” or “This is interesting. I’ve never seen this before.”

Erin: What do you think is the largest gap in consumers’ knowledge of how a jean is made—what’s the part that they don’t get?

Scott: Most people think you actually press a button and out comes this perfectly washed jean, but I certainly don’t have any real concept of how something’s done unless I’ve actually seen it happen. So I think people probably don’t associate all the steps. There are 31 steps to make a jean; it’s not super complicated, but it’s fairly complicated for what seems simple like a pair of jeans.

Erin: That is a rare opportunity in fashion, to be able to work with people to create something unique.

Scott: Some people really enjoy learning about the process and asking questions. Some people will come in and love to hear a bit about the jeans, a bit about our process. You also have the choice if you want to watch your pair being made—and if you have four or five hours to kill. It is neat to be involved in all those different decision-making processes and at the end of the day what you walk out with is actually something for you—it’s really yours.

All images courtesy of 3×1

The eminent fashion editor Diana Vreeland had an inimitably sardonic way with declarations that left little room for response, partially because any retort to the truth often falls flat. Such is the case with her below witticism: There’s nothing more boring than narcissism—the tragedy of being totally… me. We’re all capable of it. And we all know examples of it—these beautiful tragedies.

With the new year upon us, this is an apt reminder from a woman who dedicated her adult life to aesthetics. Fashion and style aren’t by nature narcissistic, but in a quest for beauty it is easy to lose sight of the consequences of our choices—whether it be where our clothes come from, the materials from which they are constructed, who makes them or where their profits end up. So, start 2012 not by making resolutions but by taking a moment to reflect upon your impact on the world.

Begin by studying the true cost of a garment via the Clean Clothes Campaign. Educate yourself about the ongoing battle over ivory (spoiler: elephants are on the losing side) at IvoryTrade.org and via this tragic and illuminating article by Alex Shoumatoff for Vanity Fair. Closer to home, investigate the New York fashion industry’s fight for survival at SavetheGarmentCenter.org.

Take action by contributing to Fashion Delivers, a charitable organization that donates new products to aid victims of disasters and individuals in need throughout the year. Or join Art Walk, which brings together artists and art lovers in an effort to empower our homeless neighbors and celebrate the most accomplished artists of our time. Meanwhile, Safe Horizon helps battered women and children and homeless teens find a safe space and a future.

Spend wisely by purchasing items that give back. PeaceTags.org takes what has become an irreverent accessory, military dog tags, and inscribes them with words of peace from Maya Angelou, Benito Juarez and other decisive voices, using the profits to heal the wounds of war inflicted on American veterans. The ongoing, ever-expanding FEED Project, dedicated to feeding children worldwide, now includes bangles, scarves, tees and more. Ralph Lauren’s Pink Pony continues to combat breast cancer and the (RED) Campaign persists in its battle against AIDS in Africa.

In short, there is plenty to do—and with baby steps we can avoid becoming those boring narcissists so condemned by Ms. Vreeland and evolve into something bigger than ourselves and infinitely more interesting.

Above: An African lone bull elephant. Image by Chris Johns via National Geographic.

How to spice up your holiday downtime, as brought to you by Matt Lenski for Alexander Olch.

1) Cross dress.
2) Wear a formal top and no pants to dinner.
3) Affect a superior attitude.
4) Pair up with a family member of the opposite sex. Create a script, wherein one of you talks while the other mouths the words.
5) Finally learn how to tie a tie.

Since the 1980s, Belgium’s growing reputation as the avant-garde capital of fashion has centered around Antwerp and names like Ann Demeulemeester, Dries Van Noten and Martin Margiela. Back in the 19th century, however, it was the nation’s capital, Brussels, that was known to the industry’s international set, thanks to Delvaux, among the world’s oldest purveyors of fine luxury goods.

Founded in 1829, Delvaux made its debut as a travel trunk company, quickly expanding to suitcases, boxes and ladies’ handbags as it saw its star rise. Nearly 200 years later, the brand remains a bellwether of the industry, in both quiet beauty and exceptional craft, living by a mantra that includes: strong, timeless, elegant.

