What are you doing when you feel most passionate?
You caught me at my most passionate time. In [about] two weeks, on February 17th, we have our second fashion show with New York Fashion Week. We’re filming that on February 12th, and the two weeks leading up to any runway presentation is when I’m the most hands-on creating clothing, making as many creative decisions as I can, and working nonstop. My weeks are weird because I start Monday at 7 a.m. but I keep staying up later, and so I wake up later, but it’s 15 hour days of pure creation and that’s my favourite thing. Then, at the end of that, where you get to see what’s been in my mind for that runway presentation—those moments are when I feel the most passionate about what I’m doing.
What was the first moment that you felt successful?
The first moment doing this that I felt successful was when I had only been repurposing vintage clothing but I knew I wanted to do cut-and-sew and actually make my own line. I convinced Aidan from TNT to let me sell my stuff in their store, and at that moment, I was like “yeah I made it. I’m selling my clothes in a store."
Have you had any mentors on your journey?
In the last few years, mentorship has been the biggest part of my journey. Joining the HXOUSE program in 2018 [was] the biggest change in trajectory for my whole career. Getting to work really closely with La Mar Taylor, Ahmed Ismali, Iva Zelic and seeing how they operate as a team and the things they were able to accomplish by starting HXOUSE was super inspiring. Also the ability to hit these people up and run my ideas by them or talk to them about opportunities I think I should or shouldn’t take. I know I wouldn’t be where I am right now without them, maybe I could still do what I’m doing but it would for sure take longer and I would make a lot more mistakes.