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Rachel Comey. Photo credit: Matchesfashion.com<\/p>\n Rachel Comey. Photo credit: Matchesfashion.com<\/p>\n
Rachel Comey\u2019s clothes make you happy. The shapes are feminine yet boyish, the prints arty but not brash, the look is highly covetable yet totally wearable. It is a rare thing for a label to offer women all of the above whilst retaining ethical standards (all woven garments are made locally in Midtown Manhattan) and an approachable price point. But Comey seems to be managing it with aplomb. With her roots in sculpture, art, costume design and menswear, it’s refreshing how simple Comey\u2019s designs are – pieces designed to be worn every day rather than kept for best. Although you will probably want to do both.<\/p>\n
Sleek met Comey at the launch of her resort collection at the UK boutique Matches on a balmy London evening, one of those rare occasions in fashion where the weather and the clothes are in harmony. Her resort collection portrays her brand\u2019s trademarks perfectly – oversized shirt dresses in mannish pinstripe, denim halter necks, high waisted wide leg khakis, cropped just at the right point and of course a selection of artful print.<\/p>\n
So you have just opened your first store in the US, how’s that going?<\/b><\/p>\n
The cool thing about the store that I am really loving and that is really amazing, is that I get a report at the end of every day and its always a story about an interesting woman, and now I feel so much more in touch with the customers; who they are, what they are shopping for, what they buy. The range of age and of body types is so much broader than I thought it would be. To have a seventy year old woman come in and totally get into something that I might not have pictured on a seventy year old, and for her to find it, be psyched and then come back a month later. That’s so cool!<\/p>\n
I read that you design \u2018for real women, like yourself, with strong opinions, big aspirations, and a view to the world that is at once radical and romantic\u2019. What does radical mean to you and how do you express that through your collections?<\/b><\/p>\n
I think that really means women who are following their own vision, their own independence. I really admire that in other women when I see them making bold choices, or daring things – or not!\u00a0 I have a lot of respect for my customers, they are open to trying things, they don\u2019t want the same thing all the time, and that makes my job more interesting too. I don\u2019t have to design one dress for ever and ever, I can keep mixing it up.<\/p>\n
![\"Photo](\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/image2-copy.jpg\")
Photo credit: Matchesfashion.com<\/p>\n
So when you are designing the collection is there one woman in mind, the Rachel Comey woman, or is there a variety of strong characters that you draw from?<\/b><\/p>\n
I definitely think of different women; different body types, I try to fit on different body types.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I was going to ask you about that actually, because there is a boyish quality to your designs and with your history in menswear, how much do you consider cutting for a woman\u2019s body?<\/b><\/p>\n
I think about the feminine body definitely – I have been thinking a lot lately about what is feminine, how femininity is changing, I am almost confused in a way. I saw a film with Brigitte Bardot the other day and she was acting so flirtatious and coy and I just thought, I can’t even identify with that. Is that behaviour a relic from another era or are people behaving like that? I don\u2019t know anybody who might be. I realised that I define femininity differently. There are so many more moments in my own life where I want to feel strong, and I want my clothes somehow to carry me in that way. Since I design a lot of ready-to-wear, I am thinking about women working, the needs that they have running around in their busy lives. It isn\u2019t just dresses for fun – although I do that too! – but thats only a part of\u00a0 what I do.<\/p>\n
So what do you think femininity is these days?<\/b>\u00a0<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t know! I am trying to work it out. It\u2019s really interesting, especially with the movement of gender neutrality <\/a>in fashion, I see the young men dressing in such a more creative way than when I was young and I find it so exciting.<\/p>\n What motivated you to start in menswear originally?<\/b><\/p>\n It all just happened organically. I had been making costumes for rock bands and it was the men who were finding it harder to find looks for on stage and so that is how it started, with stage-inspired menswear. And at that time there weren\u2019t really men’s boutiques like there are now, it was just a different story. I also came from art school so I had no formal training, and menswear seemed more straightforward\u00a0 – the cuts, the shapes – whilst the idea of designing womenswear blew my mind.\u00a0<\/p>\n At that time I was getting stocked mainly in Japan as my cuts were super-skinny – it was 2001, you know – and stores started to ask if they could stock it in their women\u2019s sections too. But you know, making womenswear that looks like menswear wasn\u2019t my thing and as the men\u2019s calendar is earlier I thought lets just skip the men\u2019s season and go straight for a women\u2019s collection.<\/p>\n Print plays a big part of your brand, what are your starting points when it comes to the inspiration for the colour and the print?<\/b><\/p>\n Well, I do a lot of research at all the different mills – I just spent a month in Italy visiting my favourite mills, although I only allow myself to buy a few fabrics from Italy each season as the price point is pretty high, but I still like to sneak them in. It’s all about experimentation. Recently I have really been getting into texture and process rather than print, so wovens, washing things, treatments, etc. But with the print it often comes from friends. One friend of mine is a painter and yesterday I was wearing a print that came from one of her paintings. I had some funny ones in the old days that were more conceptual, where all my friends would sign their signature and I made that into a print, that kind of thing.\u00a0<\/p>\n So what\u2019s next for Rachel Comey?<\/b>\u00a0<\/p>\n Next we are opening a store in LA, and looking at spaces at the moment. There is a new energy in LA I think, lots of New Yorkers moving there, it\u2019s really interesting. And it would be great to open up stores all over the place. You know, having the one store I can see how it would be fun to have more. It\u2019s great having a better connection to my customers but also, designing the space is super fun and not something I had been interested in much before. But I seem to have gotten to a place with the collection, where I really understand my point of view as a designer. So now creating the space for the collection I can start to apply similar principles\u00a0 – starting with materials, stone, concrete, things like that. There are so many things to explore.<\/p>\n\n Interview von Katy Lassen<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n More: go behind the scenes at Dries van Noten<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n More: London’s young fashion duo Trager Delaney <\/a>talk cultural normcore<\/strong><\/p>\n