How did the two of you start a menswear line? We met as students at Pratt Institute and immediately realized we had a very similar design aesthetic. We designed women's wear for a few years before switching to menswear. We find menswear exciting and natural for us; we've always been interested in the practicality and subtle details of a garment, and subtlety works more naturally with menswear than womenswear. In your mission statement you talk about creating a design that feels comfortable and familiar, with a fresh point of view. What is it about your clothing that creates that fresh point of view? As designers, we often start with a really classic item, like a suit, and then start playing with it. What if it was denim, and double breasted, and slimmer. We like classic, we like heritage, we like the history of a piece, but we like to freshen it up and make it relevant to our view point. How difficult has it been to create a clothing line that actually cares about the quality as well as the aesthetic of its final product? Really, not all that difficult, because it would never occur to us to do something other than that. It can be frustrating when we aren't satisfied with our factory's first runs.
The great thing is that being local, it's much easier to have them fix the problems than if we were producing in China or Indonesia, where it can take months to fix a problem- which is why those problems often go unfixed. I hear the two of you are roommates. Is that true? Yes, it's true. We're roommates, business partners; we even co-teach together at Pratt. And we like to hang out on the weekends! It's a very rare bond, but we both agree that we can't imagine not having each other to lean on and rely on. Fashion, and running a small business, can both be so daunting. When one of us is stressed or down, we have the other to pick us up. Plus, it's really really fun to design and work with your best friend. Do you two ever have design disagreements. If so, how are they solved, thumb war? Actually, no, I truly can't think of a time we've disagreed on a design. I swear! I think we both really value the other's opinion, so if one of us has an idea, we're going to be open to it, because we like where each other's brain take us. Where do the two of you draw your inspiration from? A lot of times, the environment around us. We live in Bed-Stuy which has
a very large Muslim population, but also this street influence, so you get these guys walking around in long, to the calf, dress shirts, and then pairing them with leather bomber jackets, which inspired our Fall 13 collection. This season we were going to the
beach all the time and day dreaming about yachting, so that informed our ultimate Prepster designs for Spring 14. 68 fopmag.com