IDENTITY IN CRISIS: ON HOW FASHION IS VALUED AND THE ALTERED MEANING OF LUXURY

Shone Puipia (Shone) — I was born and based in Bangkok. I grew up in an artistic atmosphere, both of my parents are artists. I knew that I wanted to go into fashion when I was  in my last two years of high school. Back then I was taking French class at the Alliance Français and got a chance to try taking pattern making classes there. I really fell in love with the practical, crafted side of it, turning something two dimensional to three dimensional in a way like making sculpture with fabric. That’s the kind of starting point. Then I researched where I could do my study and discovered Dries Van Noten from reading a book. It opened my eyes to the Antwerp school and the Belgian designers. I fell in love with their works and their ways of thinking. That was how I decided to apply to the fashion department at Antwerp Academy (Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp). It has an art school atmosphere. It is quite small, like a community. And its works are different from other places. I was there for four years from 2012 until I graduated in 2016. I stayed for a year afterward to do some projects with friends. I moved back to Bangkok in 2017 and really started the Shone Puipia brand.

Lauren Yates (Lauren) — I never learned fashion design in any formal sense. I was born in Hong Kong and when I was two I moved to Thailand and when I was eight my family relocated to Australia. After I graduated from high school, I decided I wanted to be an artist. So, I went to Sydney College of the Arts and I studied photography. For me, it was a very confusing time because I thought I would learn a technical profession and I could use that in a real world. But the art school that I went to was a postmodern system where they threw technique out the window and they burnt down all understanding or the meaning I had in my head, it left me just in complete confusion. Without problem solving skills, framework of your art practice, and your techniques, you have no tools to solve any questions. After a year of trying to work as an artist from the time I graduated, I decided I wanted to move back to Bangkok, retrace my steps and figure out who I am. Moving back to Bangkok, I fell into modelling as some people might do when they are lost (laughter). I had a lot of time in waiting rooms to think about being and that’s when I started Ponytail Journal to write and explore things I was interested in. So, I committed myself to making a framework to write at least one article every single day. I did that for three years straight. I’d been contacted by a bunch of magazines to write for them like Vogue Australia. I wrote about style and culture for them for about three years. I was very fortunate to explore the world in different ways, to have a platform that allowed me to interview people that I felt really important. I got an opportunity to interview Nigel Cabourn, a British menswear designer whose practice I really respected. When we had the interview, we got along straight away and we became great friends. He’s the person who told me to think about starting my own fashion line, selling it on my own site. So, I partnered up with a guy called Ben Viapiana, a Canadian denim tailor who was based in Bangkok. We started on a really tight small collection, like, only six styles in three colorways that were all very small-batch, and tailor made on vintage denim machines.  Nigel taught me everything about fashion design, creating, and running a business. For some reason he was kind enough to introduce me to his business partner, a distributor in Japan. The first collection we launched in Japan only, doing wholesale with my random, small collection of canvas like workwear. From then on, I sold in Japan for four seasons and decided I wanted to be more independent so I started the wholesale circuit independently in Paris and in New York. That’s how I got where I got to now.

Shone — It’s very hard to pinpoint on one thing. I really loved doing collages. Before I started designing collections I like to think of what atmosphere or stories I have been moved by. I always went for the medium of collage, collecting source images, chopping them up, making new images out of it. It helps me a lot with my thinking process. In a way, a cloth is like a collage of things, from art, from film, from music, from historical periods. Everything is matched up to tell my own story. Collection 2020 Cloudbusting was initially going to be a collaborative performance with Barcelona-based singer-songwriter, Uma Bunnag. Her music and the notion of ‘the performer’ was integral to the design process. We were also looking a lot at female Baroque artists, such as Artemisia Gentileschi and Elisabetta Sirani, and worked to capture the gestures from those paintings into a sophisticated wardrobe for today.

pic. 1 — The Wild Bunch Collage Book © Shone Puipia

pic. 2 — “Mockingbird” by Uma Bunnag © Shone Puipia

pic. 3 — Self-Portrait as Saint Catherine of Alexandria by Artemisia Gentileschi

pic. 4 — Portia Wounding Her Thigh (is a scene from Roman history) by Elisabetta Siran 

