Virgil Abloh & British Vogue's Olivia Singer: How to Be Newsworthy in Fashion

one two i think it's our fourth virtual mentoring session with virgil um i'm especially happy today virgil's

joined by a friend and colleague of his olivia singer who is the fashion news director

of british vogue and she's here with virgil to talk a little bit about uh what it means these days to be

newsworthy which i think is a apt and relevant topic so virgil and olivia

welcome thanks for joining us and i am going to jump in and maybe just ask you both to talk about

how you met and have uh gotten to know one another yeah well i'll start you know like

so crazy like before um for starters i want to say thanks for olivia for joining us like

she's stepping into sort of like a project that she's might only have seen us like

develop in the the longer part of the year that's been but you know in the industry this is

sort of a lead into the question in the fashion industry you know which kind of has this very big

tall like almost like scary monolith there's people within it that you'll meet

that you like align with just like culturally morally besides just fashion and besides

just looking at clothes or whatever so i met olivia it was like group of friends basically in

the bigger tribe of fashion on the global calendar of like hey we have to be in milan this week or

hey we have to be in paris and it's like everyone's got a million appointments like some people's paths

a lot of pads will cross but you'll soon know so we had just mutual friends like i

don't even remember this specific day there's like a why i wanted olivia to you're kind of the first

outsider inside my thinking but why that's the case is because she was in a different tribe of london

kids you know like london's like a an important place just as much as paris

you know there's like a fashion history there so i don't know where did i meet you

you know like i don't i don't i know it's to say it's the same thing i don't know and it's um

i was i was trying to think about this yesterday i really don't know i remember i remember certain times that

you professionally told me things for the first time when i was like okay trust me

a bit more now but i don't remember i mean there are parts of

of my life where i feel like i have spent i see you more regularly than i see

like my sister who lives down the road because on the same calendar professionally and socially so um yeah

yeah it's through like mutual [Music] friends as much as anything else right

yeah and just you know why i like is we're not you have your own organization that you put together

called rubric which we're both sort of like sharing energy on each so we'll get into that later but for

i always want to tune the conversation to all of our crew you know we're mentoring as we're

talking and so the important thing to remember is like that's why i wanted olivia too it's like vogue with the

capital v you know like there's only like she said there's six people in her

office you know it's only like a handful of people they're very hard to track down like you you don't

just go up you don't find them on the street and but ultimately they're normal people

you know and it's like conversation mutual friends and all of a sudden vogue with a

capital v is someone approachable it's something achievable uh peter what did you call it

like newsworthy i thought it was a cool yeah yeah yeah and maybe just on that topic

virgil of it being achievable olivia if i can ask you a little bit more pointedly just

how you got here you know um a little bit about your career trajectory and how you landed at vogue and

maybe even a little bit of your day-to-day just to get in the context of this

um so i didn't grow up wanting to work in in fashion that was never my my mo i

didn't i didn't grow up like thinking about fashion really or reading

fashion magazines i always felt really like kind of bad that so many fashion journalists have or

fashion designs or whatever have stories about you know being like 12 years old and picking up a copy of

days or id or something and i didn't um i grew up like interested in in music and and in

politics in in feminist politics so i ended up i did a degree in english

literature and i ended up moving to paris after my degree

like with the hope of of working in feminist activism that um in like critical theory and rape crisis

um and i ended up feeling really disillusioned with where the conversation was at then it

wasn't like it wasn't like the 60s liberalism i was i was really putting my hopes on

um so after a couple of years spent there like working you know working whatever jobs working like

in restaurants and working like a kitchen for a year and and all of that sort of stuff um

doing fundraising and other projects on the side

i felt like the conversation wasn't engaging enough for people and the conversations around identity

and intersectionality particularly in feminism um this was like 10 10 years ago or so

so maybe a bit more so i came back to london and i i've always had friends who work

in or around the fashion industry because i'm from london and i grew up in clubs

and going to see bands going to see music or whatever um and i had a friend who

worked with these fashion designers doing projects in feminism we were a brand called medium kirchoff

and she was a musician as well and i snuck into a fashion show with her one day

because like i had nothing to do and um it felt like all of the the things i had been

interested in um about feminism about identity and conversations that i'd found really

hard to have with people in an engaging way had been made material in this in this like eight

minute experience um and i was like [ __ ] i i didn't realize that

i don't know i just hadn't ever really thought about fashion as being a space that could like conjure those emotions

so directly and i bumped into a friend of mine after the show

like when we were all leaving who was a girl who i had you know i'd gone to clubs with went

through my teen years um and she was she's isabella burleigh who

um was then the fashion features editor at dave's magazine and i'd always written like politics

