Somebody suggests to me that John’s story would be interesting. And I
only knew a little bit of that. I remembered when the video came out
and I remembered him when I was a teenager. I’m only five, six years younger than John. I remembered when he was this huge presence in popular culture in the late 80s, early 90s.
And I also remembered how repulsed I was by seeing that video and how much I thought, he looks so awful. He’s saying these hateful things.
How does somebody make such beautiful things can do something so ugly? That’s really psychologically interesting and I wanted
to understand that. So I got in touch with him and we talked
for about a year off and on. I met him and he wanted to make a film, but he wasn’t sure.
In the end, he agreed on it.
Once he had made his mind up, he was incredibly
open and honest and nothing was off limits. He never had a PR person to tell him he should not say this. Just me and him talking for hours and hours.

That’s what’s interesting. It is when you have a question in your head like, how is this possible? Why would you say this? Is he an anti-Semite? And if you’re not meant to it, why would you say that? To me, characters who have made mistakes are the characters who you’re not quite sure want to make a of them there. And I think we as insiders have dark things in common. Sometimes motivations we get an act on. I can understand that and I want to understand and to feel compassion for somebody who does something that is so taboo. Not just that his story as a designer is so extraordinary. Anna Wintour said to me, he’s one of the top five designers ever lived. When you have someone who is that sorry. But to begin with, I didn’t really appreciate the fashion. I couldn’t really understand. It was quite dismissive. And the more time I spent with him, the more time I spent looking at the fashion. I started to understand it and understood how it related to him personally, and how you could see his psychological state in the shows that he was. It also interests me as a filmmaker, he is inspired a lot by cinema. Also because the cinema does this thing, which designers and particularly Galliano try to do, which is to create an atmosphere. He’s somebody for whom the important thing is not the clothes in first place. It’s to share this specific environement that the show creates. I think he’s quite unique in his obsession with the show. And so there’s a cinematic side to it.

In a different way, but at the same side of making huge spectacle, which then got photographed and talked about. And that’s why I think LVMH chose them, because at that time the whole purpose was to try something and bring it to life. Fashion is this form of art that was totally popular and could be scandalous that people would talk about – the nudity, the excess, how much it cost. That all became part of the marketing. Yeah, the Luxury industry.

Getting involved and trying to understand a world I know nothing about. You enter into something you don’t know and you learn to appreciate it. To understand it a little bit. The biggest challenge is finding people who could talk openly and intelligently about John and intelligently about his work. I was surprised by how few people I could find who obviously don’t want to talk because they don’t want to be associated with it. But people do talk just in an interesting but accessible way about fashion and why fashion is important.

Well, I think some people did and some people never will. I think that’s true. But I think, he did the film because he knows that there are people who haven’t forgiven him yet. And also because people revere so much Alexander McQueen. And he’s like, I knew I should have a film about me.

I think he learned a lot about himself doing this film.
And I think the show, the fashion show that the film starts with and ends with, it’s the show in 2022, is a show which is really about having a film made about you. He’s on the stage with the models. You have the same dialogue, which is really about John’s life. They’re being filmed as they’re talking and making a movie in the screen as they’re modelling the clothes. I saw directly how his inspiration works, because he’d been through a year of having a film made about him. That was what inspired the show in the end.

Very difficult question, isn’t it, because, there’s not one particularly fascinating thing I can draw on. Lots of aspects about him that are so interesting, but I think he shares in common with a lot of artists, I think also a lot of designers. The fact that he had a very unhappy childhood, homophobic family and feeling like an outsider and outcast because of being in Spanish London, being gay and being sensitive. He withdrew into his imagination and his form of escape was in his head. I think you can still see in almost every show he does that is is searching for escapes. It’s about somebody fleeing from a bad situation into somewhere beautiful, and that’s repeated and repeated in throughout pretty much every show that he’s ever done. But also, there’s something just seeing him working in the grip of something that even he doesn’t really understand. He’s not rationalising. He’s a very irrational person.

I think LVMH liked the fact that he was controversial.