I spent a lot of time with my family at museums, going to art shows and exhibitions, and going to the movies a lot, watching all kinds of films. For the historical aspect in my work I think it started from my second year in school. There was a historical costume project that we had to pick up a costume from source painting and research on how everything was made, from undergarments like corset to the haute couture layer. I had a great time working on that. There are a lot of details in structure, the way things were made historically that you can play with in a new way now, apply them to modern day clothing. Most recently for Collection 2020 Cloudbusting, I wanted to explore new ideas in tailoring and looked a lot into the construction and patterns of 18th-century cutaway court coats. Not only was I intrigued by the architectural aspects of these pieces, but also how their elegant sweeping lines can subvert traditionally masculine aspects of the ‘suit’.

pic. 5 — Zouave jacket is a historical costume that is popular in America in the 19th Century © Shone Puipia

pic. 6 — A corset inspired costume. © Shone Puipia

pic. 7 — Shone Puipia Cloudbusting Collection 2020 lookbook © Shone Puipia

pic. 8 — Shone Puipia Cloudbusting Collection 2020 lookbook © Shone Puipia

Lauren — W’menswear’s slogan is ‘hard-hitting garments for hard-hitting women’. I think the brand is about finding meaning, and understanding what it means to exist today. I find it helpful to look at history and to understand what paved the way to where we are now. Every collection we look into a specific point of time in history that might mirror something that is happening now. And just like Shone, we use ‘collage’ to put together our research. For example, Spring 20 that’s out now is called Tektite IV. So we looked into the post Cold War period. We looked into war technology that was developed in the Cold War, and how it was actually used for scientific research after the Cold War ended. These technologies were used to map the ocean floor, which we’d never mapped beforehand. Then we found the deepest point on earth, the Mariana Trench, using sonar technology and deep sea submarines. We discovered a lot about our planet and we were able to advance science due to this chaotic thing that was war. That’s a way I explore the forces of order and chaos, and how we kind of always exist on this fine line between the two. If you sway too far on either end of the scale it can lead to being out of balance. For example, you lean too far to order, you have Marxism or Stalin’s regime in Russia and that became a form of oppression. Millions of people died. That led to the Cold War. And from that chaos, order forms. It’s like the Yin and Yang symbol, or the really old symbol of a dragon eating its tail. It’s like a repeating cycle that you see in nature,  science, and the universe in itself. When we do the research, we gather information on a big coakboard in the studio.  We look at the materials and the colours which Shone probably relates to, seeing all the pieces together in one place. You see new patterns forming, you see colours that keep repeating themselves and you see technology. For me, the creative process comes from looking into yourself and the context you’re in.

pic. 7 — A collage board for W’menswear Tektite IV Spring/Summer 2020 © Lauren Yates

pic. 8 — Sylvia Earle displays samples to aquanaut inside Tektite. The Tektite habitat was an underwater laboratory which was the home to divers during Tektite I and II programs, exploring the deep ocean. Tektite II ran by the first all-female team of aquanauts, led by Sylvia Earle.

pic. 9 — Tektite II ran by the first all-female team of aquanauts, led by Sylvia Earle.

pic. 10 — W’menswear Tektite IV Spring/Summer 2020 lookbook © Lauren Yates

pic. 11 — W’menswear Tektite IV Spring/Summer 2020 lookbook © Lauren Yates

pic. 12 — W’menswear Tektite IV Spring/Summer 2020 lookbook © Lauren Yates

pic. 13 — W’menswear Tektite IV Spring/Summer 2020 lookbook © Lauren Yates

Lauren — Talking about intuition, I am really interested in Jungian physiological theory that is ordering and chaos. Where chaos represents the feminine, and order represents the masculine. Every single one of us, whether it’s a tree or a person, a man or a woman.  We have male-female energy inside us. That’s Yin and Yang. Intuition is chaos, a female energy, and modern culture is so power hungry that it is not listened to anymore. We see that in modern history especially around the Sixties where our culture shifted quite drastically, the focus went away from religion and morality to power, and power is a very masculine energy. While intuition, a feminine quality has been pushed under the rug. What’s interesting about art and why I’m always drawn back to art is it is a sensory experience; intuition, something you can feel and somehow try to figure out. You just know inside that the feminine spirit is being pushed as a kind of second class, subservient quality in modern society. I feel like it’s lacking, so I can totally relate to that.

