Photos by Todd Cole
Styling by Kemal + Karla
All clothes by Rodarte
September 2008
Language is but a platform for countless sublanguages to meet and unfold: The language of landscapers and dancers, fishermen and doctors, travelers and tailors. It is an unmistakable delight to discover the languages of others who speak to our sensibilities. This Fall, singer-songwriter Joanna Newsom sat down with Kate and Laura Mulleavy, the design mavericks of fashion label Rodarte, for a conversation about everything, nothing, and all the magic in between. It was a conversation between three young women who are blowing the roofs off two separate powerhouses of our time. Whether it be thanks to their comfort together, or their experience apart, the language of the three friends evokes a harmony. It’s a harmony that speaks to us, even as flies on their wall…
Joanna Newsom. — When we went out to dinner last week, we talked a little bit about the process of collaboration. I’m so curious how that works with you girls. You mentioned something about the level of intuition involved - how so little needs to be overtly verbalized or explained, because you both intuitively understand what the other is trying to create.
Laura Mulleavy. — Kate and I have a similar visual registry. We store things and think about them later. All of a sudden a reference will come up and we will know exactly why the other one is thinking about such a thing, at such a strange time. We understand each other without even having to verbalize our thoughts. It is an interesting process, we could not work or design without the other. We normally sit and sketch and speak about a collection in half sentences and with unfinished thoughts. I sometimes have to remember to really explain myself when I am working on a project with a person that is not Kate. I am so used to being able to think of an idea and have her understand it completely.
Joanna Newsom. — Does this become a challenge or a problem when widening the circle of people you collaborate with? Is anything ever lost in translation?
Kate Mulleavy. — It can be a challenge in that we forget how to fully explain something because we are so used to just saying one or two words in order to fully communicate. At the same time, one must always develop a team where that kind of instinctual dialogue exists. In the end, you create a world where everyone understands and can create with your aesthetic direction.
Joanna. — Have the two of you ever had to reconcile any conflicting aesthetic impulses, on any given collection?
Kate. — Sometimes we disagree, mostly over the use of the colour pink.
Joanna. — How many human hands end up touching an average Rodarte dress?
Kate. — Including Laura and I, usually four… five if you count the dyeing process.
Joanna. — Is your workshop large?
Laura. — No, it is quite small. We have two sewers, a modelist, a knitter…
Joanna. — How long does an «average» dress take you to make?
Laura. — It just depends… if you include the dyeing, it can take a month. It is impossible to really calculate.
Joanna. — What’s the deal with your sources of inspiration? Are they discussed out loud, when mapping out the aesthetic of any given collection?
Kate. — Laura and I spend a lot of time discussing the inspiration for each collection. Once we are ready to start designing, we make a small book for our team. For example, Spring 2009 explores the link between site-specific art and the search for life in space. Earth, art and science fiction are intertwined. The central theme of the collection centers around the idea of remnants – things that are wasted away or gathered and are left to build a skeleton of the past. We looked to artists like Robert Smithson, Dan Flavin, James Turrell, Walter de Maria, and Olafur Eliasson and films like The Man Who Fell to Earth, Donnie Darko, Star Wars, THX 1138, and 2001: A Space Odyssey. We wanted to create a world where colour is graphic, and texture is created out of gathered material. Each piece becomes an x-ray or a fossil. This collection is all about the notion of the imprint. It unfolds as a space opera: the human side to all told with a veil of futurism.
Joanna. — Do you two girls share many of the same sources of inspiration?
Laura. — We work as one mind. We design together, and argue together, and then agree. We always agree. There is not much that the other one does not know. We have had a strong dialogue since we were young. I think that it really stems from growing up in the same world.
Joanna. — How often does something from the world around you – be it the work of another artist, or an historical event, or a natural phenomenon – inform or shape your work?
Kate. — In the end, we suppose our collections are more of a reflection of our imagination than anything else. We have visual and thematic references in order to create an emotive tone, but the actual design process comes from our own creative vision.
Joanna. — Does inspiration tend to feel deliberate or literal to you, or is it more subconscious and insinuating?
Kate. — The inspiration for a collection is both deliberate – a well thought out process – as well as a subconscious experiment. In the end, every decision has a story behind it.
Photos by Todd Cole
Styling by Kermal + Karla
All clothes by Rodarte
Joanna. — Something that often seems to be said of your work is that it transcends or appears to rise above many of the conventional parameters and confines of Fashion as an industry. Certainly the question of function comes up when discussing your pieces, much more so than with most designers, and the classification of clothing as art seems to apply much more easily to your work than to much of what’s out there right now. To what extent, if any, does this distinction interest you?
Laura. — Our work is often a study of balance, where volume, construction and colour have a complex interplay that we carefully control. In the end, we approach a collection in terms of light, shadow, and colour saturation. We do not conceptualize a collection in terms of creating a work of art. Although, we do believe that it is necessary to be artistic in our approach. Each step from design to creation should involve an artistic hand and eye.
Joanna. — Does it feel natural for you to shift gears and re-imagine your aesthetic every six months? Are you concerned at all with the expectation that you present a collection each season which seems new?
Kate. — We are driven to create each season because it allows us to further challenge our fundamental design beliefs and aesthetics. Each season is an experiment. The challenge to do something new, while staying true to your own aesthetic, is what keeps you moving forward with each collection.
Joanna. — Are wearability, marketability, or affordability factors that you ever concern yourselves with?
