The Outsiders
Five rising design stars prove that the fastest route to the top of the fashion heap isn't necessarily the most obvious one
By Christine Lennon/Los Angeles
Fall 2005 Style & Design
There was a time when the fashion industry was about as open to
outsiders as is Yale University's Skull and Bones secret society. There
was one path to becoming a respected designer, which was studying at a
prestigious art-and-design school, fetching coffee for difficult
designer bosses in New York City, Paris or Milan, then courting the
press and moneyed investors to start a label.
In recent years, the fashion community has tried on meritocracy for
size, acknowledging talented interlopers with more entrepreneurial
spirit than formal training. Three of the most promising new labels to
crack the code are Los Angeles—based Rodarte and Des Kohan; and
Libertine, based in L.A. and New York. Each of them has been either
adopted by editors, admired by the masters or promoted by stylists. All
of them are proving that the best-made clothes will have an eager
audience no matter where or how they're created.
When the Rodarte (pronounced Row-dar-tay) designers, sisters Kate and
Laura Mulleavy (26 and 24, respectively) arrived at the Women's Wear
Daily offices in New York with their weeks-old collection of mostly
bias-cut dresses last February, they had no idea what to expect. They
had exchanged phone calls and e-mails with Cameron Silver, owner of the
vintage boutique Decades, in West Hollywood, who took them under his
wing and made some connections with the press and retailers. Yet they
knew next to nothing about the business and only packed up their dresses
and headed to New York after some prodding from a Neiman Marcus buyer.
"We were clueless when we went in there," says Kate, who does the
illustrations for their line. "Someone interviewed us forever. They took
our picture. Two days later, we were on the cover."
Not bad for their first meeting. The media have gravitated to the
University of California, Berkeley, graduates—who live in their
grandparents' guesthouse in Pasadena as they scrape together money for
their business—because of their talent, sure, but also because of their
enthusiasm and naiveté, the stories they tell about their eccentric
family and their deep respect for design in all its forms.
Being outside the system, they believe, helps the Mulleavy sisters
maintain their passion and keep their ideas fresh. At the time of this
interview, the two had stayed up all night boxing and shipping their
first orders to high-end boutiques like Kirna Zabête in New York and
Susan in San Francisco.
"It might be more traditional to be an intern for a designer or
something," says Kate. "But that wide-eyed approach and our eagerness
are things that I'm not sure we would have had if we had been to fashion
school."
The press has certainly been kind to Libertine too, but what really
blows its designers away is the attention they've received from their
new friend, Chanel designer and fashion polymath Karl Lagerfeld.
"I'm shocked and amazed when I hear that he likes what we do," says
Cindy Greene, 35, over the phone from her New York design studio.
Greene, along with Johnson Hartig, 35, created Libertine, a line of
retooled vintage clothing with images silk-screened onto the fabric.
"Having him come to the studio and buy so many things for his friends,
try on so many things, it was an absolute honor and a dream."
Greene, an Ohio native, graduated from art school as an experimental
filmmaker, was a member of the band Fischerspooner and has worked as a
graphic designer. Hartig is from Los Angeles, was a commercial actor,
has been a lifelong Anglophile who once assisted a decorator and just
finished a decorative-arts study program with the Attingham Trust in
England.
Four years ago, when Greene was working for DKNY, and Hartig was selling
reworked vintage clothes to Maxfield and Fred Segal, the two were
introduced by a friend. Greene screened an image of a gorilla onto the
back of an old shirt and sent it to Hartig as a present. He altered it
to fit him better—using his signature exposed stitching—and wore it to
a party. Interest was piqued. Fred Segal placed an order. The shirts
sold out in one afternoon.
Libertine, says Hartig, is now sold in 23 stores internationally, and
has inspired a legion of knock-offs along with high-profile admirers. To
stay ahead of the imitators, Greene and Hartig are considering creating
a new line, for which they will manufacture instead of recycle vintage
clothing.
"If I don't know how to do something, I just wing it," says Hartig.
"Sometimes I do look at fashion students and say, Why are you bothering?
I taught myself didactically."
Desiree Kohan, 29, designer and owner of the new Des Kohan boutique in
Los Angeles, got a peek into the fashion infrastructure while she worked
as a trend forecaster in Milan.
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