He didn’t usually set out to do things that would be controversial. I think he he was doing what he thought was fun, and even in the show that I filmed last year, this show has a shooting in it, a school shooting. And of course, some critics. My job is like, I don’t. I don’t understand why she’s upset. There’s something oblivious about. Is he just everything? Whether it’s. Violence or a film on the natural world is just a place to suck. Inspiration for the shirt seen for his club. And that’s that leads you to the very interesting big question at the heart of the film, which is, 

I would say it’s quite hard and that runs through the entire movie. I mean, some people would say, morality has nothing to do with art in this day and age. That’s a controversial statement where we are constantly bringing morality into our films.

That’s why I use the clips from the Red shoes film, because this is about the destructive power of art, in a way. When you become too obsessed with what you’re doing, it can start to take your life away. And I think that’s what happened to John. That’s not uncommon in any art. In one level you can see this as a film about the fashion industry at large.
Making a prediction at the heart of it, which is what it is about. Creating beauty and about ignoring the ugly things in life. But you can’t always just ignore the ugly things in life.

That’s a paradox at the heart of fashion, which is very hard for fashion to reconcile.

That’s a profound psychological question. Listening to us about why somebody wants to lose themselves in another world. As a filmmaker you know what that obsession is like, because you can create something that’s perfect or nearly perfect where you want to free things from the life around you that is negative or dark and chaotic or whatever. And the art thing becomes something you can control and something where you can focus yourself, probably totally unreasonably, make sense of your life.

Well, something about the dark and unhealthy side to artistic obsession. And something about fashion and the contradiction. Being in fashion and looking up at the clouds, looking at the trees and the beautiful things. Maybe it’s like theatre in the same way or film making because, you know, behind the scenes, it’s arguments and anger and ego and money. But you’re trying to make something that is pure.

Well, I think that the highs we are seeing, its the loyality. I love his close friends, this particularly celebrity friends where I thought it would be quite difficult to get people like Kate Moss. She doesn’t give interviews, really. Or Anna Wintour or Charlize Theron. I thought they wouldn’t want to talk because they don’t want to be associated with them and with this story. But in actual fact, they were the ones who were more brave than the people who just worked in fashion and didn’t want to talk about his work or working with him. I thought that was a sort of a very, admirable thing in a way, because I thought they’ve got to lose their reputations.
But they feel loyalty to him. And I think that loyalty to your friend is a really admirable thing. You may think your friend has done something wrong, but you’re still going to help them.
I think the low of the film was probably the years trying to figure out how to tell a story. It’s so complicated and difficult because most films consist of three acts, particularly films about people, you have the early talent and promise, then you have the addiction and success, and then you have the fool and this film. You’ve got a fourth act, you’ve got the fall, and then you’ve got the, oh, I have to explain myself act. He has to explain what happened and you have to analyse what has happened. And so trying to make a film with that kind of structure is really interesting.

Envy: Fine. They are quite soft.

Envy: We talked about first ideas in November 2023.

Envy: I am from the Netherlands; G-Star is a very popular brand here. At first, I could not believe it. Is this for real? I am a big fan of G-Star and now you have us three queens doing something with denim that has never been done before – I think that is very groundbreaking.

Envy: From start to end. We had 12 sketches. It was a collaboration between the artist, the designers and G-Star. Every single detail was discussed.

Envy: Not so much. Denim is a hard fabric to master. I just did a TV Show in Holland where I was wearing a denim look, but this is the first couture piece.

Envy: We wanted this enormoushead piece. So, we created pheasant feathers made of denim.

Envy: They are laser printed and cut so the fabric would look like feathers.

No, not at all. I just love how brands use techniques for innovation. The same way that Fendi treats fur in innovative ways.

Envy: Yes. But drag is pain. But, you know, if you wear something uncomfortable, when it is special, you don’t feel the pain anymore. It’s worth it.

Envy: Yeah. (laughs)

Envy: Anything. A fashion girl, a showgirl. I am an all-rounder as a drag artist. A chameleon.

Envy: I was five years old when my mom, my auntie and I moved from Trujillo in Peru to the Netherlands.

Envy: It started with two things. A friend of mine wanted to call her daughter Envy and I just liked the name. And a lot of people think of Peruvians as small, little people from the mountains. I wanted to show that we can also be glamorous and great.