To encapsulate these words, the brand recently commissioned director Jake Davis to capture the very different creative beauties Carmen dell’Orefice, Zani Gugelmann and Francesca Bonato. The result is three dreamy vignettes, each set in a different part of New York City: Carmen seemingly on the Upper East Side, Francesca on Bond Street  and Zani on The High Line. All carry a heritage Delvaux bag. Francesca and Carmen have the Tempête from 1967 while Zani has the Brillant, which was originally crafted for the 1958 Brussels World’s Fair. Contextualized differently by each woman’s unique look, individual styling and Jake’s nuanced direction, the Delvauxs assert their place in a contemporary wardrobe, affirming strength, timelessness and elegance as possessions of a woman—the bag is simply their reflection.

From left: Kalen Kaminski and Astrid Chastka. Image by Shay Harrington.

As famous for his spectacularly coiffed ‘fro as he was for his television show, The Joy of Painting, Bob Ross soothed legions of amateur artists by stating, “We don’t have mistakes here—we just have happy accidents.” For fashion designers Astrid Chastka and Kalen Kaminski, these happy accidents are the foundation of their craft. As the owners of Upstate, a line of shibori-inspired womenswear and accessories, Astrid and Kalen custom dye each of their pieces using either arashi or itajime shibori techniques. The arashi technique involves strategic folding, whereas itajime relies on “resists,” which are clamped to a piece and subsequently create patterns. Depending on the fabric, chemistry of the dye bath and integrity of the resist, the results spontaneously vary, ranging in color depth, gradation and detail, rendering each piece unique.

Erin Dixon: Tell us about your respective backgrounds and how you met.

Kalen Kaminski: I grew up in Colorado and was the “horse girl” until high school. Every class has one of those, right? The girl who incorporates horses into every story, drawing, math problem, etc. Astrid Chastka: I studied architecture and worked in landscape and architecture firms for three years before meeting Kalen and starting Upstate. We met through a mutual friend in New York City.

Erin: Was there an “aha” moment from which Upstate evolved—what does the name Upstate reference?

Astrid: Kalen and I share a love for the outdoors and both have a dream of being able to escape to a little place in the woods where there’s space and quiet to create. Upstate is a way for us to lose ourselves in the creative process without actually going anywhere. Kalen: Astrid and I both agree that when you work with your hands, your mind just goes to another place. The name Upstate came after our first scarves were made. For weeks, we would text, email and have brainstorms trying to come up with these long, silly alliterated names. Some pretty hilarious and horrible names arose from this, but finally Upstate felt right.

Erin: How did you move from creating wraps and scarves into ready-to-wear?

Astrid: We kept getting requests for clothing. We love that the scarves are so versatile, but sometimes you just want to put on something without thinking about it too much. Kalen: We had both been looking for pieces of clothing that were multifunctional, especially in New York summer weather. When we couldn’t find anything, we decided we would push our luck and make our own. What we came up with was a hit among friends, so we moved forward with it. Originally, it was going to be a tunic but it progressed naturally and we couldn’t resist expanding our designs.

Erin: I know you were originally inspired by shibori tapestries; how did you come across them and what in them spoke to you?

Upstate Spring 2012 Lookbook. Photography by PAMU (Paola Ambrosi de Magistris and Murray Hall). Styling by Julie Williams. Makeup by Erin Green. Set Design by Angharad Bailey. Models: Angela Pham and Holland Brown.

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Astrid: For me it was the detail and geometry involved. Shibori tapestries are beautiful on so many scales. If you look at the whole piece you notice the overlying geometric pattern, but if you look at any area closely you discover some pretty amazing moments. A lot of people have said it reminds them of a Rorschach test, and I love that comparison. One of my favorite books is Shibori: the Inventive Art of Japanese Shape Resist Dyeing by Yoshiko Wada. Kalen: My old roommate is an amazing artist and had piles of art around his room. He had a hand-dyed shibori tapestry hanging up, and it really spoke to us and felt unique and special. To this day—after dyeing hundreds of pieces—I am still excited to see the pieces after they are finished dyeing. You never can be one hundred percent certain what a tiny fold and or the slightest change in the compression of a resist will do.