Kate. — There always has to be a balance, because fashion is a commercially-driven industry. However, it is most important to follow one’s vision. We are making garments that require a specific quality of craftsmanship and vision. Because the pieces are thought about and developed with such a slight of hand, and with a light approach, we want to capture a feeling of airlessness when they are brought to life. In order to do this, we have to use complicated techniques that make our clothes as light as they can be. The fragility and delicate nature of our pieces comes naturally from our design process. We don’t think about it other than it being a part of what we do.
Joanna. — In a perfect world, do you have any idea where you’d be in ten years?
Laura. — Making clothes and collaborating with interesting artists.
Joanna. — Would you still want to be in California?
Laura. — I think we will always be connected to California in some way or another. It is the most amazing environment, mustard fields, apple orchards and horse ranches. We spent our whole youth wandering around in forests, mostly redwoods. It was either that, or digging in the sand, or peering into tide pools.
Joanna. — Are there any things other than what you’re doing right now that you’d love to do in this life?
Kate. — We would love to make costumes for Swan Lake or for a Clive Barker film.
Joanna. — Among all the many factors you see as sources of inspiration, or references to incorporate into any given collection, do you ever look at the work of other designers?
Kate. — More than anything else, I think memory and nature have had the greatest impact on our designs. We tend to avoid looking at other designers’ work in order to develop our own personal vision.
Laura. — I remember growing up, being surrounded by redwoods. I think you end up looking at light and shadow differently when you are surrounded by such large organisms. You become hyper-aware of detail because knowing that such a primordial world can exist around you in a modern world is incomprehensible.
We were always looking at our surroundings with a microscopic eye, trying to find the smallest detail possible and storing it for future reference. Sometimes, when we think of the way our minds work, we think of a piece by Joseph Cornell or even the shrine in [François Truffaut’s] 400 Blows. Our relationship to our work exists as it does now because of what we saw as children, and what we saw while we grew up in California.
Joanna. — Are there any designers from the last century that you particularly admire?
Kate. — Contemporary designers would be Azzedine Alaia, Martin Margiela, Vivienne Westwood, and Karl Lagerfeld. Past designers… Charles James and Coco Chanel.
Joanna. — Is there any formal distinction between the roles that both of you play in the process of designing and constructing your collections?
Laura. — I would say that the only difference is that Kate does our final sketch. My drawings always resemble a skinny cartoon with a funny personality, so I let Kate translate my scratches in a beautiful way, even when they are very detailed. Overall, we have our strengths, but we cannot work without one another. Kate always knows what I am thinking, and I always know what she is thinking. Any debates come and go, and we always end up seeing eye-to-eye in terms of designing.
Joanna. — What were you like growing up? Were you close?
Laura. — We were definitely partners in crime. We were always together. At one point, we imagined as if we were Sharon and Susan from The Parent Trap. We were convinced that one of us needed to be from Boston, and the other from Carmel. We were also in love with the romantic notion of finding a long-lost sibling, with whom we could eat Fig Newtons after ‘unexpectedly meeting’ at camp. We loved to perform and to have carnivals in our backyard. We were obsessed with playing library and painting and drawing things like ballerinas and circus lions. We loved to cause trouble with our neighbors and to put on funny plays for people that we knew. However, our personalities truly came out when we decorated our rooms. Kate, oddly enough, was obsessed with lavender. And I would not allow anything in my bedroom that was not red or white. Since we always did everything together, I suppose that is why we always had the same taste in music, film, art, and literature. As soon as one of us was exposed to something, we would immediately share it with the other. We always wanted the other to know what we were feeling or experiencing. It has truly made our dialogue as designers open and effortless.
Joanna. — Did you have any idea this was what you wanted to end up doing?
Kate. — We always loved the idea of design and were interested in fashion as we saw it in film, music, and magazines. We were never exposed to high fashion from family members. We did, however, see the most amazing opera costumes that our grandmother, Italia, had, and our mother’s photographs of our parents in northern California in the '60s and '70s. Something about those photographs changed the way that we thought about clothing. I cannot remember a time when we were not intrigued by design. I think, in the end, that it was meant to be. We chose to study art history and English literature in college, hoping to have a greater understanding of aesthetics, but knew, in the end, that there would be nothing else that we would do with our lives but design.
Joanna. — Did you have the same tastes in music and art and books and all that, or were you pretty different from each other?
Kate. — We had the same taste with slight differences. For example, Laura was more into James Joyce and I was more interested in Kerouac.
Joanna. — What is something you care about that nobody else around you seems to care about?
Laura. — Horror films.
Joanna. — What is something most everyone around you seems to care about that you don’t care about at all?
Kate. — Vacations.
Joanna. — What is one thing you think people should do when they visit Los Angeles that nobody seems to do?
Kate. — It is a city of hidden treasures like the gem room in the Natural History Museum and the Rose Tree Cottage in Pasadena. Visit the Magic Castle too!
Laura. — One has to visit the Bradbury Building and the tunnels in downtown LA, where Blade Runner was filmed.
Joanna. — What’s your least favourite classic rock song of all time?
Laura. — 'Hotel California', The Eagles. Our favorite albums are: Wire Pink Flag, Meat Puppets Meat Puppets II, Sonic Youth Daydream Nation, Elliott Smith Elliott Smith, Lou Reed Berlin, Guided By Voices Bee Thousand, Nirvana Bleach, Clan of Xymox Medusa, The Smiths Meat Is Murder, Brian Eno Another Green World, X Los Angeles, Suicide Suicide, Sparks Kimono My House, Redd Kross Born Innocent, Areski and Brigitte Fontaine L’Incendie and Le Bonheur, and everything by Sam Cooke.