Envy: We don’t have a lot of representation in the Netherlands. Plus, I found out I was gay. And then I started doing drag. So, I have been different all my life. But I don’t want to be like everybody else.

Envy: Absolutely.

Envy: Yeah. Different. You made a choice to wear…, hm…, this. [points at my caramel Stüssy cardigan] You wanted to be comfortable, I guess.

Envy: You went for lazy drag…(laughs)

Clothing is a language. Your drag today is communicating utilitarian approach. What we, on the other hand, are representing is glamor and fantasy. You are going to dress differently when you go to the grocery store than when you go to a black tie event.

Envy: That is what RuPaul is talking about. We are drag queens, but everybody is participating in the art of drag.

Envy: No. I think it is a good thing. We have been around since the beginning of time. In my culture, you had two-spirit people.

Envy: It is a person that feels female and male. They were celebrated because they were considered divine…

Envy: [laughter] We have the strength and the confidence to express ourselves in the way we want. Everybody should be a little more kind to each other. It also took me a while. I was always drawn to female energy, but I did not see myself as a drag queen.

Envy: was talking about exterior pain: corsets, heels, wigs.

Envy: For most people, yes. I take it seriously, of course. But not too much.

Envy: We started with references from Studio 54 and the fashion designer Bob Mackie. The question was: How can we do something classic and glamourous with denim? We took a historical era and turned it into something futuristic….

Envy: I never copy anybody. Basically, very strong women. It’s more about energy than the look. But I used to be obsessed with Xena: Warrior Princessin the 90s. And of course, the supermodels. The Marlenes and Marilyns. It took a lot of strength to be them at their time.

Envy: Well, I really love Kylie Minogue. When I heard “Can’t Get You Out of My Head”, I realized that I am gay. I did not even know she was a gay icon, but my parents knew…

Envy: The metal, the hoops, the rings. It gives the look dynamics and depth. But we wanted to keep it simple, to focus on the head piece.

Envy: I think I can’t –people would lose their eyes.[laughter] It might go into the G-Star archives.

Envy: I finally got my American visa. So, I will spend some months there, starting in Puerto Rico.

I love the drag in Chicago. There are so many trans drag queens!

Envy: In Chicago, there is traditionally a huge pageant scene. A lot of how we perceive drag comes from the trans women in the continental pageant culture. MimiMarks, former Miss Continental, dated Dennis Rodman when he played for the Chicago Bulls. And you have a strong underground and club kid scene. The pageant queens teach the club kids how to be more polished, and the club kids teach them how to be more edgy and forward thinking. For a small country, Holland has an amazing and very diverse drag scene. But not comparable to Chicago. Dutch Drag Dynasty at the Harbour Club in Amsterdam recently recorded a Tv Show called “Make Up your Mind”.

Envy: 100%.

Hungry: It was nothing I pondered on for a long time. It was one of the first times I went out in drag and did not really think much about it.

Hungry: Oh my god, 2015?

Hungry: South of Germany. Niederbayern, near Passau. After school, I moved to Berlin. Where I grew up, it was very Catholic. I felt I had to move.

Hungry: I have always had a need for self-expression. Tattoos came first. They were a means to make my body more me.

Hungry: In the beginning, I started with a rather typical version of drag. When I was abroad studying, I found out there is more variety. In London, I saw that drag was understood as something else.

Hungry: Here, I felt I had to look feminine and “real.” It was physically easy for me to become a believable woman. In London, there was still a club kid movement going on which, back then, was not considered drag. They were just dressed up to go out, totally unrelated to gender. I saw somebody dressed as a blue cat. Someone else had a huge bump on their head with crystals on it. I found that interesting.

Hungry: I studied fashion design in Berlin and went to London for an internship at Vivienne Westwood. To make rent money, I started working in the drag industry –which did not exist in Germany at that point. So, I started trying a couple of things and found out what worked for me. I catalogued everything in my mind. I created a persona that felt personal and authentic to me.

Hungry: It is a way to enhance what you were given. And to stretch the borders.

