Fashion and Friendship

By Surya Pulipati

When visiting the Oak Grove campus, see how many mushroom-printed clothing items you can spot. Guaranteed, they were a product of Oak Grove Senior Ben Herring’s clothing line.

“I was just walking around when I saw some freshly sprouted mushrooms which became the inspiration for my mushroom design,” said Ben. “I find myself pulling inspiration from things that might be passed by.”

Ben started his clothing brand, Herring Werkstätte, in 2019. It has now bloomed into a profitable business and an outlet for creativity.

Herring Werkstätte has grown to be an integral part of many Oak Grove students’ wardrobes and an enriching endeavor for Ben and the people who work with him.

A school project prompted Ben to start making art and designing clothing. He was tasked with forming and executing an idea based on his personal interests.

His designs are inspired by a variety of aspects. Nature plays a large part in his ideas. This goes back to his nine years at Oak Grove School, which values and preaches to the natural world from a young age.

He also implements his other interests into his brand. For example, his love for videography emerges as a film-strip design, where each strip of the film tells a di erent story. These appear on sweaters, hoodies, shorts, pants, and much more.

“Nothing I sell is exactly the same”, Ben explains as he rattles o a list of other art forms he has incorporated into his business.

Ben’s best known for his screen-printed designs that he does at home. Through this process, each piece develops character and comes o the press physically di erent from the last, with a story behind it, making it that much more meaningful to the person who buys it.

The process of screen-printing consists of creating a design, finalizing it, preparing a screen, and brightening emulsion to create a stencil; a separate screen must be used for each separate layer of ink. Then, a printing press is used to place the screen onto the garment of clothing, and after that, the ink is pressed through the screen and onto the cloth. This process also consists of obtaining blanks, or plain clothing, and spending the time to make sure a design looks good. Each piece is made like this, each piece is unique.

As an artist who is starting out in a tornado of fast fashion, he is very aware of the e ect the fashion industry has on the environment. “I make an e ort to only use organic cotton or reuse blanks to print on”.

Per year, the fashion industry contributes about 1.2 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The fashion industry is responsible for 10% of the world’s carbon emissions annually. You can be sure that when you buy clothing from Herring Werkstätte, it is printed on cloth that is environmentally friendly or is being reused and not wasted.

“I started just selling to friends, then the first market I sold at was the school’s winter market,” said Ben.

Through Oak Grove’s winter market, Ben started on his journey of selling clothing to the public. To this day, many orders stem from custom requests, but a bulk happens from local pop-ups. He and his longtime preschool friend, Makel Aglietti, owner of his own clothing brand, Lavori Aglietti, hold pop-ups at Valley of the Moon, where community members can come and buy their products.

“I taught Makel how to print in August 2021. He gives me feedback, and I give him feedback,” said Ben. “We have ideas and inspiration together and we print stu together.”

Ben and Makel’s longtime friendship is only emulsified by their shared love for making clothing. Their businesses enable them to help each other, challenge each other, and allow for them to deepen their friendship.

They both sell at the Valley of the Moon, a clothing store in Ojai. Ben has been selling there for three years and has formed a close relationship with John Dennis, the owner. Ben describes him as a mentor who has helped them through their journey of selling and designing.

Mr. Dennis said: “More than anything, I just am really stoked about what they’re doing, I’m just kind of like in the back of the bleachers cheering them on. It gives my heart a lot of joy to see artists, young artists, like these guys find their audience, and communicate in that way.”

Along with selling to the larger community, the sta and student community support the business. A large percentage of the students own clothing from either Lavori Aglietti or Herring Werkstätte. Even beyond their home campus, students around the valley can be seen wearing their designs.

Having a local business run by students creates a sense of community only achieved by this shared ownership of student art. “I love supporting my friends and their clothes are super comfy!” said junior Vaughn Ullerich, owner of a blue Lavori Aglietti sweatshirt.

“They also use really comfortable fabric and have a bunch of di erent sizing options, which is extremely helpful,” chimed Lucia Sagol, another Oak Grove student who owns a Herring Werkstätte hoodie. “They have so much variety; I even have a Herring Werkstätte pair of cargo shorts!”

The advertisement through social media and word of mouth helped to spread the brands’ names, Ben and Makel’s love for photography and videography intertwine with their clothing brands, resulting in the amazing photo and video shoots.

“I like to get my stu out there, share my ideas, and seeing people wear the stu I make is really cool,” said Ben. They are able to build a community, make money, express themselves, and prepare for the competitive fashion world ahead, all whilst doing what they love.

Each shirt, sweatshirt, beanie, pant, hoodie, and short is unique and has a complex character, just like these two promising artists. The community can only expect bigger and better things from both Herring Werkstätte and Lavori Aglietti.

Best put by Ben, “I’m not planning on stopping anytime soon.”

Combining Forces

Ben and Makel have been working and supporting each other throughout their entire business endeavors. But there has also been a huge amount of overlap between all four of these highlighted artists. India, Ben and Makel all sell at Valley of the Moon and have greatly bonded over their common interests: doing photo shoots, marketing and running social-media content past each other.

While Vlada does not make clothes, she started a project where she shot professional photos of local student artists, free of charge, in hopes to further connect herself with a like community. This project included Ben, Makel and India’s brands. Their collaboration stretches across artistic disciplines, across schools and across the valley.