stuff for like i know blogs or feminist journals or whatever and i was like oh my god i love the show

and she said okay well why don't you're so enthusiastic why don't you write something for us

and um i wrote something for dazed um about like the feminism of this show or

something and suddenly i realized that fashion was was something that couldn't like was

engaging in that way and i think that sort of stayed what i'm interested in

in fashion um on my date oh and then okay so then i got then i started writing the places

um i had no money like like no money um i had like a ton of jobs right i mean i think it's really important to say

from the off fashion journalism is the worst paid part of this industry there is no money in it um and

so i was earning like very very little um writing for magazines online writing i mean just i

would email people i would email i would find the right email addresses and i would email people and some of the

emails i sent i found recently like in my early years they're like

horribly cringey um i sent enough of them i guess that sometimes people would let me write

for them online um and i would earn like 50 pounds a piece or whatever and i'd do that in my

evenings when i got home from work and um and i guess i just kept eating there was

like no recipe for it like i got you know i got this first piece on days and that was really major for me and

then i emailed people and and just kept on trying and i sort of slowly built like a portfolio like a

very weird portfolio um and then i got offered a job at another magazine

um where i started working three and a half days a week um and again i think it's really

important to be transparent about money i found my contract recently i earned 500 pounds a month

working three and a half days a week that is not enough to pay anything

um so i was working the other three and a half days you know doing like whatever other jobs

i could find um and things sort of just just went from there and i ended up you

know after a few years becoming fashion features director another and then um when edward joined

vogue when edward was announced at vogue i am i think because i've never grown up

thinking about fashion i wasn't like oh this is you know i never thought about working

at vogue i was like folk to me was a very glossy um i don't know man i don't know what to

say about old vogue it wasn't it wasn't for me for whatever reason and um but i remember the day i got a

point edward got appointed i was i was with someone and i was like [ __ ] like i want

to work at the boat i want to work for edward and and i loved my job and now that i loved

it so so much um but suddenly i just got this email out of the blue

and asking if i would i would come and meet with him and i went and i met with him and um in this like little hotel

room and um i think one of the things that i've learned

over my my career is that you know in those situations where where they're like

really they feel like these really pivotal moments right they feel like if i don't

do this right if i don't get this moment right then my life is over like then i i look

like it's game over um what i've realized is just that like i went and i walk

i didn't buy a new outfit like i didn't pretend i don't know i didn't try and work out what he would want from me

um i went and i tried to like be my most authentic self because i was like if i get the job

if i get a job if i get any job based on anything other than than who i am and what i believe in a

i'm not gonna enjoy that job a year down the line or whatever and b i'm not gonna be any

good at that job like and if i'm not good at my job and if it's

you know the things i just feel like if i turn up and i'm like myself then if people want me they want me

um and so i did that and i was very honest about how i felt about the industry

how i felt about magazines um and the next day he called me and he offered me the job and

and i've been there with him now for four years perfect trajectory story you know what i

love about like because it's like you know that's why what mentoring for me really is is like dispelling the

myths right and so people have this thing about like vogue

like she said i did i still do actually like this big vlog glossy monolith that for whatever

it is it is the monolith that which you need one in every industry you know like that's the thing if it's

time magazine for regular for people it's you know it's every industry has a

vogue of course is made up by real people that have gone through struggles

that have that can identify it's not made of robots and the other sort of like pull

highlight that i'd like for everyone to listen to is when you're building your brand of course you're

building your design ethos you're building the look and feel and

how to get maybe like an influencer someone famous to wear it so that you feel like you could sell more

but think about adding a writer to your team you know like just think about like hey

there's someone who's gotta get to contextualize your work it doesn't have to just be you

yeah you know that's the biggest myth that no one told me until later in my career it's like

there's trusted people that i banter about my collections with and i get my story right before i have to tell a

writer and more often than not the more times you talk through it the more

it makes sense to someone who's like judging your collections or or whatever so think about young people

in your atmosphere that might be a writer and be like hey help me write the brand

manifesto of my brand you know like and we'll come up together but yeah peter you can go i didn't want

to cut off your next question no no that it's it's a it's a perfect segue virtually and so

it's a little bit more granular now in terms of my questions but i think they're relevant to the students

on the zoom who are many of them designers many of them entrepreneurs many of them hoping

to launch their own businesses and brands how does one go about pitching a magazine or

pitching vogue specifically do you have to have someone who represents you to make the pitcher can

you do it directly and and how i think there are i think um i personally think that unless you've

got a really sorry is my cat you've got a pr who you really trust who's like part who gets you

who gets your vision who gets your brand i think i don't know i don't know how relevant

the role of a pr agency necessarily is for all young designers like a traditional way of