Hungry: Yes, of course.

Hungry: My design normally does not have two faces.[laughs] Usually, my approach is a little less horror science fiction and probably a bit more fantasy. I use the human body as a canvas and put it through a couple of prisms and filters.

Hungry: It was one of the first ideas I had in our first Zoom meeting. I knew G-Star from another internship in London, where we took a military parka from the Second World War, recreated and altered it to become this perfect object. The other point in this project was obviously denim. Functionality and movement. I thought it would be cool to create a body that looks like it is in motion, phasing through me. Make an absurdist, surreal character by adding limbs, but you are still looking at a denim jacket. And I wanted it to look digital and seem like a glitch. With the excitement about AI, it tickles me to create something that looks like AI, but is actually totally physical.

Hungry: In a lot of my costumes, I integrate this cap. It frames the face nicely, isolates the single parts. We based this on how I normally wear this and then doubled the collar.

Hungry: Yeah, collaging it.

Hungry: After my internships, I lost my interest in the fashion industry. It felt limiting. I like doing each aspect of what I’m doing. Right after school, I was already performing, doing makeup, and had an ongoing collaboration with Björk, with whom I toured the last four years.

Hungry: It was the first time I applied my vision to someone else’s. And I liked working behind the scenes and letting it go into the world. I did makeup for her.

Hungry: No. During Covid, I stopped performing because my network wasn’t in Berlin anymore. Now, I want to rediscover what it has to offer. I try to go out more and be more present now.

Hungry: At this point, it is mostly at Schwuz and Tipsy Bear in Prenzlauer Berg, asmall bar with weekly drag nights. You can see people in the early stages trying themselves out, which I like.

Hungry: I usually don’t work with denim. I don’t even wear denim. Which is why it was an interesting challenge to make denim me. And see the process of the others.

Hungry: The placement of all the limbs.[laughs]

Shea Couleé: I am from Plainfield, Illinois; came to Chicago to go to school. I felt a deep connection to my friends and have been there ever since.

Shea Couleé: It was kind of like an accident. [laughs] There were so many people who encouraged me because they saw my experiences in theater design. They said I had this eccentricity about me that would work really well in drag. So, I did a show just for fun. I really did not think it would be anything special. When I did my number to a Beyoncé song called Sugar Mama, I got a standing ovation. All my years of doing theater and musicals, I had never gotten such a visceral reaction

Shea Couleé: It was a burlesque show. I started off in a tuxedo and did all these reveals to this tiny little silver and white beaded, fringe, showgirl two-piece.

Shea Couleé: I decided to integrate myself into the Chicago drag community. For five years, I was performing, directing, producing. And then, I was lucky enough to be on RuPaul’s Drag Race, Season 9. I made it to the four finalists. Three years later, I came back and made All Stars 5 and brought home the crown. The first Chicago winner in the franchise. Since then, it’s been an incredible whirlwind.

Shea Couleé: No. I was always myself.

Drag has given me a sense of confidence and purpose. It was rewarding to watch how I as a person learned to take upspace instead of shrinking myself.

Shea Couleé: To learn how to discern the right people to surround myself with. In the world of entertainment, the lines get blurry. People can sell you an idea, but in the end, it is all about their own advancement.

Shea Couleé: No. I believe in community as a place where people feel safe. Because I know how difficult it can be to navigate in a world that doesn’t want to create space for you.

Shea Couleé: Find your people, find your tribe. You can’t do this alone. We need each other. I wish more people would understand that.

Shea Couleé: I don’t see a contradiction. There is a time and a place for everybody. As sisters, in the world of drag, we are better together. We learn from each other, we grow together

Shea Couleé: I enjoy being able to work creatively every day. But compromise is part of it as soon as a pay check is involved.

Shea Couleé: First of all, I was honored and flattered that G-Star wanted to work with me. Funnily, I had just bought a pair of G-Star jeans when I got the offer. The concept of treating denim through a couture/custom lens was really intriguing for me. In my background in theater and costume design, I always found denim an interesting material because it’s practical and utilitarian. Drag is the opposite. So, this was such a fun and forward-thinking idea.

