The trend designer Robert Wun designed a single of his 1st collections from his bedroom in London’s Brixton neighborhood. Five decades later, he has turned his eponymous label from a six-appear graduate venture at the London University of Manner into a boundary-breaking model, and a favourite of musicians like Girl Gaga, Lizzo, and Doja Cat. Now, the designer, who was born in England, raised in Hong Kong, and returned to London for school, is the issue of an exhibition at the SCAD FASH Museum of Fashion and Movie in Atlanta. Titled Amongst Reality and Fantasy, the exhibit characteristics over 40 garments curated from Wun’s archive, runway shows, and celeb commissions. Inspite of all the hoopla bordering him, when it comes to Wun’s basis, he speaks fondly of his incredibly initially trend inspirations: a mate from church and the journals strewn about the salon where by his mother bought her hair performed. “I keep in mind the very first title that truly caught my awareness was Alexander McQueen, 1 of his menswear collections in one particular of all those journals,” he states. “It built me comprehend I could keep in mind a designer’s name. I was only 11 many years old, but I even now don’t forget that extremely vividly.”
Down below, Wun discusses what it can take to make a celebrity’s custom made manner glimpse in less than three months, how to remain targeted on growing your brand, and why he stans Adele in Schiaparelli, just like you.
Inform me about dressing Lizzo and Woman Gaga—how did you come up with the looks, and what touches did you incorporate to make them certainly customized?
When we layout for celebrities, it is pretty simple since we know precisely what we want to do—obviously, we research what they’ve worn right before, and get the job done intently with their stylists. They usually have a topic when it comes to their internet marketing, and that is why they order custom made. The timing is often restricted, two or 3 months, but we make it work.
We made Lizzo’s white glance when her song with Cardi B, “Rumors,” first came out. Her stylist, Jason Rembert, has been a quite kind supporter of my perform for a long time now—he’s often putting me on the radar and on to the pulling lists. He gave me this possibility to personalize a thing for Lizzo the glance was influenced by Greek goddesses. They wished a little something white. We begun proposing views, exchanging suggestions more than Instagram and developing on preliminary bullet factors. The glimpse just worked for her—especially with Gaga as perfectly. They are two women of all ages who are just unapologetic and they individual it. We did a next custom made glimpse for Lizzo, and I imagine she’s heading to use it before long. It is something gold.
What’s the main concept that you want to notify by means of your exhibition at SCAD?
When the exhibition director Rafael Gomes and I have been speaking about what the exhibition name really should be, all the names we were proposing and throwing on the table have been about matters in between—artificial and nature, the natural and organic and the inorganic. It is all about obtaining the stability involving two extremes. We finished up amongst truth and fantasy. I imagine a message that we had been fixated on was the notion of discovering the stability in between the two extremes, mainly because that is how I strategy vogue as perfectly. I never see trend as just style. For me, it’s usually about combining style with something that is completely not about manner. Anything in mother nature, a thing about science fiction, some thing about art, something otherworldly. That is the information I want to send: trend can be extra than just outfits. It can be some thing imaginative, it can be anything applicable, and what it means to human identity and culture at that time.
Explain your own model in three words.
When it will come to dressing, I really like one thing that is comfy, powerful, and silent. I like to be muted.
What have been you sporting yesterday and why did you choose to put on it?
It’s fucking freezing appropriate now in London, so I identified an old coat and warmed up a massive black scarf I bought from my mom—it’s in essence a sofa throw, but I use it as a scarf. It is humongous, I can wrap my whole head up in it. I threw it in the dryer so it was sizzling when I still left the household. I put a pair of blue denims on far too, for the reason that I commonly wear denims to go to do the job there are so numerous needles and scissors and shit all over the place. I wore my Camper boots, for the reason that they’re useful, at ease, and quick to get the job done in.
What was your model like as a teenager?
It was rebellious—that’s the word to use. I was incredibly unique and flamboyant back then. I went to a boys’ college as perfectly, so persons desired to defeat the shit out of me, simply because I was so dressed up. I’d generally go thrift buying, for the reason that, you know, you’re broke when you’re a child, so you’re making use of pocket funds to buy quite cheap shit. I’d invest in dresses at the thrift shop and started applying oil-based paints to draw designs on top rated of pants, jumpsuits, or even on my boots. I was extra.
What is the most prized possession in your closet?
Right now, it’s a best that my initial assistant, Loko Yu, created for me. Now, she’s the head of style and design at Saloni London, but we graduated collectively and she aided me make my model at the incredibly beginning. Her styles expertise are otherworldly. I have by no means met someone that can style and design a sample in her brain the way she does. On my 18th birthday, she designed me a t-shirt out of black cotton twill—but it was slash in a way that’s never been accomplished ahead of. There are no seams—it’s a single piece, reduce just like a t-shirt. She even went to a rubber store to print her name on a piece of rubber to incredibly hot soften it at the again. I hold that best in my closet soon after all these many years, for the reason that it is so exclusive for me.
Do you don’t forget your to start with major manner invest in?
That would be a Givenchy top rated from Riccardo Tisci’s time [at the house]. It was an embroidered top rated that I bought from a Christmas sale in Selfridges. It was 200 quid, at first 800 lbs .. I hardly ever wore it when, but I was obsessed with Tisci’s heavenly model at Givenchy—what he developed for those haute couture collections. It was the initially and only time I ever purchased a piece of apparel out of admiration for an additional designer.
Do you have a favourite fashion second from pop tradition?
There are so many. I imagine currently, even though, it’s Adele’s opera appears even though wearing Schiaparelli at “Adele: A person Night time Only.” I think Daniel Roseberry with Adele and Schiaparelli is timeless, common, feminine—it’s just her. And it’s so higher-conclusion mainly because of the way Daniel cuts all those robes with all the taffeta. I imagine that is legendary, in my own opinion—especially with the Jupiter strategy at the observatory. It’s a black costume, which is what Adele is constantly in—but it’s so substantially much more than a black dress.
What is the best vogue idea you have picked up, whether in the studio or on established?
Time management can elevate your job by miles. As a designer, I generally have quite straight deadlines doing work with my team mainly because I want issues to be executed adequately. I want to see progress each and every 7 days.
Appears from Robert Wun’s exhibition at SCAD FASH, “Between Truth and Fantasy.”
Do you have a largest style regret?
I believe my most important vogue regret would be like each and every other younger designer’s: hoping to impress persons you never even know when you are to start with starting up out. They will in no way maintain a candle to you in your everyday living, but you truly feel like you require them in get to get somewhere. Then, truly, you know you really do not have to have any individual. It is beautiful when another person appreciates your operate and decides to assist you—be grateful and aim on these great persons. But do not emphasis on those people who are not necessarily lousy individuals, but they’re just not element of your journey. Never squander your electrical power on matters that are not intended to come about. Just do the job on yourself—be excellent at your craft, be quite superior at it. Go so big that they simply cannot ignore you.