Garb: The Full Interview

12/3/23 | 10-12 mins | Interviews

Big Thanks to @garb___ for Agreeing to the Interview!



Q: Thanks for taking the time to chat to me! You have previously mentioned that in an interview at Nike you proclaimed your preference for Adidas collaborations over theirs, and never got a call back. I was wondering if you managed to recover from this and find yourself a job in the fashion industry? Or if the page is a passion project which lies incongruent to your career now?

"Hahahahahahaha, thank you for remembering such a specific story. That was a retail job back in 2015 (maybe 2014?), over the years I’ve grown to be more careful and tactful with what I say, other than the Yeezy controversy, I still stand by my words. Adidas has more eclectic collaborations that push the boundaries of design. I don’t work (fortunately or unfortunately) in fashion for my full-time role. I work as an Experience Designer, a lot of people now know it as UX. I think my skill set is more than just digital apps and websites though. I’m lucky enough to work as a consultant at times, and that involves experience strategies of how one might experience a product or an in-store experience, think what a customer would want to see or navigate through a store, what information is crucial to present and at which part of their shopping journey. How that translates to my role at garb is that I spend time thinking about not just the clothes that go up, but how people like to shop, especially in this new paradigm of shopping through a closed-ish network of sorts (you have to discover garb and the dynamics of it before being able to shop). Eventually I’d love to evolve the garb shopping experience, not break out of that transactional relationship with the community, I spend a lot of time contemplating how to engage the community and how to get everyone involved. "


Q: Success for comes in many forms, and many perspectives, for many people. What does success for Garb mean? And what are your goals for the future which pertain to the page?

"I have shorter term goals, and then much longer term ones. The short term goal is to ensure garb is a financially sustainable project, my full-time job as a designer ensures that I don’t have to worry (too much) about monetary consequences, but the reality is, for longevity, for this project to run, it needs to be financially sustainable. And I’m not even talking about it from a standpoint of “how much do I need to get paid to ensure that I’m getting compensated fairly?”, what I’m thinking about is “how can I ensure that I have enough so that I can get better pieces next month?”, I’d like to think the offering has progressively gotten better and more interesting as time goes by. To be financially sustainable to me is to constantly have an undeniably incredible collection of clothes. Ok so there’s a real big gap in the middle because that is probably a goal for coming year. My extremely long term goal is quite lofty, I don’t know how I’m going to get there, but I’m hoping garb is a stepping stone to it, I believe it will, whether directly or indirectly. How do I articulate this clearly? I want to buy a piece of land, build an interesting building/structure/space on it, and this space will be for creatives, for musicians, for people who love clothes, for the community. It will sometimes be an artist studio, sometimes a music venue, sometimes a rave den, sometimes a coffee shop, it is anything and everything, hopefully all for free or a low cost. A Warhol Silver Factory but a bit more wholesome maybe. That’s as best as I can describe it. It’s a blurry vision but I’m sure it’ll get clearer as I step closer to it."



Q: I notice that you like to play around with the shapes and cuts when you put together a fit to sell a garment. What do you champion more when curating an outfit – proportion or colour? How do you go about getting dressed?

"Proportion, silhouette and shape is more important to me. I’ve gone through many iterations of finding out what I like to wear, and I know black and tonal colours suit my look, my personality, how I want others to perceive me the best. I do dabble with colours from time to time, I just find it slightly less interesting and less challenging. If you had an all black out, it’s way harder to elevate the outfit from good to great, if you wanted something unique in the look you’d need to play with cuts, proportions, accessories to get it from a stock standard outfit to something that makes you look twice. How do I get dressed? Sometimes I think about it the night before, but most of the time I leave it open and pick what I want to wear as I’m getting ready. I don’t know, it’s a feeling, I’m drawn to certain pieces or outfits in the moment. I guess I think about the nature of the venue or event, and I have outfits in my head that are best suited for them. There are some days I feel more adventurous, I might try something that I already had in mind, and then swap out variations to see if something else sticks. Oh, there are a few people I follow who styles I love, when I’m really stuck, I look at their recent outfits to get a general feel, use that as a foundation and create something."


Q: What are some of your inspirations for your style? Is there anything within or outside of fashion which resonates with your aesthetic most?

"I’ve been thinking about this a lot in the last few days, I don’t think I have a singular source of inspiration, it might come from cinema, it might come from a small instagram account, sometimes you see someone walking on the street or at a rave. When I see something I like or is interesting to me, I make a mental note and that becomes a foundation for an outfit, we don’t all own the same clothes, so we can only recreate the things we love. I think the best part of having an account like garb is that I can discover and follow so many new small accounts, some with really unique looks."



Q: I am an admirer of the travelling pants program and think the project can really serve to unify the community. Do you envision yourself continuing down the road of more community-centric activities? Or is this a once in a lifetime opportunity to be part of something special?

"Yes! Definitely. Garb has always been a community driven project for me, for me to connect and meet people, but also learn about their skills and how we can work together to create something else. I think what I would love next for me is to work collaboratively with another person within the community who is excellent at their craft and what to do something for themselves. I’ll give you an example that I’ve been thinking about. Let’s imagine this person is a barista and has dedicated their life to making the best coffee you can get your hands on. They’re working in a cafe, the cafe uses a certain coffee bean, but this barista thinks that a bean from a completely different region would push his coffee to the next level. This barista isn’t going to be able to start a new cafe, that costs a lot of money, time, mental energy etc etc. What if garb and this barista had a popup space that happened every Saturday, we find someone who has a nice garage or studio or space, and it runs every Saturday from 10am-2pm. You come in, you can sit down and drink the best coffee you’ve tasted because this barista has gone out to source a small batch of beans for this, you can browse and try clothes from garb, you can flip through books, you can read the paper, we can chat, the community grows. This probably won’t leave a huge hole in the pocket, it only requires one day of the week for a month or two, but we get to test the product, we get to meet the community. Anyway yes, if you read this and you have something you’re passionate about and are wanting to make the next step, let’s chat!"


Q: Picture this: you are out at an Italian restaurant, and order pasta. You get a little bit big for your boots and decide to go without the napkin to cover your pants. Low and behold your complacency has failed you once again and you stain your garm. Do you a) say fuck it clothes are clothes and continue as you were, letting the stain tell a story. Or b) become frantic, look for anything accessible to act as damage control, until you finally get home and use a myriad different washing formulas in attempt to save the purity of the piece?

"Lmao, this is an interesting question. It reaaaaaally depends! It really depends on what the garment is, is it a white shirt? If it is, I freak out straightaway. If it were a darker coloured jacket, especially something like a workwear jacket, I wouldn’t care as much, I like the idea that the stain could tell a story. I think this is an add-on to question three about how I dress. I go to a lot of music related events, raves, festivals, and I have a side of my wardrobe that is specifically for those events. You will almost never see me in a shirt or a tailored jacket at one of those. They are clothes that I am already mentally prepared to get destroyed, of course I still take steps to ensure they don’t get destroyed because they are still pieces I love and treasure. I suppose it also is the value of the garment, I’m more willing to wear something that may be of higher value to a dinner party or to a bar."


Thanks again for your time, and I am looking forward to seeing what Garb has under his bed for us in the coming cosy season!





Above Clothes.