coutorture --

Interview With Slow & Steady Wins The Race

coutorture — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 09:32:39 -0700

Slow and Steady Wins the Race had us at hello, and with a quick look at this line’s manifesto we were obviously swooning. Here’s a recap: The collections, which they call issues, act as a experimental study of fashion basics which look into the depths of everything from seams to wedding dresses to iconic bags. SSWTR releases four collections a year, while keeping their price point, and number of pieces produced, squarely at one hundred. Whether it's the common brown paper bag redone in suede or luxury-inspired bags made out of low-end fabrics (think: Chanel in canvas), the work here is not only highly conceptual, but spiked with much needed humor. What better way to laugh at ourselves, after all, than through fashion.

SSWTR operates with an anonymous designer as a way to keep the focus on the designs and not the face who created them. The designer, who will remain a mystery, chats with us by telephone about future plans and how it all started.

How did the idea to design Slow and Steady Wins the Race form?
It came out of years of thinking about fashion from an academic point of view during college. It was always sitting in the back of my brain, but not until after graduation, and a year after launching my signature line, and I think coupled with the September 11th attacks when everyone started reevaluating certain things, when I sat down and started thinking about fashion from a different standpoint--less consumerism and less about vanity.

Did you have any background with conceptual designing before this line?
Not so much designing, I studied art at Vassar. I did a lot of sculpture, and Vassar was great in that we had our major, but we also had a pretty broad curriculum, so I feel like I was constantly thinking about how things fit into one another. That was the approach I took with design, and it is different because I didn’t come from a design background.

Do you have any specific inspirations when you are designing. You call them issues, right?
Yeah, for me I think it was the easiest way for me to go about addressing everything, so there are issues that I’ll work on. For a long time I just made a list of sort of 'fundamentals' of clothing design that I could address. The goal is to really offer everything at 100 dollars as a signifier.

Could you give me a example of that in relation to the current issue?
Well the current one, for Fall, is no. 19 Luxe. I wanted to talk about the state of luxury goods...It’s just something I’ve been looking into and just being very aware of because luxury goods are actually the one factor that seem to be doing well. I think that’s a very interesting phenomenon.

So, I thought “What can I draw in terms of luxury”, and for me luxury is about sort of attaining a certain goal, so there’s three tiers in the luxe collection. So, the first of three is the basic white Tee-shirt with a pocket and everything, but it’s encrusted in hand-embroidered pearls. Then we have the bodega bag, the grocery bag, but it’s in alligator. Then the birkin bag, which historically, on it’s own, is probably the most expensive bag. There’s always a waiting list, and it has always had this legacy, it's a four-sided leather birkin bag.

The face of the bag is the same and the proportions of the face are the same size, but it’s actually repeated four times, and inside there are four interior pockets and so its a comment on the repetition and how luxury is always about accumulation and certain showing a type of face.

Have you ever had copyright issues, any big companies ever come after you?
Well actually a couple of months ago in May, after six years of doing this, we got a cease and decease from Chanel, but only for using the name. I understood that they own the name...All we had to do was get rid of all the occurrences of the actual word Chanel. So, that was fine. I just find it kind of amusing that it’s taken this long for them to take action. They didn’t have any actual problems with the bag itself, we weren’t asked to discontinue it.

What exactly is the meaning behind making the designer invisible and why did you want to do it?
I just wanted the work to be the focal point, and also in a way it’s undressing this recent phenomenon as the designer as a celebrity, which is the total opposite of what Slow and Steady Wins the Race is about. It’s really about this refocusing everything and creating a well-defined object, and it’s really about the work; and just concentrating on the work and the message and not having to associate with someone. Which I think still at the end of the day is a little bit bizarre because, well, you are wearing clothes or you’re carrying an accessory, you’re not carrying a person’s face. So, I always find it funny, “Why do you need a photo of me? Why can’t you take a photo of the shirt?”

How does that work in with your own signature line where you are visible as a designer? How do you balance the two?
Well, it was hard for a long time. I would always encounter people who either knew one or the other or knew both and when they would want to try and talk about it, they would strangely separate Slow and Steady as this accessories line that was a branch of my signature line, and I think they are two completely different things. So, balancing that was hard, sort of like a press level, but in terms of executing it was really hard because it was like designing two lines that fit into different spaces. It’s more than 24 hours a day, and I just didn’t physically have capacity to do it anymore at the same time. I was really burned out, so I stopped my signature line and I will probably come back to it in a couple of years. Spring ’08 was the last collection. I might revisit in spring 2010. I was burned out and I sort of wanted to reconcile the fact that Slow and Steady has an incredible response and I just figured now is the time to pay attention to that.

