The world of underground fashion is a particularly hard world to navigate. Often times, finding cool and unique designers is a difficult task due to the sheer amount of people trying to sell you the “super rare and limited” printed T-shirt someone made in their garage with a few friends. Drew, owner and designer of Undone, is not one of these people. Drew is fairly unique within the world of fashion. He dropped out of highschool at an early age and has ever since been teaching himself to design. Boiling to the top through the mediocrity and oversaturation of DIY “underground designer street fashion”, Drew, the sole designer for his brand Undone, is gaining attention with circles of stylists due to the pure passion and talent that he puts into his designs. Personally, I have known Drew for a while but he’s getting ready for his second release. His designs have reached a quality and point that his work deserves attention, so I used this opportunity to catch up with him.
UU: So Drew, how did you start designing, and how did you end up taking on the style that you have now?
Drew: When I first started? Really, all I did was picked up this super cheap and kinda shitty, broken sewing machine and just started by trying. Mainly, I did it because I was already into fashion, so I just started by making clothes that I couldn’t afford for myself. I kinda developed my style from that. A lot of my influence clearly comes from over exaggeration in utilitarian wear, kinda like Rick [Owens]…. Yet I also like to make things functional; add pockets or designs that are practical for day to day use. I also clearly take a lot of influence from stuff like Bondage-wear and Vivienne Westwood, but it’s just as much about the designers I took influence from as the message.
I really like being able to send a message particularly about how government and class connect, and expressing it in a traditional punk way.
Well, how do you think you can bring those same messages into your own collection and express it to others?
It’s difficult, especially if I’m not using screenprints. Aside from screenprints you have to bring back a lot of stuff from the past in order to get that message across; stuff like tactical army gear and techwear, like anarchy-wear or early London punk stuff. I take a lot of influence from that kinda thing, especially 90s Japanese punk clothes.
What about more recent influences of yours that give off a similar message? I don’t quite think everyone will know the people and era’s your talking about”
Well, more recently? I kinda like the modernized ninja look of this years’ Spring/Summer 2018 fashion show from Takahiromiyashita The Soloist & Undercover. The whole urban ninja look was pretty cool, especially the cyberpunk vibe [Undercover] gave off. But the most important way to get my message across to others who might not know about these historical examples would be taking things from the news and what you see in the world. I would like to change [the culture] up even by making simple clothing like seditionaries, but bring back that deeper meaning. I think for right now the the best thing to do would be to keep things simplified cause at the end of the day, I’m just a kid in my room using it as my studio. To make this into an actual fashion house, I need to simplify it in order to make it appealing to the average person.
What effect do you want to have in the streetwear scene and even fashion as it is right now?
The past couple years have been this huge wave of streetwear turning into fashion. I don’t want to jump into that, but I wanna build on the marginalized and the anti-fashion style; like the punk style of the 90’s. At the same time, I love the change cause you don’t need to look like Gucci or Louis Vuitton to be “fashion”. As an example, I love how Margiela just destroys some clothes, puts them on the runway, and marginalizes his own designs. I don’t wanna be the kid who just conforms to being around a lot of people just to blow up. I wanna push myself into the industry eventually and not sell out beccause, I don’t wanna feel like “this is not what I wanted to be” one day.
So, big part of your designs are being original and yourself.
Yeah, originality is a hard concept, so the way I see it is if I see something from the past that I like I’ll change it using my own opinion of how I want things to be.
Being yourself goes hand in hand with originality; it’s not like that many people in 2018 are that original.
Then what are your feelings on the mixing of music and fashion in recent years?
I don’t mind it, as long as you find something that reaches out to you. Like, just dont be like some kids though like the whole Balenciaga dad trend shoes, that whole trend that popped outta nowhere, and nobody’s actually doing it right. A lot of kids ruin it cause they’re shitty people.
They’re not being themselves.
Exactly.
Back to the topic of influences, what are some recent influences of yours that you think others can spot in your designs, and that you’d recommend to looking up?”
Well this one most people will know; Raf Simons 2016 with the oversized sweatshirts, like the dick on the bomber jacket. It was kinda funny cause everyone at the time was riding the oversize trend – like Vetements (BTW it’s pronounced Vet-eMon) but seeing Raf do that definitely was cool. And obviously, Jun Takahashi and Undercover have been a huge influence on me the past two years ‘cause I’ve tried looking at design the way Junio does and how they [Jun Takahashi & Takahiro Miyashita] make things with what they have at hand. A more recent brand that’s been a huge influence on my silhouettes has been Y-Project, they’ve been killing it and been giving me new ideas. Speaking of newer designers, I also love Yang Li and how he balances imperfection with how above the top his newer designs are. And lastly, I loved this year’s Vivienne Westwood especially the video she made for the release which was awesome because you get to hear her voice. A lot of brands are too afraid of having a voice. Like some brands will put text on a t-shirt, but people will get offended and play it off like it’s over the top and just too much. And that’s also something that I don’t like and why I decided to do this interview, Brands and designers never really get their voices heard and that’s really important.
Raf Simons, Menswear Collection Fall Winter 2016 in Paris
What’s the plan for the next year or two?
A buddy of mine showed me a design school in Italy, and it’ll cover me for the next year. It will really help with patterning and marketing. And I also wanna start reaching out to manufacturers to see what I can get done. Especially good quality manufacturing, but thats coming in the near future.
What does your next moodboard look like?
I haven’t really thought too much about it yet, but I really wanna bring in mores colors, especially for spring. I still wanna bring in darker colors, but I feel like there’s a lack of other colors in my current designs. I’ve got some designs though that are influenced off of a firefighter’s outfit that I’m looking forward to making, plus I’m working on a new line of sweatshirts and utility bags made out of sweatshirts similar to Undercover’s ss/05-06 Klaus collection. You’ll also start seeing screen printed pieces from me in the near future.
What are some of the biggest obstacles you’ve had to deal with?
Time and money. You can make your time if you really want it, like some nights you just don’t sleep if you really want to do this. But it still isn’t a huge obstacle ‘cause you can keep putting effort in, it’s really just a personal thing. The first collection I did I really needed to push myself to finish things. Now, I don’t really worry too much aside from money. I have to keep up the prices, which I don’t mind; you can’t discredit yourself. But the issue with money for example, is the first collection I did, I had no choice but to do everything as a preorder.
Before we finish this off what is some advice that you would like to give other aspiring designers out there?
Just to really do it. My main thing was deciding to actually try, like you’re not gonna get any money for it at first so you need to realize when you can start, and just start. I didn’t know what I was doing at first, you just need to start and put the time in. You gotta spend more than 2 hours to just realize your potential.
The best thing you can do is spend $150 to get a cheap sewing machine and just work on it all day.
Check out Drew’s latest designs and releases on his website at undone.design, and keep up to date with him on his Twitter @DrewUnDone_. His designs are soon to become a staple in the wardrobes of many different stylists and fashion addicts.