Erin: You use all different types of materials as “resists;” what is your favorite place to hunt for them and what is the most unlikely resist you have used?

Kalen: I once used a cholla cactus skeleton that my boyfriend brought back from Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument in Arizona. It broke halfway through the dye bath but still left a beautiful resist pattern. Astrid: Sometimes we design our own resists and cut them out of plywood using a CNC router. Kalen designed a horseshoe… Maybe that’s her second favorite.

Erin: Walk us through the hand-dying process.

Kalen: It’s sort of like baking a cake. You need to measure all your ingredients, have the right supplies and, most importantly, be very patient. Astrid: First, we cut the fabric and fold it accordion style in one direction. Then we fold it in the other direction so it becomes a dense but organized fabric mass. We clamp the resists to it and soak it while we prepare the other “ingredients.” We add dye, salt and soda ash to the bucket and let it sit. Small changes in these ingredients will affect the intensity and colorfastness of the dye bath.

Erin: What are you trying to communicate with Upstate?

Kalen: That’s a hard question, but I don’t think many people have a piece of art/clothing they can wear and fully embrace everyday, knowing it is one of a kind, made with love and will never be replicated. It still excites me to wash out every individual piece and discover new details I’ve never noticed. Each piece of Upstate only becomes better as you look at it more and more.

Erin: Tell us about the Spring 2012 collection, including your favorite piece.

Astrid: My favorite piece is the tea-length dress. It’s so easy-breezy. I love they way long skirts swish around you when you’re walking. Kalen: Because it was our first ready-to-wear collection, we wanted to start small and simple. Since our dye techniques can look a little insane, depending on the technique, we thought it would be best to keep each shape simple with small differences in length and hem. I’d have to go with the crop top and the tea-length as my favorite pieces. I wish I could get away with wearing the entire collection at the same time, but I may look like a burnout vagrant gypsy….which actually may not be such a bad thing.

Erin: How would you like to see Upstate evolve?

Astrid: We’d love to do large scale installations! And quilts—we’ve been making quilts. We’re always thinking of new ways to use the fabric scraps. In the coming Fall 2012 season, we’re exploring new materials and more involved patterns. Kalen: I agree—quilts and installations! We will need tons of quilts for when we have homes with fire pits in the country.

Left: Metalepsis Projects 2012 collection map. Right: A wood-black print of necklace e2.

Growing up in the 1980s, when Roger W. Sperry’s Right Brain-Left Brain Theory was ruling the American educational system, I was quickly classified as a right-brainer, an individual who recognizes the world through “intuitive, thoughtful and subjective terms,” as opposed to the “logical, analytical and objective” methods of left-brainers. Or, as I more tangibly learned in high school, a left-brainer intuitively grasps the periodic table while a right-brainer is left both bored and bewildered by the scientific chart. Consequently, when I was first introduced to Metalepsis Projects’ 2012 collection, I was momentarily intimidated. The conception of former architects Victoria Cho and Astrid Chastka, Metalepsis Projects interweaves architectural theory, including mid-century Scandinavian buildings, with inspirations from fine art—notably Sol LeWitt’s Finite Series—and the natural world into geometric bronze accessories that appear both tribal and elemental. Presented as a tabular display or in the designers’ words a “map,” the collection builds upon itself, interacting and evolving to create new compounds, just like fluorine and nitrogen. Only this time the corollary makes perfect sense, no matter your dominate brain lobe.

Erin Dixon: Tell us about your professional backgrounds.

Victoria Cho: Trained as architects, we practiced in the field for several years after school. We connected over our mutual impulse to create things outside of the office.

Astrid Chastka: Yes, we met working at the same architecture firm in 2008.

Erin: As former architects, what drew you to making jewelry?

Victoria: We have learned so many techniques and skills to make things. We wanted to use those for different [and smaller] applications, in this case jewelry because we both love accessorizing.

Erin: How was Metalepsis Projects born and how did you select its name?