Lauren — It’s really a good question. Like Shone, it was an intuitive process to start with. I started the brand in 2013, so it has been a bit of a journey since then. The narrative of the brand is almost like my own reflection of myself trying to find meaning in life. I was raised in a (white) privileged, tight-knit, top percentile of society. I acknowledge that and I’m here because of that. I went to a girl’s school in Australia and my family raised me to be a powerful, competitive career woman. We got the idea that women have to compete against each other, but inside I felt something wasn’t right. My narrative is a woman wearing men’s clothes because it’s a narrative that I grew up in. But when you look at how we communicate and how we depict our narrative, there’s a soft feminine spirit, because I tried to figure out where the balance is. So, when you see the look book it’s about really high-vibe feelings of cooperation. It’s about friendship, it’s about intuition, a really soft feminine spirit but we’re wearing men’s clothes. Accidentally it’s a political statement that I didn’t really intend for, but we don’t realize that everything we do is politicized.

pic. 14 — W’menswear Tektite IV Spring/Summer 2020 lookbook © Lauren Yates

pic. 15 — W’menswear Tektite IV Spring/Summer 2020 lookbook © Lauren Yates

pic. 16 —W’menswear Tektite IV Spring/Summer 2020 lookbook © Lauren Yates

Shone — Right now our collection is genderless. It’s women when I started my first collection but it sort of comes from my personal desire that I was missing out on the clothes for myself. That was when we started to land this kind of traded female-male clothing breaking down those ideas. It’s clothes for everyone. You should have fun with it. It doesn’t matter if you are boys or girls. You can wear anything and any colors. Personally when I go shopping I don’t only look into the mens department but also women. A lot of the time I find there are a lot more interesting details in womenswear and that’s when I felt lacking in the world. That’s what I try to do here now, making clothes fun again for everyone, high heels shoes for everyone whether boys or girls.

pic. 17 — The Brighter World collection 2019 © Shone Puipia

pic. 18 — Shone Puipia Cloudbusting Collection 2020 lookbook © Shone Puipia

pic. 19 — Shone Puipia Cloudbusting Collection 2020 lookbook © Shone Puipia

Lauren — I started my brand in Thailand. So, it started up using Thai materials and Thai labour. Without context, you have no product. So, the biggest part of the business is the Thai context, because that’s where we were making our products, and the end product is what the customer interacts with. What’s really interesting about Thailand is the revival of the cottage industries, which was a huge revival movement in the 90s and then later on again in 2005ish. I think it’s a really important narrative, a history. Thailand needs to continue to support these industries because it continues tradition and employs a lot of women who might not necessarily go into the workforce, because they need to take care of their children and they need to look after their communities. ‘Cottage industry’ is the way they can make income on their terms. We went to Roi Et where we made hand woven indigo and naturally dyed fabrics with the villagers who had been doing that for their whole life. Most of the weavers are getting old now and there are not many young people in the village who want to take over that tradition. I think any producers in Thailand or Thai designers really need to support ‘Thai made’ and traditional practices. That’s so important. It’s really important to continue our internal economy and to also show the world that Thai made is freaking awesome. This real racist kind of stigma that ‘made in Thailand’ means ‘shit’. At the trade shows, when people see my brand is from Thailand, there is some judgement. Then when they see a white face as the face of this brand, their opinion might change. That’s my white privilege that I use to educate other white people. I think the rest of the world needs to get over with this. The more we progress, the more cultures mix, the more globalized we become. The fashion industry to me is a super white industry, super racist, and a super old-school highbrow institution. I think Thai designers need to feel proud of made in Thailand, but need to be aware that the stakes are high and quality needs to be of the highest standard.

pic. 20 — A trip to Roi Et. © Lauren Yates

pic. 21 — Weaver community, Roi Et © Lauren Yates

pic. 22 — Weaver community, Roi Et © Lauren Yates

Lauren — I have a point when you talked about the Fashion Revolution. I think in the Thai narrative right now we are following the west. I think it’s really important for the Thai narrative not to take, not to reflect, not to mirror what is politically and culturally happening in the west but to see what’s going on and make our own narrative here. I hate this idea that the west is right always, and the west knows the best – because culturally in Asia, we have such different values. You can’t apply one system to the whole world. That’s all.