We have 10 Corso Como and all their stores in Korea and Tokyo, and when you think of 10 Corso Como it’s this very curated, design fashion boutique—and high-end too...the stuff is sitting next to Yves Saint Laurent or Junya Watanabe, which I think is really so telling that it is really being appreciated for the design aspect. We met with Urban Outfitters on Friday and we are in talks of a collaboration. I don’t want it carried there only because it’s going to be market saturation and that is one thing that Slow and Steady Wins the Race is not about. I agree with the democratic innovation of design and having it be available, but I don’t want it to be disposable.

I’ve been looking into their side and seeing how I could still work with them, while having it still make sense for us. So, that’s what I’m pleased with behind the whole philosophy of Slow and Steady Wins the Race is that is the design should be universal. It should be able to break social barriers, age barriers, high and low-end fashion, a cross over.

Where exactly does the name Slow and Steady Wins the Race come from?
It’s from the Aesop’s Fable about the Tortoise and the Hare, so that’s sort of the moral of the story. And it just certainly was the most fitting way to talk about more the brand itself and what it is set out to do.

Samantha Pleet Interview & Rapscallion Collection

coutorture — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 11:28:18 -0700

Samantha Pleet is one New Yorker with a lot on her plate. On top of designing her own line (which debuted while she was still in college), Pleet has recently teamed up with Urban Outfitters to produce an exclusive collaboration entitled Rapscallion. The collection, true to its name, features adorable button-downed jumpers, feminized tuxedo shirts and military-esque jackets and capes. "I was so excited when found out that I would have the opportunity to work with them on designing a line...I grew up shopping at Urban Outfitters". Rapscallion will debut in October and house a total of six new collections--one delivering every other month. A pop-up shop will also be erected in Los Angeles, stocking the designer's full range for Urban Outfitters, her ready to wear line, and other design endeavors, including Pleet's eco-friendly line, Bodkin.

For Bodkin (worthy of its own post), Pleet collaborates with studio-mate Eviana Hartman--a freelance writer and former features editor at Nylon. The line, which started out as a weekend experiment transforming dusty clothes into handbags, offers an monochrome collection of edgy separates not without their own delicate softness. Bodkin is made entirely out of recycled and organic fabrics.

To read our review of Pleet's Fall 08 collection, click here. Below, our interview with the designer and below that, the Rapscallion look book.

Can you give us some background on your Samantha Pleet Fall '08 collection and the mugshots you used to depict the collection?
The Fall 08 collection reflects a madcap array of inspirations. From Dickensian urchins to vintage black-and-white police mug shots to sharp-dressed sixties rock bands— and marks the introduction of a small menswear line, Patrick Pleet...We started collecting vintage police mug shots some were from the turn of the century. We found them at flea markets and image libraries. Each shot told a story and some of people in them had a really inspiring style, a few of them looked crazy those were usually the best ones.It was a great way for me to incorporate real people that found inspiring and asked them to let me "arrest them".

You seem to draw inspirations from lots of different places like music, literature and art. What is your process for narrowing this down to a story and from there into actual clothes?
This process happens very organically for me. My subconscious seams to be able to blend everything together. I do a lot of image gathering, thinking, sewing, sketching, and sourcing. It is not until I start to put a few of the samples together that I begin to see the collection take shape. This is a never ending story because I have to keep designing.

What is a typical day in the studio?
I only live 10 minutes away, so I walk to work get coffee at Oslo with Patrick. I usually have to go to the garment district during the day for a fitting at my sample maker. I now work with my friend Dusting McSwane, he does my technical design, which is amazing. I usually distract my studio mates Susan (designer of Dirty Librarian Chains) and Eviana (writer and Bodkin partner) with new samples to show them. We all try them on to see how they fit. It is a wonderful and inspiring place to work.

What do you enjoy doing on your days outside of the studio?
My life is my work so even when im not in the studio I like to gather inspiration. I love to wonder around the city. My perfect day would be to have brunch at Diner walk over the Williamsburg bridge, wander into shops in the Lower east side, walk over to 9th street in the East Village get coffee, and then over to Soho check out some more shops--go to an art exhibition or two on the journey. Later to go see a concert and then join friends in the evening, which usually turns into talking about doing another project. Finally I would go home and watch a film or read a book and listen to music.

Do you have any personal favorites from the Rapscallion collection?
I love everything in the line but my favorite is the Cape dress. It's a wool dress with a detachable cape, I will be wearing this a
lot. I also love the high wasted jeans, the banner dress.

What do you have in store for curating the pop-up shop for Urban Outfitters?
It doesn't open until November in LA. We still have a lot of planning to do. Patrick, my husband who is an architect, will be working with them on the space. It will carry the first two Rapscallion collections, my Fall 08 collection, Bodkin, and I will be curating some vintage clothing, gifts, and jewelry, and other curiosities.