Charity: Your designs are dark and a little macabre. Where does this dark place come from?
Gary: I am really dark. I have my demons. I think we all have two sides. Spring is generally pretty and fall is darker. I have always had undertones of darkness in my inspiration. All my influences growing up were people like Vincent Price, Joan Crawford, but also Marilyn Monroe.
Charity: Yes, even though they are dark, they are still glamorous.
Gary: Yes. they all play into my inspiration.
Charity: Many designers, like Karl Lagerfeld, design whatever they feel like each season and it's not connected at all to the last collection. Yours seems to tell a continuing story, like each season is a continuation. Is this a conscious effort on your part, or just how it happens?
Gary: The continuation is not conscious. i don't plan fall to follow last year. It's not all connected. The woman that's driving this is always the same person but i don't plan to connect them. All things in the collection are connected together though.
Charity: When women's designers do a men's collection it tends to not have the same feel. Are you planning on your menswear mimicking the womenswear, such as in fabric, draping, asymmetry?
Gary: I use rugged fabrics, so the materials translate. But I am definitely not as adventurous, it's more straight forward. It's also things that I can wear, that I feel comfortable in. It's not more commercial, but more specific.
My menswear is a little more personal, things that I would wear, that I want.
Charity: How has the Vogue CFDA nomination changed your business?
Gary: Really, in terms of quantitative terms, you can't really measure it. In other words, ZERO. (laughs)
Not that that's bad but the information & exposure, it's changed. I think things will happen in the next two years.
In my career, I've been very lucky with certain things, and worked for for other things, but nothing is being just handed out right now, not with this economy in fashion.
I'm grateful for the experience and it's up to me to foster those relationships that have come available to me through that.
NOTES: thanks to Mitch for helping me write the questions. Gary remarked that they were great questions. i was seeking to find out things that everyone hadn't already asked him. he actually thought out his answers and nothing just came out automatic, so that was success to me! he also liked my Treesje skull clutch! :)
www.garygrahamnyc.com
Gary: I am really dark. I have my demons. I think we all have two sides. Spring is generally pretty and fall is darker. I have always had undertones of darkness in my inspiration. All my influences growing up were people like Vincent Price, Joan Crawford, but also Marilyn Monroe.
Charity: Yes, even though they are dark, they are still glamorous.
Gary: Yes. they all play into my inspiration.
Charity: Many designers, like Karl Lagerfeld, design whatever they feel like each season and it's not connected at all to the last collection. Yours seems to tell a continuing story, like each season is a continuation. Is this a conscious effort on your part, or just how it happens?
Gary: The continuation is not conscious. i don't plan fall to follow last year. It's not all connected. The woman that's driving this is always the same person but i don't plan to connect them. All things in the collection are connected together though.
Charity: When women's designers do a men's collection it tends to not have the same feel. Are you planning on your menswear mimicking the womenswear, such as in fabric, draping, asymmetry?
Gary: I use rugged fabrics, so the materials translate. But I am definitely not as adventurous, it's more straight forward. It's also things that I can wear, that I feel comfortable in. It's not more commercial, but more specific.
My menswear is a little more personal, things that I would wear, that I want.
Charity: How has the Vogue CFDA nomination changed your business?
Gary: Really, in terms of quantitative terms, you can't really measure it. In other words, ZERO. (laughs)
Not that that's bad but the information & exposure, it's changed. I think things will happen in the next two years.
In my career, I've been very lucky with certain things, and worked for for other things, but nothing is being just handed out right now, not with this economy in fashion.
I'm grateful for the experience and it's up to me to foster those relationships that have come available to me through that.
NOTES: thanks to Mitch for helping me write the questions. Gary remarked that they were great questions. i was seeking to find out things that everyone hadn't already asked him. he actually thought out his answers and nothing just came out automatic, so that was success to me! he also liked my Treesje skull clutch! :)
www.garygrahamnyc.com
Very cool interview. Makes me love him and you more!
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