Shone — I see that the young Thai brand here we are trying to promote or win back to the craftsmanship of making clothes or winning back the quality. It doesn’t have to be anything mass produced, that’s what we try to do with the brand. That was also the reason we wanted to start up with everything made to order in order to keep offering that quality in our clothes. It’s also special to our clients as they can get the clothes that have been thought through and really made for them, using special techniques or handmade techniques. I feel like that’s a value that we should move towards in this time.

Lauren — I have very few customers in Thailand and I know that is because of my price point. The W’menswear customer is a socially conscious woman. The biggest market for our online store is in the US and then probably followed by Australia, Korea and then the UK. But on social media there are many Thai followers. It’s a dinosaur model of wholesale in fashion that drives my pricing up so much. My business is 75% wholesale which is crazy. That system has never adapted to the changing online market and now it’s a challenge how to readapt with Covid. Right now the trade shows will postpone to at least next year. No one wants to go to the showrooms, or to the fashion shows overseas because… no travel. So a lot of businesses are trying to figure out what the new game is, when the model of seasonal spring-summer / autumn-winter is really passé.

Shone — Because right now everything we do is by appointment and made to order. My clients are Thai. They are kind of the audience in the art world, the design world, individualistic dressers who like to have fun with their clothes. It is quite a niche market but there’s a growing number of people who like something different, special, and a little bit exclusive. When we started, it’s with friends, people we know and it’s solely through word of mouth. Then we also have Thai fashion university students who come by to see the space and talk to us. Although they might not buy it, it’s nice to see that it has an influence on young people. We rely a lot on physical meetings with the clients, to do fitting and to organize an event to show our clothes. But because of the Covid, in the beginning we were quite stressed out about what we were going to do. Now we have to build up more of the online market tools to expand audiences a bit but still without losing that personal touch to be honest. So for the new collection launch we are going to invite people for a private viewing.

Shone — I want to break away from the past system of showing fashion. I wanted to create a space that really reflects the work and tell the story of each collection. I always decorate the space for each collection changing the artworks to go with it. It’s still like a small scale production and we don’t want to rush things. We don’t have a stock. We don’t have a huge effect directly from Covid. But we still have to figure out how to arrange the physical show to present our clothes.

pic 26 — Cloudbusting collection 2020 exhibition view © Shone Puipia

pic 27 — The Brighter World collection 2019 exhibition view © Shone Puipia

Lauren — Yeah. We do follow a seasonal model and I try to wrap my head around how we can rework this mantle to build something better. Because there was so much economic fallout from Covid. The supply chain from factories all the way to retail outlets rely heavily on each other on this bigger framework of seasonal scale. What’s awful about this whole situation is that the retailers, mainly the big companies, have to close their doors. They just cancelled their orders from the factories and this sent so many factories to close down and put many people out of their jobs. The factory that I used in Vietnam that services my wholesale business is closing down in August. I think a lot of big businesses will close down and a lot of businesses in the US have gone bankrupt. But there are some businesses that just grew bigger from this. I want to be hopeful but I think this fast fashion model is not done yet. We are very lucky to have a really close relationship with all the wholesale retailers all over the world that are exceptional retailers, with unique spaces, that offer exceptional experience. All the mediocre retailers are going to drop like flies and people’s consumption habits are going to change. When I talk about this I’m talking about the western world because I’m more in touch with a customer base on that side. I’m not quite sure about what’s going to happen about consumer behaviour in Asia to be honest. In the west I think we will continue to work with these exceptional retailers who offer a very unique experience and do even cooler stuff, more unique stuff. A lot of our makers right now in Thailand who have a lot of time on their hands from Covid, started to ask us if we can make special things with them because they have lost a lot of their customers who ordered wholesale, and they are being able to cater that now.

