an Introduction to my work, goals, style, clothes clothes clothes:
cover: syd shot by me, in a tunnel wearing my blouse design. set dressing and creative direct by sona.
Okay, so River is a diary. For me and for many, it is also a moodboard.
And a library, and a gallery, and a cafe, and a magazine.
Today it is also a SKU plan.
I will be documenting the creation of my first clothing drop, start to finish, and will be completely transparent about time, materials, money, process, concept etcetera via linking everything in the blogposts on this channel. All links will be open access for y'all to see and pop in any time, all the time.
As Greta Gerwig said in a conversation with Barry Jenkins on the A24 podcast in 2018, "I tend to make proclamations out loud that might become public because I feel that then I'll feel the pressure to deliver on them. It's a very silly way of going about it, but it works for me."
This is my philosophy here. Give myself homework, link everything publicly, and the River community will be my witness. The byproduct, hopefully, is a very cool and interactive portfolio that becomes a community.
The purpose of doing this all essentially naked is:
- To learn what systems I come up with when I am not being told what to do.
- For practice organizing myself and keeping track of time and money spent. I am bad at that currently.
- For fun! Besides my budgets and timecards, I will also share playlists of what I'm listening to while I do this, my research, brands and collections and looks that I like, my pinterest boards, screenshots, linking friends and hyping local inspo etc etc.
- For help. Dries Van Noten said in a 2017 interview, in regards to young designers, "What we see is always a very edited thing. To see what people do wrong and to be able to help them, you have to be close with them. " This is my unedited process. If you see a better way, tell me. If I am overpaying for something, tell me. If you have a resource that can help, tell me.
- Hopefully this will #inspire someone else to #DoWhatYouWant, when you see exactly how someone else is doing it. That is what happens for me on the receiving end, so I want to jump into the stream.
- For discovery. If something here reminds you of something, please share it. I will read/watch/listen and dig in. This goes for designers, photographers, artists, musicians, texts, movies, interviews, raw materials, hacks and other general bottomfeeder activity.
I have been brewing on the idea of starting an independent fashion label since I was a kid, and more seriously since about 2022 during my fashion degree. I shirked the idea, pushed it off to the future thinking I was too young, not "ready" enough, that I need to put significant time in at a fortune 500 and at other people's small brands before I could start mine (still for sure merit to this, but alas there are no rules). In another Dries interview (which was in a book I was too broke to purchase, so forgive my paraphrasing), he said something like "Wait until you're really ready" before starting your own label. Pretty sure he was talking about a legit house of fashion and not my bedroom-maker bullshit, but still.
While I appreciate the sentiment, and would have lived and operated by that advice even 6 months ago, I have decided not to wait. The world is too nuts to wait. I am too restless to wait. Maybe I used to be patient, but I am no longer and that's okay. Three short years of notes and screenshots and sketches and swatches later, I am ready. It's time.
The project is called Recall.
I plan on doing a separate blog post to define Recall. [MARINA REMEMBER TO INSERT HYPERLINK - updated 04 nov] Maybe this will become the name of the whole operation, or just this first collection/exploration under the umbrella of [My Name] design studios, whatever, get there when I get there.
I will start small-ish, with a 12-look collection, mapped out by category here. (If you are reading this at the time of posting, you can pop in and see me working on these looks live. I am in the document currently.)
I look forward to documenting, pushing all of River's tools and features to do so, and sharing it with anyone who wants to see. This content is not being strategically pushed at your feed here. If you want to keep up, you have to remember and come back. You have to recall.
SUMMARY OF LINKS TO OTHER DETAILS:
HOW TO MAKE A TECH PACK (PENDING)
SAV HUDSON FASHION PROFILE (PENDING)
ROUNDUP FAV BRANDS AND LOOKS AND WHY (PENDING)
THE MIDI SKIRT (PENDING)
ALL DOCUMENTS ARE LIVE, WORKING, MOVEABLE AND SUBJECT TO CHANGE