Victoria: We had an idea for laser-cut stainless steel Victorian laces and it evolved from there.

Astrid: In literary terms, metalepsis is a figurative word used repeatedly in slightly different ways or to connect slightly different themes. The meaning of the word evolves with each use. For us, this parallels the design process as it expands to include new ideas and materials.

Erin: When did you first discover Sol LeWitt [whose Infinite Series you name as a primary influence]?

Astrid: In college. For me [it was] in a course called Lessons in Making. It was the class that made me want to transfer into the architecture school. It was the first time I’d ever fully appreciated conceptual art.

Victoria: In my art history class in college.

Erin: What drew you to his work?

Necklaces from the 2012 collection

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Victoria: Modularity is one of the critical concepts involved in the development of modern architecture. Sol LeWitt’s work explores this same concept in artistic territory. Much of his work—sculpture—is an intersection between art and architecture. In drafting our initial idea, we were excited by how he had executed the idea of modularity both in 2D and 3D.

Astrid: And by how he got away with doing only the most fun parts of architecture: thinking, hand-drafting and building models at a smaller scale than buildings!

Erin: Why do you choose to work in bronze?

Astrid: At the start, we knew nothing about making jewelry. We knew how to draw shapes in CAD and laser cut them. We were limited to the materials that the laser fabricators are willing to use with their machinery: stainless steel and brass. The steel felt too cold and, in the end, to laser cut each piece was too expensive. We were forced into learning about the casting process. I think we wanted the feel of something less precious than silver or gold. Bronze immediately felt right.

Erin: Why is it important to you that the pieces evolve over time—e.g., their patina changes as it encounters different elements?

Victoria: It’s a celebration of the inherit properties of the material. It speaks to a certain uniqueness of each piece and, therefore, it becomes very personal.

Astrid: We’re very interested in the dichotomy between mass production and customization. The idea that you can cast multiples from the same mold but still have it personalized, through the choice of combination and patina, is something we design towards.

Erin: How and where are your pieces produced?

Victoria: We first laser-cut samples of all the pieces to make the molds. Then, we have each piece cast. Finally, Astrid and I assemble all the pieces according to the orders.

Astrid: The casting and production happens in New York City. Sam, who owns the casting operation, is Colombian and Victoria is Argentinian. He tells jokes about how arrogant Argentinians are every time one of us is in there.

Erin: What is something else we should know about Metalepsis Project?

Astrid: Metalepsis Projects is also heavily influenced by the artist Steve Keene. Steve’s whole life is a large-scale conceptual art and even a performance art piece that explores the boundaries between mass production and individuality. He is the one who sparked our notion of “making architecture what we want it to be.”

Walking into Greg Lauren’s installation Barracks feels like the physical counterpart to reading The Things They Carried. The air hangs heavy with ghosts of military’s past, which are embodied by 30 one-of-a-kind garments—all available for purchase—that Greg has constructed from re-purposed military fabrics taken from vintage Army duffle bags, tents, parkas and sweaters. Though many of the pieces are also featured in his seasonal men’s and women’s collections, for the installation Greg has brought his fascination with uniforms and forgotten materials full circle by donating a portion of the proceeds from Barracks to the Operation Mend veteran’s charity. While the installation closes today, November 20, Greg’s work can be found online and at Barneys New York.

Barracks will be on view through November 20 at 125-127 Grand Street, NYC.

FACTORY by Erik Hart, Fall 2011

There’s a converse directness and ambiguity to Erik Hart’s work that leaves one with a feeling of pleasant unease, mostly because although it’s austere it can’t be readily contextualized. Though Erik designs a womenswear line called FACTORY by Erik Hart, he doesn’t label FACTORY as a clothing brand, but rather: “a concept collection—an interdisciplinary exercise with its focus on the creation/production of clothing, installation, video, sound and objects.” Having launched the successful luxury streetwear label Morphine Generation in the early 2000s, monetary success isn’t his primary goal. In fact, Erik also eschewed an early career in music—fronting post-punk, noise and hardcore bands—because of that industry’s commercial requirements.