looking at pr i think it's one of the things where i really think like

look to people if you meet with people look for people you trust and get a vibe from and if not like

get your people involved because i think as as to what virgil just said you know

getting your brand narrative right is really important when when you're talking

to anyone in the fashion industry um because that's what makes you sell you know that's what sells you to someone

and i think particularly you know in in the times that we're in where i see you know you're always going

to see a garment you're always going to see a piece of clothes and it's going to resonate with you instinctively

aesthetically but i think more and more this industry is engaged with the narratives

around storytelling and design and is more open to the narratives around storytelling and

design and so with regard to communicating that you know

i hate when i get an email um and i read all my dms i try and read as many of my emails as i

can um but i hate when i get an email and it's just like a lookbook

right because i'm like where's the context for this i want to know i want to know like top line

is interesting about your brand that i'm not just gonna get from your pictures and i think pictures can tell part of

that story i think that good young designers like that the ones who i think of as

is engaging um reflect their brand narrative throughout as much of that output as they can whether that's

shoots that you're doing on your phone and posting on instagram or whether that's like a juji thing that you're

doing with your friends and but i think that the storytelling element is is really

key and so either you have to have a pr who's emailing that out on your behalf who really gets that and isn't just like

sending a bunch of emails because you're giving them x amount of money and they'll be like yeah i emailed these

people and like none of them responded um you have to get somebody who gets your

messaging and how to sell that or you sell it yourself and and i think that that's perfectly a perfectly viable

way of doing things um but it's about considering the whole messaging the whole package

of the brand and what you're doing so it's a it can be an email or a dm but it should be and and it should maybe

include some visual assets but not ex like there has to be the context in the story and the

you know the articulation of what you're looking at right yeah and i think that visuals could

play like a pivotal part in that right i think i think the thing that i always say to

to young designers first and foremost is and i know this is one of your

your later questions peter but social media is literally the greatest pr in the world

for you underline that like you know you that that's

where it's like your shop window it's where you can communicate every facet of your brand and

storytelling and i think that the visuals are of course the most immediately engaging

thing about that so look at storytelling through your visuals look at your instagram

as a way of communicating your brand that's how everyone finds designers or brands or businesses or whatever like

that's how it works and so i do think yeah making sure that that that side of

things is is on log is important and libya so you probably do receive

lots of emails and pitches what stands out for you how does a new designer make

themselves for you um special distinctive compelling and

so if if a brand if someone emails me and if a pr emails me or whatever the first

thing i do is i click on the instagram and i scroll through and i look firstly of course i'm like if i

don't if i don't like what it looks like i'm like yeah not for me if i like what it looks like and think it's interesting

i look for for what this the story is like for what vibe i get from a brand

um and like i said you know i'm interested in how you know for young designers young

brands what's different about them why do they exist

why why are they in this world like why has somebody given their life to this rather than

going and working for somebody else why has somebody started their own business what about it is a point of

differentiation um so yeah i look on the instagram and i'm like oh do i get a vibe from this

like what are the visuals like and i'm not saying like they need to be

um super polished visuals i remember peter doe for example the american brand

who i guess he's won like a ton of awards now he's doing really well like he's building up a successful business

i remember when he launched his brand when he had like just when he just launched his

brand they had this instagram that was so good and it wasn't glossy it was all shot on his phone it was like him and

his friends that like shot like accessories on their phones

and it just looked chic it looked chic and it looked weird and i was like oh this is a vibe and i

followed it and then like six years later you know the brand's still shaking kind of weird and

it's a vibe um but you can sense you could sense even at that time when he had no money

no team around him creating assets or anything that every image he was putting out into

the world every bit of information he was putting out into the world was to serve this like great and narrative

that he thought his brand reflected and that's a key another key thing is like

because i'm thinking about when you guys are developing your brand and you're like

trying to get exposure even exist it's it is what we think it is you know it's like everyone has a brand

everyone has an instagram yeah and just go for what sets yours apart so when someone is looking at it they're

sort of like oh i've never seen this and i think it's always important to sort of

share it with people take hard criticism think about what your actual premise is think about your photos think about

that's your open resume always someone is looking at it trying to discover you so you have to like meet them halfway um

such such like nutshell you know like this is the the the real fact of the matter of getting discovered

yeah and make it easy for people right like make it easy

you've got it all like in what don't send people we transfers nobody's downloading or we transfer

like nobody is reading eight pages of your brand's manifesto like make it easy for people to

ascertain what your point of difference is got it i think i know the answer to this

but i want to ask it only because i don't want our students to be discouraged do you have to know someone

in a magazine know an editor have a friend who knows or do you have to be an advertiser or is