Lauren — It’s about market power. That pushes to produce things in high volume. The factory I was using in Vietnam is closing down because they are a small factory. The scene in Vietnam is all about servicing the world’s biggest brand. And the small factories that are continuously being bullied by the huge brands who like to squeeze down their prices for high volume. My factory wasn’t interested in that kind of customer, but they were forced to service them because that was the main kind of customer they could reach.

Shone — Yes, we don’t work with the season. It was one main collection for each show. And like I said everything’s made to order. Customers can even look to the archive to get an old piece made again or using old fabric. I’m increasingly seeing my works as one whole wardrobe for all the collections. Each new collection builds on what we have done previously. What changes are my current interests or what I’m feeling at the moment of the design process. One maybe focused on solid colors and the next can be about clashing prints. But you will always see an identity that runs through every piece. I like this idea more than defining the collection by season to opening rooms for customization, adding more special details or special techniques. We also kept working with an in-house team.

I’m not in a rush of growing too big or too fast. I’m happy with them being able to sustain creativity and keeping uniqueness in the collection.

Lauren — I think you’re right. The meaning of luxury shifts every time there’s a cultural shift because people value different things according to their contexts. I have been talking to a lot of people in different fields on my podcast The Ponytail Show like a climate change activist from Australia to a photographer in New York. All the things that I picked up from all of them is that people value the outdoors. They didn’t realise how much they needed it and loved it until the Covid took it away from them. So I think space, and the outdoors, and having time to do those things, is like a new luxury in both eastern and western world. In Asia for sure air quality is a luxury, so these are all to do with nature.

pic. 28 — The Ponytail Show © Lauren Yates

Shone — Yeah I totally agree. People are going to be more careful on what they are spending now. They’re going to value these traits much more such as craftsmanship, transparency, not getting a lot of things but getting quality things.

Lauren — This is a really controversial and complex question because it has really serious implications. As an artist I moved toward making works that make you ‘feel’ something, rather than being political, because I felt that art became way too political in the postmodern era. That’s the problem I had with my art school. To me what the postmodern university does to students is it burns everything down without constructively building something with them. The purpose of university is to break down what you think you know and challenge the worst part of yourself to build something constructively and rebuild yourself. I think what we need to do as a socially conscious brand, if you want to call yourself one, is take responsibility. I think those responsible in every single brand need to hold the hand of their followers to question the worst part of themselves. I don’t think a lot of brands are equipped to do that because they are not asking the right questions. It’s a very dangerous political area to go into and I think if we think that’s the responsibility of a brand, that it should teach culture, then we’ve got it wrong. Art and culture is more a reflection of what is happening and how people are questioning. I think it’s wrong to demand brands to voice a specific political agenda just because they are a brand. So there’s a big difference there. It often gets very confusing, because nowadays we are bombarded with so much information, people don’t often properly read things or watch full videos. The content presents us with short sound bites, the meaning gets lost and it’s very confusing for people. As a brand I think you need to be authentic about your voice, and you voice things that you feel very strongly about. That’s your agenda. But you need to do your research. You need to look into both sides of the story, you need to have a debate and open to conversation. I think there is a lot of rage in the world right now, and what we really need is a constructive conversation on both sides of the scale to move forward. It’s a very complicated issue.

Shone — This week we were talking a lot about this with my colleague how we would communicate about this social issue. I feel that social media puts pressure a lot on us to say something about it. Through our work we are not actively being political but it’s through our belief in the beauty of the art and the idea of fluidity, being a minority person ourselves. It’s already saying something about it. That’s how we saw our place within this issue.

Lauren — One thing that my husband actually pointed out which is really interesting. It’s, ‘who is your audience?’ My husband makes music and he has a record label that represents black musicians. His audience is mostly black, while my audience would be mostly white… next would be asian and then minority groups follow. He said that he doesn’t need to repost about protests because his audience is black and it’s already triggering for them. They don’t need someone retelling something that is so painful to them. They don’t need to be educated about what they are living everyday. But my audience is a white audience, and as a socially conscious brand I have a responsibility to share a different perspective with my white audience who might not have known what being followed around in the store would feel like because people think you are always going to steal something. I was aware of the difference since I was a young kid, and that my skin when people kept thinking my mom was my nanny. White people have no idea what that feels like and how painful that can be for a mother. I think it’s really important to know your audience as well.