FACTORY is instead about cultivating ideas. Though he is LA-based, Erik often travels to London and Berlin, cities famous for their boundary-breaking creative communities. And if his designs were to be compared to predecessors, they would likely be placed alongside those of Belgian conceptualists Martin Margiela and Ann Demeulemeester. Like Martin and Ann, Erik focuses on the underlying importance of form, using monochrome to emphasize an object’s place in space. Which isn’t to say he is a perfectionist. Erik is a messy purist in both personality and practice. He pares down to overwhelm and creates equilibrium amongst a torrent of inspirations. The tension of opposites informs all of his work. He is post-modern in his embracement of ambiguity, yet modern in his use of clean lines and monochrome. He lacks a formal education, yet is a voracious seeker of information.

A few months after our meeting, I received an email from Erik, stating: “I wanted to share with you these latest works-in-progress. They are from a series of objects and paintings. The idea is that they are artifacts from a future, which may not be realized…post-capitalist relics. They comment on the idea of home and private space. The home is the modern ‘symbol’ of protection and security within our current socio-econ system. They are composed of wood, primer, paint, insulation, glue, pornography, tarps and wallpaper—all materials that constitute the basis and idea of home and personal space vs. public arenas.” It is this inclination towards introspection that perhaps best explains Erik’s work. It is insistently intimate and, more so than an amalgamation of various inspirations, the embodiment of his visceral experiences.

Erin Dixon: Your background is so diverse and you have so many different influences. I know you have an upbringing in music… How did you come to fashion?

Erik Hart: Well, my background is music. By the age of 16, I was basically playing in various noise punk, electronic and hardcore bands, and that consumed my early life. As a way to support my band, I guess, in 2003 I started a collection out of my garage. It was really simple. I just made a couple of hand silkscreened t-shirts and walked into stores in Santa Monica. I think our first store was Fred Segal, some store in Los Angeles and I just assumed, ‘Oh this looks like a really nice store.’ So I walked in and said “Hey, this is what I made. What do I need to do to sell it to you?” And they said I needed to talk to the buyer. And I’m like, “Well, how do I do that?” And they were like, “Come back. He’s here on blah, blah, blah.” So I show up to the shop and the buyer goes, “Oh, these are great,” and he came back and gave me a $5,000 order right there.” Then I wanted more orders so I walked into another store and was like, “I just sold to this store.” So I built my entire business off the first six months by literally just hand silkscreening stuff and going door to door.

Erin: And those were unisex t-shirts?

Erik: Yeah, they were just casual but really luxurious, soft, beautiful, well-made t-shirts. That was Morphine Generation.

Erin: That was your fashion education.

Erik: Yeah, I never went to fashion school. That was my fashion school, just getting thrown into it. And Morphine turned into a pretty successful, well-respected luxury street label. That grew and every year I kind of challenged myself to make something new. I got bored just making t-shirts. I wanted to make my first jacket, so I went to the V&A [Victoria & Albert Museum] in London and I stuck myself in the library upstairs. I spent a couple days just looking at the old sartorial tailored looks. I didn’t know what the fuck they meant, but I just took it and looked at it and the construction and came back to a patternmaker and made my first trench coat. Then I wanted to make a dress. It just really organically evolved…I challenged myself with new things that I wanted to do, growing it and developing the full collection and showing in New York, and being in at one point in 200 top stores throughout the world.

Erin: So how did you get to where you are now?

Works-in-Progress by Erik Hart

Click “Read More” for additional images and text.

Erik: As I was growing, I felt that I really wanted to be able to isolate things and separate the collection elements from the casual elements. So I launched my eponymous collection, which is Erik Hart, and then that transitioned. That was actually at the peak of the recession, so that transitioned into what is now FACTORY by Erik Hart. I’ve never just done one thing; that notion is so antiquated. Everyone has multiple disciplines and everything is influenced by [these various disciplines], so I like to consider people “creatives,” really. The whole point of this collection is that it is an interdisciplinary exercise: fashion production is one part, installation is another, and song is another thing… And no one thing is more or less important.