there some you know transactional aspect that gets you further along sooner or is it

you can just on the merits of what i'm you know sharing with you as a designer aesthetically get where you want to go

i mean i think that um i think that the fashion industry is complicated in all sorts of ways right i think the reality

is if you know somebody then they're gonna look at what you're doing

right they're gonna look at it like more like you know if if a friend of mine or like

you know virgil sends me a designer he thinks is cool i'm definitely looking at that there so

to say that that isn't the case ever is just like not true um i wouldn't feature a brand i wouldn't

write about a brand just because i knew them or because virgil had sent them to me or a

friend of mine who'd sent them to me um but yeah it does open a door and i think that when it comes to

advertisers and and money in the bank um yeah brands are always

gonna feature their advertisers like that's just you know that's just how the publishing

industry works is it is kind of transactional to a certain degree but there is

always room i i believe um and that is in vogue for young designers and for for new

talent and i wouldn't be doing my job as a journalist if i didn't

or an editor or whatever if i didn't seek that out and i do also i know that from

the board so every the way that a fashion magazine works right it's like every stylist or editor

for every fashion shoot will send through their boards like pdfs of the things they want to shoot and the

references and that like the product they want to shoot and the brands that they want to shoot

advertisers or not like you've always got to shoot some advertisers

but there's always room for for other people as well and fashion additives

want to know what's new right they i think one of the things that um is really important to remember is

youth is on your side like all anyone wants to know is like what do young people think is cool what are young

people engaged with like exactly what's like gen z interested in like

like 60 year olds talking about like what's on tech talk and you're like you know people want to know what's

young and cool they want to be ahead of the curve yeah and this is like another thing like

and this is like good criticism of like overall like ecosystem

there's there's all everyone wants to know but then there's also the most predictable answers

yeah right so like everyone will pitch and this is not diluting i'm just saying that the landscape because a lot of

people want to know how to stand out how do i become how do i get traction so if it's like i want to

be sustainable or i want to sort of represent you know diversity or if i want to

like these are all that's all ecosystem you know like olivia mentioned like feminism

in this you know 70s 80s 90s like there's always an atmosphere that everyone is tapped into

the thing to get recognized for is to take that and then like 7.0 it yeah you know it that's that's not going

to be enough because the person who's pitching before you and after you is saying they want to be

sustainable yeah or they're saying that the inclusivity

um you know you ha it's it's not it challenges you to sort of get to an innovative

articulation of that idea so if you send it to olivia and it has to be in like the first three words

like the other part of the email or of the dm or on your instagram at all times waiting for someone to recognize you

it's got to be your other it can't simply just be that this is that you know yeah yeah i

i can yeah i completely agree with you i i am like i i pretty much assume that any

brand who's who's getting into any new brand has some

sort of sustainability built into that infrastructure right like that's not like there are certain

perspectives that five years ago would have been like radical that just on so and

like virgil said it's about the the bits that sort of stand out and make you stand out and that's what

editors or stylists are looking for and are looking to put on their boards and looking to shoot looking to write

stories about is the absolute newness and for this newness olivier i mean you

and virgil are both on the receiving end of a lot of appeals and pitches like are there things you both do to look for

new talent um separate and distinct from from being on the receiving end of outreach are there

places you go or um how do you find it how do you find it virgil you go fast no

well a you know like i came from outside the fringe so i'm always looking for someone who came from my exact

outside the because i can feel the struggle and if you know i look at how i follow a

million people because i feel like it's my right like for me to have the voice i can't be like

the person with zero followers like i follow no one i'm like i'm a one-way street or

something like it's all community and really friends of friends i'm super conversational

like the best way to build like cold call me is cold call me through a friend that

you've built some sort you've done a project with so you've sort of you've shown your

ambition i'll meet you halfway um but that's just how i'm tuned and you know i'm more about building

community than looking for one shot like i have this like a lot of people look at someone

like me and be like i need to play the lottery i need to get discovered and i need to work for you at louis vuitton

and you know i want to fix the world like doesn't don't we all and it's not so much like a lottery ticket that

i want people to feel like and so community like like you know i met olivia basically

like going out you know being social being able to have a conversation being able to hang out

and then that builds builds bridges so to get to and it's not just work singularly it

works in all aspects of your life but what would you say olivia

yeah i mean i would i would absolutely echo that and basically say the same thing it's about finding your

people and building something with them and building some building something as a collective or um

like working with like-minded people and being human about it i think you know

there are like the there's like the devil wears prada vibe of this industry somewhere and i i don't know if that's

going anywhere or if it's not or god knows um but you know like virgil said it's it's an

industry made up of normal people who have been at the starting point

in their careers at some point and i look at edward right and i look at the people he works with now and like