Shea Couleé: I guess. We wanted something really elegant. Historical and modern. We borrowed a lot of John Galliano at Dior in the 90s. That phase made me understand what high fashion was about.

Shea Couleé: Goosebumps! Him and Pat McGrath doing the makeup. They are a dream team. It was a silent movie. So incredible. I miss shows making me feel that way.

Shea Couleé: Yes. He is such a unique talent. The fact that his remarks destroyed his career is saddening. But also a reminder that we must hold people accountable if they hurt other people.

Shea Couleé: Especially with social media, it gets caught so easily when you are imperfector you misspeak. And once it is said, you can never take it back. That is why I speak with intention. There is a little bit of authenticity that is getting lost. I am a caring, humble person, but I am also a sarcastic, silly person who will say the wildest things. But these I keep for when I am among my friends who know me and understand me. It’s still there.

Shea Couleé: Well, I have a degree in costume design. I have a studio and I sewmyself. But, a lot of times, it is a collaboration process. I’ll make one of the nine looks that I need. And I keep them all. It is a pretty big archive unit.

Shea Couleé: Hmmm. So many. But they are all reflections of what I found inspirational at that time, or what was going on in fashion. I am incredibly sentimental with creation.

Shea Couleé: Most of them. Thank god! Though there are some tiny bits that tell me: That waist is not what it used to be…[laughs]

Shea Couleé: Three days a week at the gym. I lift much more weights than I used to because one of my friends in Chicago is a crazy fitness queen. We go to a queer gym wearing our fun, little, skimpy outfits, lifting weights and twirling around to Beyoncé. It’s great. And now that the weather is getting better, I can get back on the tennis court!

Shea Couleé: A crop top and a tennis skirt.

Shea Couleé: Aggressive. I am a Venus Williams type. I attack at the net. And I have a really long reach. I don’t give the ball a chance to bounce. I started playing with my dad, and as a fresh man in college, I joined the tennis team.

Shea Couleé: More as a tennis player, but a lot of the lessons I learned from him I apply as a drag queen: Be kind, respect people, be grateful.

Shea Couleé: Two things: Never stop having fun. And work hard. RuPaul comes to the set before anybody else, knows everybody’s names, is always in a good mood. And these are long days! And while we are shooting, she is recording a record. Her work ethics are incredible.

Shea Couleé: Get your money up front. And pay your taxes. [laughs]

Viktor & Rolf: Our enduring friendship.

One could not be more different than the other. Mobile versus static. Fleeting versus longer lasting. High energy versus contemplative. Elitist versus more democratic. And that is precisely why we love to show our work in both ways. We like to show our work on the catwalk, but it’s always nice to be able to install all the pieces so that people can have a calmer look at everything.

Yeah, totally. A catwalk audience is so much more limited which is also part of the mystique, of course. But, it’s nice to have our work in a museum so people can take their time to explore it from a different perspective.

We have always approached our work in the same way, we consider it to be a laboratory for experimentation. It’s been like that since day one. And we still work like that. Funnily enough, in the first years of our career, we were more picked up by the art world than by the fashion world. But for us, it comes naturally to live in both worlds. I think that is also why we don’t really feel we want to make a distinction between what is what. We sometimes call ourselves fashion artists to dodge the question.

I think our work really is a self-portrait. It’s our way to express ourselves more than spending too much time with thinking about the product of the season. The purpose of our work is to tell stories. As such, we are perhaps different from other designers or brands. Fashion is often only about style, about itself. The stories we tell have a broad range of topics. They can be very personal and emotional or more abstract and reflective, on fashion itself and everything in between.

Somehow we always end up doing just that: pushing boundaries. Perhaps because we treat our work (fashion) as a laboratory for ideas, a place to experiment. We want to surprise ourselves.

The main statement we have developed over the course of our career is that Fashion can be a medium, able to express more than itself. Under the umbrella of this overarching principle we have told many stories. A recurring theme is a sense of wonder about fashion itself. Another theme is the relationship between fashion and art. Yet another recurring topic is a general sense of ‘what if ..?’ (what if a store were upside down?; what if a dress and a body would meet as independent entities?; what if it would be possible to control destruction?; etc.)