I was always inspired by Factory Records out of Manchester. They’re the label that launched Joy Division and New Order, Happy Mondays… It wasn’t so much about the music for me but more on a conceptual level. For example, Factory put out their first New Order record and it would be called Factory One. And then they build their first studios and that was Factory Two, and then they got posters and it was Factory Three. Everything was a component to the whole and there was no difference between the band and the art director or the building; it was all one thing, really. This is a creative umbrella for me to do all those things and not be like, ‘Oh, I’m doing fashion-art.” These are things I’ve always done. There’s really no separation in my life between the personal, work and fashion. I think to be constantly receptive to things, you have to be that way. It comes from a place of integrity and I hope that everything I do has a sense of integrity.

Erin: By integrity, you mean coming from a very authentic place within you and not driven by the outside commerce?

Erik: Yeah, I think there are commerce expectations that you have to meet. My work is dependent on an audience. Without audience interaction, it’s completely pointless. With most of the things I do, whether it be creating or clothes or photography or an image or whatever, I want to evoke. I want to have that dialogue with people. I want people to be able to react to the things I’m doing. If it was completely introspective and just my own thing, I’d just stay in my garage.

Erin: Did that conversation inform how FACTORY has developed so far? Is it a reaction to the people you directly work with or a reaction to the stores? What defines the “conversation”?

Erik: It’s usually about what I feel is right at the time. For instance, my girlfriend is a conceptual artist based in London, so I work in London a lot. I grew up going there about six times a year. So for the fall collection we went to London and shot this girl; I styled and art directed the video. Then coinciding with this, about two days later, there was an exhibition in Berlin and I juxtaposed the lines and the emotion I got from the work [in the exhibition] with the lines of my collection, so basically this collection is about working within the restrictions of geometry.

Erin:  In the terms that you use it, there is a geometry to the fall collection, but it is languid; it is a very relaxed silhouette.

Erik: Yeah, and that’s important. I love tailoring but I like to do what I call “soft tailoring.” It’s anti-restriction. From the way I want to interact with it to the conversations to the way you want to feel from a political standpoint, it’s anti-restriction.

Erin: How has your use of and interest in style changed from when you were working on your first brand?

Erik: The intention is exactly the same. Aesthetically, I think it has been an evolution. Your eye gets trained. You refine your vision. You refine the way you see the cloth… A perfect example is, when I first started I always thought in sound. Everything related to a melody or a rhythm. Visual was important, but it was always sound first and then, “How do I create aesthetic out of that?” Now there’s a constant rhythm under everything I do; however, I feel like I’m being visually assaulted in the best possible way, constantly.

Erin: And why with FACTORY have you chosen to focus particularly on womenswear?

Erik: Well, I love menswear. However I’m very, very passionate about women. In general, I love women and dressing them for men. FACTORY is how I would dress if I were a woman. The girls always make fun of me in the design studio because I’m like, “Oh my God, I want to put this on! I wish I could wear this dress!” I think there’s a lot of idealism in fashion, which I think it’s important, but it’s just an exercise in art and commerce. Before I knew who Rei Kawakubo was, I read a quote of hers that was something that was like, “Design my clothes or redesign my business.” And it’s true. Actually, technically, that’s part of the dialogue of working with your audience, fortunately and unfortunately.

Erin: Speaking to the word idealism, is your goal consciously—or not—to create the ideal form of a woman?

Pages from Erik’s online diary

Erik: It’s the exact opposite. I’ve had girlfriends that are 6’1” and my girlfriend now, she’s short, but it’s how you put the clothes together. She wears my maxi dresses and rocks these huge oversized pieces, and it creates a completely different motion than someone six-feet tall wearing the same thing. I create pieces that I want to see on women and pieces that I don’t think are restricted to a body type or height. If you’re comfortable with yourself to the extent that you want to try new things, you disregard the,”Oh, that’s too long for me or this might be a little big on me.” Then there’s how technology has fueled access to the way to put things together? I think people know and understand proportions and aesthetics on a higher level than they did years ago. So when you go into a store, you know how you want to put something together; I’m assuming you know what’s going to look good on you. I think that the common person or the common consumer has an understanding of how they want to evoke something or how it’s going to look on them. There’s a luxury to that in a sense that you don’t have to design with “this is my girl” in mind. The art of it is how you communicate someone else’s idea and I think that’s what a lot of people are learning to do with clothes. I don’t think we give the consumer enough credit. That’s why I want to have more dialogue directly to the consumer. How do we talk to our customer? We talk to our buyers but how do we talk to the person who’s going to be buying our clothes?