you know it's the best of the best of the best it's steve mcqueen it's pat mcgrath it's naomi it's these people

but you know however many years ago they were all 17 year old kids sitting sharing one coffee

on goldborn road and like working together with no money you know i think it's

this idea that like you know you're gonna send one dm or you're gonna get one into the fashion

industry and like you're golden is i think for a start that that's not the reality but i also think that takes

like the joy out of it like the joy is building something with your peers collectively

and all rising together and um i think the path is is the fun bit right and um

and having like-minded people around you who you're operating with creatively um is is the most exciting bit

and yeah like most of the people who i know and work with i met through i met through going out i met through people

who i get on with i don't make good work with people i don't like like that's not where i

as a person do my best stuff so it's just good good vibes yeah

do some go to your next one but i also want to like i want to let you guys ask some

sort of intermediate questions yeah i think virgil's perfect time now because i've asked a few

and i know that the students have questions and i think desiree you raised your hand so

maybe we want to open it up now virgil to questions yeah and olivia yeah desiree can go first

um i just like i guess i had a question on like the idea of like legitimacy and like

if that is like kind of a myth like um like when you were talking about how like it doesn't always work that way

where you have like this instagram page and like you follow nobody and like there's all of these followers

and it's like like i guess how important is like that idea of like creating legitimacy

um in terms of like i guess like the ratio of like who is following you versus you who are you following or like

in terms of like how people view you like as like a young designer i'll tell you

like and that's a good point because you know followers and now it's like uncool to

have like a ton of followers just to just because i read instagram like a tarot card

something like that what what's always cool to me i know there's something great if it's like low-key

right very cryptic that means you kind of like you can see speaking in a coded language or your own

language is good like you don't have to have a ton of followers but do something interesting

that makes someone repost it you know i would get like a good reference for you guys is like malola

right wouldn't you say yeah for sure like she is alternative right and it's cool because

it's not everything you know it's almost antithesis yeah

um the images are super creative they're not speaking to other fashion images she doesn't she probably

didn't have a million follow it's one of those things where she was on so many other people's radar

that it's instead of being singular it's kind of like just be yourself i know everyone says that but like just

do alternative things be act like you're talking to no one basically and then people like always

turn into it you know but of course it's easier said than done but

she was in community right building yeah she's exactly she's absolutely like hard work is a reflection

of the world she has built with her peers it's not a reflection of who's the cool fashion photographer and

how like right now who's like who's shooting for days right now or whatever and how do i get them to shoot

my brand it's like people who she meets and thinks are interesting and then she

works with them to build something which tells her story and their story and the story of the

world that they inhabit together and that's new and it's more resonant absolutely and it's more authentic

and i think that authenticity like virgil says you know it's it's easier said than done but

that is what engages people it's running like in a time when we're saturated with

stuff it's authenticity that engages people like it's not like oh they're cool because

they follow eight people and eight million people follow them you know

it's i i don't think i don't think on a very practical level you need to worry so much about that you

follow who you follow whose food you want to see and then also just a last tidbit when i said build

your community like find a model a mute shoot them a bunch let them also use this as an opportunity because

our friends in london you know like they have a crew of people they work the same photographer they work

and they all end up coming up together because it's not singular so don't feel like you're alone like

build with some friends like couple like it could be the strange kid that like does no one sees their style

yet or the local musician or or whatever that's that's the 2021 method to get discovered

yeah and i think it's been always the same method in fashion i think that we just haven't seen it

because it's been behind a very um opaque screen right i think that you know it's it's

what it was with westwood in the in the 70s it's what it was with

edward and his crew in the 90s it's it's i think everyone is absolutely exhausted

of the like glossy veneer that the internet has has offered for so long and it's looking for

authentic reflections of people's worlds and communities thank you

adele hi i'm adele hi um i kind of just have a question like

i'm making stuff but i'm not selling anything yet i'm wondering like how my brand or like how people see that and

get engaged could be different like once i start selling things like how much of a difference does that

actually make like whether does it not make like the reality is

half of the stuff that we see like uh fashion week and half is generous doesn't get sold either

like yeah yeah myth number one everyone's just selling handbags

um yeah i build build your brand build build your brand build your vision

you know people can't buy into it and i think i mean specifically for vogue if we're

putting something in print in vogue my rule is um it has to be available to be bought not necessarily by a

retailer that can be an independent e-commerce site um but i think that for our readers it's

only fair to show them things that they can buy into but i think when building your brand it

it it doesn't matter or it certainly doesn't matter to me yeah yeah yeah i don't know if they

teach that in fashion school or not but there is like this um

there's like a huge reality that fashion like it's all image pieces you know it's like it's