Thierry is probably the person who knows most about our work, apart from us ourselves. This is the first time our work is shown as a narrative, thematically, instead of chronologically. The exhibition is his view on our work, which is a bit of a post-modern experience for us: looking at our own work through his eyes.

The collaboration with Kunsthalle and its teams was wonderful and everyone and everything was so well organized – a dream. If the opening was any indication the show should be a big success – but it’s early to talk about it! The space is gorgeous, each exhibition space is different and requires its own approach to the exhibition design.

We strive for complexity and hope our work will inspire, make people dream and/or think.

Creativity and originality.

Harmony occurs when there is a clarity of purpose and a sense of balance between the elements involved. Our fragrance Flowerbomb for instance is also a good example: the name is a conjunction of two contradictory words: flower and bomb. Put together, they become a new concept.

We take our work very seriously. Humor is not a goal itself, but we do strive not to be heavy handed so often, it just comes out that way. Like we said before, we strive for complexity rather than for any one singular emotion.

By focusing on what we want to express rather than on what we have to produce.

By nurturing it. By accepting that it is not always there. At the same time by trusting that it never fully disappears. But it needs to be courted.

Hahaha we used to be the worst control freaks. Getting older means we are losening up a little bit but it is still very difficult to let go. Having said that, you cannot be creative if you want to know at the start what the end will look like.

This capsule collection is an extension of our strong partnership with ASPESI. We wanted to connect and excite our modern luxury customers with effortlessly chic, culturally rich styles. ASPESI – as Made in Italy, heritage rich brand – was perfect to develop an exclusive collection with meaning and cultural relevance.

ASPESI and Zalando, both, value culture and heritage. ASPESI’s designs are deeply rooted in Italian artistry and aesthetics. At Zalando, we celebrate and highlight local culture, heritage and craftsmanship. Beyond developing beautiful clothes, we both wanted to connect with our customers on an emotional level. This collection can tell a story and be a conversation starter, which we love!

We wanted to celebrate and emphasize what ASPESI is known and loved for. Therefore logically the collection had to have wardrobe staples such as shirts included. Nylon pieces and outerwear are iconic to ASPESI, so we wanted to include these, developed freshly with a twist.

We wanted the collection to transport Italian’s savoir faire; By celebrating the rich tapestry of Italian cinema with this Made In Italy collection, a perfect blend of wearable elegance and functionality, with partially genderless designs to ensure inclusivity and contemporary style. The collection combines the unique aesthetic vision of the past with the contemporary through imagery and video content with a focus on the essence of free-spirited young individuals such as a cheeky cinema dialogue between actor and film director.

So many things! Italy is one of the countries with the richest fashion culture and heritage. Fashion is strongly rooted in Italian DNA, and craftsmanship as well as design are valued deeply. Many brands support local productions and traditions. Textiles are sourced with meticulous attention to detail and quality, and refined construction – especially within tailoring- are at the heart of Italian fashion.

As our capsule collection celebrates Italian cinema, it felt natural to choose two Italian actors to embody it. With Coco Rebecca Edogamhe and Mattia Carrano, we discovered two young talents from Italy who are celebrating international success in acting in the new generation – be it leading roles in Netflix series or in feature films, they exactly envision our capsule that combines unique aesthetic vision of the past with a contemporary take on today’s fashion.

With this capsule we wanted to offer customers something truly special, not only in terms of quantity of pieces available – it’s limited in assortment, time and stock – but also for its fashion and cultural content. Reinterpreting iconic ASPESI designs with prints of scenes from the Italian Cinema’s Golden Era, the collection is creatively so clearly defined that it simply falls within the framework of a capsule – a trend-transcending, exclusive production.

Sina Braetz: Yes, they just relaunched the mostro yesterday with their big show. 

No, turns out that he is sick, something with his lungs, I heard.

Interesting, I wasn’t really trying to have any expectations. I think it’s the right time for them to come back.

It was a classic, the only one they had at that time. This was in the 70s. It came in two colors, in white with green and white with black.

I like the Nike Air Force. 