Erin: Have you come up with a solution to that?

Erik: Yeah many. We need interactive events. I have all of the ideas of things I want to do, but we need proper partners to help execute them and we’re working with some people. Also if you look at, for example, Tumblr; I have a Tumblr account and it’s one of my diaries and the communication that goes on there is pretty incredible. But, in actuality, when these people write me, they’re like 14- to 16-year-old girls in Kansas. They might not know what they’re looking at, but the things that they’re posting or whatever they’re trying to communicate, their eye and the way it’s developing is quite sophisticated. I think the whole idea that consumers aren’t sophisticated or they don’t have an eye for this or an eye for that is changing so rapidly because of technology. It’s crazy.

Erin: The question within that is whether there is a cultural A.D.D.? Are these same viewers going to take the time to process and contextualize these ideas in a way that they’re adding to the creative conversation?

Erik: That is an issue. I like to, hopefully, think that they do, but probably not. But at least there’s appreciation. I’m sure there is a small group of people who are going to be inspired to go to the next level but I do think that their attention is intensely short.

Erin: To talk about the actual logistics of your collection, do you produce everything in Los Angeles?

FACTORY by Erik Hart, Fall 2011

Erik: No, it changes. We produce about 80% of it overseas and then some of the things are produced in New York. But as China is getting more expensive, it looks like there’s definitely going to be a resurgence to bring stuff back here, which I think is important. The reason I produce in China is not because there’s a dramatic cost savings—these days there’s not. There are just really not a lot of skilled tailors in Los Angeles. There’s a pool of them in New York and a small pool in LA but they’re obscenely, obscenely expensive. Luxury companies are using these same houses. They’ll get the fabric from Italy, Japan or France, and they’ll cut and sew there but then they finish somewhere else.

Erin: With your prints and the lines, there’s a lot of depth to them but then there’s also a very minimalist aesthetic. Do you tend to pare down or is the original thought generally what it is?

Erik: Minimalism is great, but it’s more about purity for me—the purity of idea. For example, I’ll refine things to the simplest element of what it needs to be to communicate what I’m trying to do. It’s not that I’m trying to strip the garment, but I come from a place where I’ll drape on the form and it has to be pure. It’s got to follow the lines of the body; it’s got to flow. If it’s a jacket, I don’t need big buttons and big pockets. It is a conscious thing and unconscious thing. It’s an exercise in finding the tension between androgyny and femininity, and removing anything that detracts from the purity of that space. I’m not really a loud person; I don’t like my clothing too loud. The loudest thing I think I do is my prints.

Erin: Tell me a little about kind of your other video projects and photography.

Erik: Photography is something I’ve always done; I actually did that before music. I got into it at the age of 13 when I was skateboarding. I was taking pictures and creating images but not in the context of “this is art.” I just felt the need to do something. It was a response. From an early age I always wanted to respond and document the things I was seeing. That’s how I got into photography and then music. And pictures led to doing videos. It’s about capturing a moment, capturing a feeling. That’s what I try to do through my work.

Erin: Who tend to be your subjects?

Erik: It started off with a lot of people and lately it’s objects. I like to combine images, usually objects mixed with people. I like the idea that things have history—and the idea of scent. I think it’s a really underutilized form of communication. It’s so old and it can be so eloquent and can communicate so many things. You can smell something and you can think about the first person you were with when you were 15 years old or you can think about where you were one time. It can make you sick. It’s amazing. People communicate with it on a serious level.

Erin: Yeah, there are some amazing perfumers out there..