like it's what you you do run away shows you do that like you do those things to show who your

brand is what the dna is then nine times out of ten a buyer

is going for things that a customer easily recognizes and then they can sell right so you know like logo isn't

like a gucci you're more gonna be you're gonna more find a shirt that says gucci

or then you would find any look on a runway that you saw in the store

um you know that's why she says handbags you know like it's all what we purchase right and it's

not to demean it's just a bit of a reality check is like they more often than not

people can't afford or they're not into a dress you know because you're not going to buy a dress every day but

they'll buy something that relates to the brand name that they can wear with every outfit they can wear it

six times a week instead of one so as you're building your brand having a having that in your back of

your mind being like a logo tee you know that's part of the reason why i got on is i

unabashedly streetwear was like hey we do t-shirts like it's not so much of like a thing

you have to hide in the back door while you project this image of being high fashion

but you know nine times out of ten if your brand isn't successful at monetizing it's because there's

probably not easier pieces for people to buy into and that's

you'll hear a lot about this called like a marketing department you know to a designer that you kind of

go like this every time you hear and it's it's not marketing as it relates to like marketing a brand

i don't i still don't know why those words are used together completely not like marketing i thought

was like advertising um so you would work in like the communications department but in my

brand's off-white mlv there's a marketing department that looks at my creativity and it's like no

like we're not like what olivia says we're not gonna sell any of those we're gonna sell i need a shirt that's

you know not oversized that's falls at a price point of like 200 euros

that has the logo on it so you're always battling that with also like trying to do runway

shows and trying to do beautiful things and you know olivia's not telling you about

the hard part okay so that's just one really good thing okay well no you are a fashion

like whether she admits it or not like she's in like the fashion

like they review shows you know like her she's the crew that's like this show is good or not and what i love about that

it's not about if they don't care if it sells or not they're trying to they're pulling the best out of you

and i think and i think that that you know that like the spelling i think that the fashion show is super interesting

for that reason because it's the ultimate bit of brand building and reflection of a

vision right and i think um one of the things i love most about every fashion week

is so i'm a big honda garcon fan right like i love calm above above all else and and you go

to those shows and you know as of you know six seven years ago now um rey stopped putting like clothes

on the runway she started putting these sort of sculptures these big like conceptual pieces

and you'd get like 12 looks and they make maybe two or three of them of these like fabulous that they sell

every every season but what you can do the next day is you go

into the comm showroom and they have all of the commercial iterations of of that collection

so say you've seen like a big bubble thing that's got like no arms and um only the best people in the world are

actually buying that and you see how that develops into commercial product in the showroom

and how the codes and the ideas and the vision that has been expressed on the runway

is distilled into like virgil said the t-shirt that someone's gonna wear far more

easily than they wear the the thing with no arms but has some of that same

energy imbued in it somehow whether that's through a fabric whether that's through a cut whether that's through a

logo whether that's through through whatever um so while you you can build this exciting dynamic

vision for your brand that isn't ever going to make you a great deal of money

what you can do is look at a brand who distill those things successfully into key

pieces that are the commercial foundations for the brand and i think it's a really

sad thing when when the two aren't seen in harmony right because the more commercial

foundation you build for your brand the more you can afford to be creative it doesn't have to be

like a it's not like the idea of selling out by making an entry point t-shirt it's if you sell

enough of those entry point t-shirts you can afford to build your brand more in whatever way you choose to the two

parts work in harmony together it's not it's not one or the other

and i think that that's where a lot of young creators and a lot of young designers

fall down is the idea that that if you're if you're like making money or if you want to make money

that's like that's not a creative thing and and i just don't think that's true i think that

sets the foundation for creativity yeah uh elizabeth yeah hi um i actually wanted to ask the

question from like the writer's perspective because i do have also have an um major in english

literature and i concentrate in writing so i wanted to know what you think

makes an article effective or what you consider to be like the essential components of a

successful article um i think someone's opinion i think um i think someone i think someone's

yeah someone's opinion and perspective having a perspective i think um

like what you it's the same as design in the sense it's what you bring to the table

that is different to what other people do and i think that the reason why i had success when i started was because

i was writing about feminism in fashion like before that became a thing that people put on t-shirts right

like before it was part of the fashion vernacular so it was like my thing was like i'm writing

i have a perspective about fashion and feminism um and that makes me sort of stand out

in some way like i understand that i have an expertise in that that's my niche and that's what i'm

passionate about and that reverberates through the writing um i think

it's yeah i think it's having a perspective and an opinion and and believing in that and like i said

earlier i think you know there's your generation is a generation who people are desperate