It is just a real old-world classic. I also like the Converse Chuck Taylors. I have always worn those. These,” (he is pointing to his white sneakers he is wearing) “are Tommy’s. We actually have a really good sneaker business. You see the ones down there with the red, white, and blue stripe on the side? That’s one of the best sellers.

Yes, look around – if you’re in an airport, for instance, everybody’s wearing sneakers and still jeans or sweats. People are creatures of habit; they like going back to the same. And if you go to any of the inner cities, it’s all basketball shoes, either Nike, Adidas, or Reebok.

It’s exciting to be back. I hope people like the direction; it is very connected to our DNA: Classic American cool or Cool American classic or American Classic Cool” (laughs). “What we did is we elevated everything.

The shapes are new. The fabrics are all new. The styles are connected to the preppy, All-American DNA of the brand. And I think the shapes are really interesting because they’re very modern. 

The American dreamer, for me, is someone who believes anything is possible. I am a very optimistic person, so I like to think that the American dreamer is very optimistic about what will happen in life and what is to come in the future.

I’m always thinking about what’s next in terms of fashion, in terms of direction, and I’ve always been obsessed with pop culture. It serves as the barometer in the worlds of fashion, art, music, entertainment, and sports. I believe that what truly drives societal change is pop culture. Music is constantly evolving, art is incredibly diverse, from examining pop art’s past to its future. And, of course, entertainment encompasses celebrities, influencers, and everything in the media world, including Instagram and TikTok, which are reshaping society – from how people shop to how they perceive things, even influencing their sense of humor. It’s fascinating to observe what social media has brought us, alongside the tremendous growth of sports and its culture.

Well, I think that for us, it’s been a way of life for almost 40 years now. It is evolving and changing, but I really believe that we’re in a place now where the change has already taken place, with celebrities and influencers being so dominant and important. Where it goes from here, I don’t know, but I think AI will have a lot to do with the change.

I think that it will change the whole design aspect.  I also think it will change the advertising tremendously and the media entertainment world, it will be all AI driven at some point soon. Because it’s moving very quickly. 

Well, I think that it’s becoming less and less important for the journalist and the gatekeepers to have opinions, because a lot of these brands and a lot of these influencers basically go directly to the fans, and they go directly to the consumer with a simple statement of who and what they are –  take it or leave it. It’s obviously helpful for important journalists to say that’s a great brand and that isn’t but not as important as before because we didn’t have social media. So people could only refer to magazines and journalists’ opinions and advertising.

There are quite a few, both in the rock and hip hip music world or the hip hop world, from David Bowie and Mick Jagger to LL Cool J  and Snoop Dogg. I have a broad taste level when it comes to music. But, I’m also really looking at Hollywood, to the influencers and to the reality tv world. The Kardashians for example, they are friends of mine. Some people love them, some hate them. But to see what they have done through a reality show, is unprecedented, it is just unbelievable. They did it as a result of their fame through being themselves. 

That anything is possible. You can become a billionaire if you want to be. And you can create a brand if you want to. And and look, there are fashion addicted trendsetters,  like Kim  and what she did with Skims and now even Balenciaga. She has done that with her own personality. 

The American dream is still very much alive. And then if you look at Silicon Valley, if you look at all the tech people, this is the American dream too. Many of these people, from the founders of Snapchat, Facebook, Apple, are geniuses in their own right, and they basically built multi-billion dollar global businesses with a dream. And hard work. Let’s look at Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos, they are geniuses. They came from actually believing that anything’s possible that they could do it. 

Yes, my dream has come true too. 40 years ago, when I started my brand, my dream was to build a global lifestyle brand. And I believed it was possible and I didn’t really know that what the timing would be, when it would happen. But I never gave up and I will never give up. I keep working it, working it, working it – but it comes with a North star and a dream. 

Well, depends on what it is. If you look at Disney or Coca-Cola – these giant operations are “Made in America” but I think “Made in America” also could mean a home cooked meal by grandma in the Midwest.

Fashion brands born and bred in America with, I think a lot of reach and a lot of respect in the fashion world. We’re not the same as European brands that are more precious, we are more commercial.