’tensemble NY 2023AW ORDER FAIR -Interview-

1. Can you tell us about your background? 

- My training was in pattern-cutting and I worked for various designers in New York as a sample-maker and pattern-maker for both runway show and production collections.

2. Your brand seems to contain various ideas and philosophies. What is important to you when presenting your collections? 

- I think the most important aspect of clothing is to dress the body. Story-telling is an added bonus, but at the end clothes should foremost be worn and in comfort. The customer shouldn't feel too self-conscious in the clothes, the attitude is there but it doesn't have to be forced. Clothes should be good just as stand-alone garments, even without any "story”.

- To be honest when working I'm not really looking at visual references. Sometimes a random abstract idea will come when listening to lectures or reading, I'll mentally save it, maybe a couple of months or years later, when something else comes by to make the story whole. Sometimes ideas come when working on the patterns or in the sewing process.

- Music and books (nowadays more audio-books) are important to me because they're especially good companions to sewing. It's hard to pick favorite in books... but the last few I read were: The Red Prince, Bloodlands, Stories of the Sahara, The Bookseller of Kabul, Giovanni's Room (again). There are also many fantastic radio programs with short stories too, both fiction and true.

Music too - it's hard to pick favorites... but some of my all-time favorite artists are Iron & Wine, Calexico, and Cat Powers. Some of the really good younger artists recently are Kevin Morby, Warhaus, and Michael Kiwanuka. Actually I was also a big fan of Namie Amuro when I was young, so she'll always have a special place. My favorite Namie Amuro song is "Dreaming I was Dreaming”. 

- I first discovered the singer Zabelle Panosian from the radio show Kerning Cultures, that tells both historic and contemporary stories from the Arab world and north Africa. Zabelle was an Armenian American who was active in the early 1900s, especially during the tragedy of the genocide. The lyrics are from the old Armenian folk song "Crane", which Zabelle recorded and performed to fund-raise for the refugees. Cranes are migrating birds, and the song sang of the migrants that lost touch of their homeland. In 1915 you just don't know whether your family back in Armenia is still alive or where they ended up. 

My good friend is Armenian, herself a refugee, and she lent me the book Passages, about traditional Armenian rug-weaving. I got in contact with the Armenian Rug Society, who published the book, and they were very kind to let me use the rugs as prints. I liked the idea that as an immigrant in the US, integrated into the western society, there is a layer underneath from a previous culture, and so hence the hidden layer of the rug prints. Rugs were especially important to Armenians, brides wove theirs as dowry, and often times the scriptures were literally woven into the rugs, stamping the name, place and time. The history is there, but you don't think about it while carrying on with daily life, like many other forgotten things.