to hear from like everyone wants to like be inside your head like lean into that

you know lean into the fact that a 45 year old fashion journalist doesn't know what's going on on tik tok

they literally don't know how to navigate tiktok so the things that you see emerge

as part of like your friends your peers your way of navigating this world is what

makes you unique you don't need to write you don't need to to imitate

um other generations of writers because like susie menkes is great or tim blanks is great or

sarah robin or whoever you need to lean into what you know and what makes you unique

and i think that the more you do that the more you write like the better it'll be

yeah thank you no so many good points um uh ariane yeah hi i'm ariane so i had a question

you guys were talking about you know like building our brands and um just being like

young creators and um like the question was asked about authentic authenticity so is there

like a such thing of like posting too much about your brand like as we're like starting our brands and building our

brands like is there such thing as um posting too much content

or you know um just posting too much to where consumers or future customers will you

know like get tired of seeing us post you know about whatever it is um concerning our brand

i would say there isn't because you're just it's free you know like it's it's it's with

each over you get better at whatever you do multiple times you know as long as you don't stop and you keep

evolving that's helping you craft your voice you know like olivia said it in her

pitch she basically was like i was just writing emails like until something happened and then

look something happened so ignore that side of your brain but what i would what i would challenge you to do

is think about engagement you know like you get less satisfaction from just like hitting the

button but like how can your content be engaging it's like interview friends you know do

something that uplifts somebody else will undoubtedly have two

just by math you'll have two people posting about one thing then itself so

it's kind of like working smarter and and and working in that way anything you want to add olivia to that

no i agree with that i just yeah i agree with that yeah thank you anybody else guys with a

question for virgil olivia do not be shy

virgil you're sometimes better at eliciting questions than i am oh yeah now i'm going to ask like a like okay

since we have olivia we'll keep it focused to like vogue right um do you guys

what i'd like to ask in a sort of like everyone can sort of like rapid fire way if you have one image to

post or to send to a vogue editor what would you send what

what like from from a collection or something yeah i just wonder because i know

like i know they're not like if no one's talkative right now but i know they each have like their project

and whatnot oh yeah oh no please show me yeah yeah yeah great or like you i don't know if you have it

on like around you or like you just show it on your phone being like oh this is my brand like just

you have some like face time with yeah so she can get a gist of like what what the you know what's going on in your

world and don't look at like oh it has to be the best thing it's kind of like

this is some good sp rapid fire feedback or things to look at that you know yeah and i think i think you know bear

in mind that like it it's editors jobs right it's like like a good editor

it's our jobs to be like finding stuff and looking for new stuff it's not it's not

just like a battle of trying to get things in front of people it's you know it's

our jobs to be looking for things as well and i think remember that you know when

you're showing things to people in this industry we're coming at them because we want to see newness as well

we want to see new ideas we want to be inspired by new things it's not like we just want to like look

at things and be shady about them can i show my senior project yeah go on okay

okay so um i'm basically a senior right now i'm going to be graduating next week friday

and basically i created a modest collection and it really was kind of inspired by my

journey of kind of like self-love and accepting who i was and just kind of living you know my truth as a muslim

woman so this brought well it was actually a purse that i created out of a bra and it

was called zero function and i created it because that's how i was living in life not really functioning but kind of

like trying to function while not functioning mentally so this was one of my accessories i

created and then this was one of the looks that i made it was basically modest fashion

and i used isco denim but i created all the prints on the denim through bleaching and kind of stripping the

fabric and then i also use like vinyl fusing for like this part here so it's like plastic on top of

denim and i created like the headbands and everything but it was basically

inspiring modest fashion kind of like accepting who you are even though you might have a

past every woman has a very bright future so i really wanted to kind of work with that

for like my collection and this was my second look as well did the bras come into it well i wanted

to create a bra i wanted to create a purse that was not functional so i decided a bra would

be great because you can't put anything inside of the purse or anything so it was called a zero function because

i love that i love i love that i love the broad purse thing i think that's super interesting

in in as well within the if you're exploring modest fashion and women's identities i think that's great

i don't think i've seen that before yeah because me and my mom we actually came up with the idea i mean the

collection was inspired by my mom kind of accepting who i was you know even though i wasn't living the best

life she was there for me so we had actually discussed the broad purse and it

finally came to fruition like three years later and i was like this would be great to kind of represent the fact that

you know i was living a fast life but i wasn't able to function in society because like mentally i was kind of like

all over the place so that's why i wanted to create a bra that like i've created a purse that was

not functional so that's where the whole thing came in for the you should look at building some

function into it as well because like that bottom like that shot where it's on the bottom

left i think that's great i think that looks like it looks beautiful and interesting as well and

it's got an interesting story behind it so if you can look at a way of building that into something that could