Erik: Well, I work with CB I Hate Perfume. He’s a genius. We were talking about how to completely remove a scent, and he said there’s this one chemical that is designed to remove every scent from the room.

Erin: Like a scent sponge.

Erik: Yeah. It’s just so weird when you think about it, but it makes perfect sense. The reason I like that is because I’m all about getting to the point of nothing. You have to be at a point of nothing to be completely receptive to music. I practice Transcendental Meditation and the whole point of it—at least my understanding of it—is really getting to nothing, getting to a point of zero. Your body actually is most relaxed when it’s doing nothing. When you’re not even breathing and you have to do nothing, your body likes that the best, actually. So when we get to these states where there is nothing, you’re supposed to subconsciously get an influx of ideas. It’s insane.

Works-in-Progress by Erik Hart

Edith A. Miller + J. Crew henley and scoop-neck t-shirt.

Edith A. Miller is proud to be an American. Rather than a flag-waving lady, however, she is a clothing label started by Jennifer Murray and Nancy Gibson. Escaping New York City for a weekend on Fire Island, the friends found that they were wearing the same vintage striped, hard-to-find t-shirt from the East Coast brand Robert P. Miller. Summoning up their quintessentially American entrepreneurial spirit, they called the factory that had been producing the shirts since 1906 and convinced them to manufacture a sister label of tops and leggings, which they dubbed Edith A. Miller. Like Robert, Edith is 100% domestic—from her Carolina cotton to her composition in Pennsylvania. And now, she has partnered with archetypal American retailer J. Crew to offer three signature styles: a short-sleeve, scoop neck t-shirt in black and natural stripes, the henley in navy with red pencil stripes and the long, scoop neck dress in navy with natural pin stripes. Here Jennifer and Nancy speak with Dossier about the collaboration, the stripes and the stars of the collection.

Erin Dixon: How would you describe the “modern American woman?”

Jennifer Murray: She takes pride in her appearance while maintaining a confident and ambitious attitude. Nancy Gibson: She is an action figure always doing, pursuing and helping others—and she counts on her clothing to support her public and private agenda of accomplishment.

Erin: What is your first fashion memory of J. Crew?

Jennifer: I grew up reading J. Crew catalogues and always wanted all of their stripey bathing suits! It is clear that they have grown tremendously and have created such a strong presence in the fashion industry. I think any woman can wear their clothing, which is very impressive. Nancy: My first fashion memory of J. Crew is the catalogue, of course. I always noticed how they would take a classic or a basic and get rid of the fusty-dusty look by getting the color and the styling right. I also had a friend from college who worked for the company a few years after graduation and she always looked put together in a way that suggested she was having more fun!

Erin: Where do the missions of J.Crew and Edith A. Miller meet?

Jennifer: Speaking for Edith A. Miller, and I’m confident that J. Crew would concur, our missions both aim to create pieces that will remain closet staples for women of all ages at an approachable price point. I think both strive to create collections that are unique and have a sense of wit to them. Nancy: In the area of women’s clothing, we are both American clothing companies where women make the key decisions about the product that is being offered to other women. At the same time, we want to create interesting pieces each season. We also want to create items that hold their own alongside well-worn favorites in our customer’s closet over time.

Erin: What do you love about stripes?

Jennifer: Stripes, to me, are timeless, chic and happy. I’ve always loved the traditional French look, and stripes reflect this elegance. They look great on everyone, from babies to Picasso to my grandma! Nancy: What’s not to love? Stripes are a form found in nature so they are “naturally” a classic and give order, strength and attention to everything they touch and define. Besides, they look fun!

Erin: Which is your favorite piece from the collaboration?

Jennifer:I love the henley! It has a true vintage feel to it with the overlock stitching and cuffs. It feels like a cozy hand me down from my dad. Nancy: I can’t help it but I love our Edith A. Miller henley! It’s got it all. Layered on top or layered underneath. Buttoned. Unbuttoned. Sleeves pushed up. Sleeves stretched long. I think it gives us all lots of ways to work with and enjoy wearing it!