Shone — I work both ways from designing the whole outfit first and finding the suitable materials later. Then I also get inspiration from the other way around from handling materials, treating them with special techniques which then influenced the design of the piece. For me it’s an interesting area to work on developing fabric. It’s difficult now to do something really new in fashion and that’s the aspect that could give a new twist from what things we’ve seen before promoting local techniques or local materials.

Lauren: I couldn’t agree more with Shone. Fabric to a fashion designer is like a paint to a painter. You can’t make a beautiful garment unless the fabric is beautiful. Fabric is everything. The way I work is when we have done the conceptual research and we see the moodboard, and the technology, and the colors together, we look for authentic fabrics that are correct for that time period …and sometimes we use modern technology when we think it’s appropriate. We did a collection about the women who paved the way to space. That was fun because I was able to play with some new Italian developments from a supplier called Majocchi who, I think, are doing the most interesting things with technical fabric right now. They make interesting resin coated and heat responsive fabrics that change color with your body heat, or fabrics that have been developed for industry… like industrial use for explorations and research like for scientists. I think it’s interesting to look at what’s new and what’s old and what informs us about where we are now. We also work with a lot of small heritage mills in Japan and a couple of heritage mills in Scotland because they often make the kind of fabric that is authentic for the time period where we were looking into. Like authentic denim. A lot of denim mills in Japan are actually using old machinery that was shipped from the US after World War II. We make knitwear fabrics from small old Japanese mills who used really old machines as well. What I like about these machines is that they can use slubby yarns, and that makes the fabric interesting. Industrial machines can’t knit with these slubby yarns because they are built for mass production. There’s one knitting factory in Bangkok that I’m working with to try and make pure cotton, weird, slubby knitwear jerseys and stuff. They wonder why we don’t use polyester, but they do make it for us. They are a family owned business in the Thonburi area. This is a local business that is willing to try out these ideas, which is cool. I do travel a lot. It’s something that I have to reevaluate. I think to move forward I need to keep as much of it in Thailand.

pic. 32 — W’menswear Autumn/Winter 2020 collection research board © Lauren Yates

pic. 33 — Behind the scene at a factory © Lauren Yates

pic. 34 — Behind the scene at a factory © Lauren Yates

pic. 35 — Behind the scene of an outdoor shooting © Lauren Yates

Lauren — I hope that there will be a lot more small businesses, or people inspired to start their own small businesses that have integrity. I am really interested in the idea that small businesses are the most important countervailing force of the economy. Back in the 60s or 70s small businesses balanced out corporations, but right now corporations are way too big and powerful. Small businesses are swimming upstream. I hope to inspire more people to start small businesses and also to inspire people to start to support small businesses. It’s better that we can make more balance to the economy. Basically, the economy is not all about money, it’s about people. Without people you have no economy. The market will be much more rich and diverse. It would be much more sustainable because you have a lot more small scale businesses, and they are much more in touch with the community than a corporation can be. I think when things get too big they just grow out of control.

Ung — These values that are very important are being less prioritised nowadays. It’s our time to diminish fast fashion and inspire people to support more small businesses and enjoy more beauty. Ultimately we all aim for freedom. That’s embedding in both of your work. It’s a relief for me as well. I always crave for this kind of creativity but I find it’s hard to balance this out in the context right now where there is a lot of pressure and power is dominating.

pic. 1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 8, 17, 18, 19, 26, 27, 30, 31 — Image courtesy of Shone Puipia
pic. 7, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 20, 21, 22, 28, 32, 33, 34, 35 — Image courtesy of Lauren Yates
pic. 23, 24, 25 — Image coutersy of Fashion Revolution Thailand
pic. 3 — Artemisia Gentileschi “public domain in the US”
pic. 4 — Portia Wounding Her Thigh “public domain in the US”
pic. 8 — Sylvia Earle “public domain in the US”
pic. 9 — Sylvia Earle “public domain in the US”
pic. 29 — British Vogue Frontline Workers