have some element of functionality i think it could still retain that same messaging

yeah but be something that that you know could be like purposeful in the world as well

yeah because i mean the idea was to kind of have it closed like up here but it was a bra so it's

like you can't push it together or anything right so like like one day when i have

enough money i would definitely try to get a production team or something to kind of

make it into a shop clothes at the top but still retain it's like curvy shape here and everything yeah yeah that would

be awesome yeah um but this was my third look and i even

um had a film if you guys want to see it's like 40 seconds why don't you send it to me on instagram

yeah what's your instagram olivia j singer thank you hey singer okay that would be great mariam and

anybody else want to respond to virgil's uh request just to show something um an image a background environment or

my screen um for like my senior collection sure

okay um so this is kind of my instagram right now so i have a lot of content

coming up on here i collaborated with a lot of models on campus like friends and a photographer so the name of my

collection is battle cry and i have a similar take um this is kind of my about it's

inspired by amazonian silhouettes and it's kind of an ode to women in the battles that they go through

so i wanted it to be soft and soft soft and strong and have a lot of shapes and textures that really

juxtapose each other um so it's also sustainable so i can start going through some of the pictures like all of the

woven elements were all thrifted and upcycled from different garments

and i even used like fabric from a curtain to make all the linings so amazing i have some stuff here that's

cool i love those like ruched cycling short things

yeah the bike shirts are fun um i took a lot of group shots um definitely love the photographer who i

got to work with that's great and were they were they like yeah people from your campus people

around i love this routine yeah it's great and that's so good women's bodies right

yeah it's like a junior on my campus so have like a lot of stuff here but definitely

the ruching like the power mesh was the only element that i couldn't get to be sustainable but

everything else is upcycled it's hot it's hard unless you're working at super scale for match

yeah i'm just gonna like keep clicking through it great congratulations i'll have a i'll have a

forward it to me forward it to me on instagram yeah yeah i followed you earlier so i can

just send it to you thank you these different as well

everything's kind of like a little bit coarse that inspired definitely these pants were like the

hardest part but yeah awesome congratulations thanks

anybody else i know we got a not any time really left but i can share okay great this is jordan

um one of my friends who's like one of my really good friends we actually like work together

because she's trying to be a stop well she's aspiring to be a stylist so um she's kind of my muse in my head even

though she knows this but she's like my personal muse and i just really admire her

style like overall like that's kind of how we became friends um i haven't released the photos yet on

my brand page um but as everyone who knows me in here my brand is called a loved one

and the overall premise is just self-love loving yourself standing out in the crowd so um my

friend she did a photo shoot with one of my logo t-shirts that i have on now

but um she did a shoot with it and she styled it and i think she captured the overall essence of my brand

very well so i'm just going to share a few photos with you guys i love that you're

wearing it now as well like thank you like returning to what virgil said earlier like be your own

brand ambassador thank you embody your brand somehow yeah so here's one of the images here

this is my friend tanisha oh great and um she actually thrifted the blazer herself but

like i said i feel like she captured the overall vibe of my brand you know just even the setting of where the

photos are it's in this like decrepit abandoned area and she's in ohio i'm in pittsburgh but you

know just overall standing out you can't help but look at her in these images alone you know from the

logo shirt and the um jacket and just how she even styled it all right um thank you i'll say thank

you on her behalf thank you i'm really big on pushing positive imagery of black women and just

like our aesthetic so i'm just like even happy with how she styled her hair you know it's very true

to who she is and who i see myself as a black woman um i'm going to share another one with

you guys this is my favorite right here i'm about to pull up this one here

but yeah i just wanted to share these thank you so much she looks great thank you they'll be on my instagram a

loved one a dot loved dot one number one soon so that's it and i love that and i love

is what you know getting friends of yours to to wear clothes to interpret them in their own

way like virgil said you know it gets more visibility

literally then you've got two people like it's just on a practical level thank you so good thank you

that's the vibe it's like showing the word so peter we are we how much time do we have i

think we have uh t minus six minutes i think we were meant to stop at one

and i know olivia's in london and it's not one p.m in london um we we had a few virgil of the

scholars who weren't able to attend because you know they're in school or they have jobs so we're going to send

the recording to them but i think that probably wraps it up and olivia if you don't mind i'd encourage

anyone who was reluctant to share to share with you you know through instagram would be great yeah please

please please amazing cool thank you olivia for joining i'm glad that you guys to sort of like

link and build and another awesome session on the postmodernism

logic thank you virgil thanks olivia very very much and thanks to all of you who tuned in

from the 45 year old tick tocker who doesn't know i mean look i still can't get my head

around it [Laughter] thanks guys take care bye