Get an insight at the design process | ROBERT GELLER
While traveling online to search for some NY designers I found the following interview with menswear fashion designer Robert Geller that has caught my attention.
For those who don’t know, Robert Geller is a German-born American Fashion Designer.
He graduated with a degree in fashion design at Rhode Island School of Design in 2001 and moved to New York to join Marc Jacobs shortly after. Robert helps create four collections at Marc Jacobs before joining Alexandre Polkhov to revamp Cloak.
Robert received the GQ/CFDA Best New Menswear Designer Award in February, 2009. More about him you can read at his biography on his website.
I’d let you now enter through a day of designing with Robert Geller. For comments use disqus in the section bellow the article.
Peter: Take us through a day of designing
Robert: Designing a collection part for me is kind of special because we usually design a collection in a very short time and it’s quite a big. Once we get into it I usually wake up very early. I wake up at 5 o’clock and get to the office at 6. And from 6 to 10 I have the office to myself, which is a very nice thinking time for me. I can’t design when there’s a lot of people around, it’s real distracting. What I’ve done for every season is pick a book on tape and I listen to that while I do rough sketches. It’s something that’s going on that I can look forward to [finishing the book]. It helps me get up in the morning. The two don’t necessarily have any correlation, if I’m doing a collection on Vienna I’m not listening to Death in Venice.
Peter: Sort of like background noise
Robert: It’s just something, yeah. It makes me feel less lonely.
At around 10 o’clock my assistants come in and we start doing more of the technical drawings together. From the rough sketches we all sit around the communal table in our office, chat and sketch together, which is really nice.
For lunch we either order in and all eat at the table together. Or when it’s nice out we like to go to this sandwich place in Tribeca called Columbine. We buy sandwiches there, go sit in the street in the sun and relax for a bit.
Then we go back and if there’s nothing too crazy going on we’ll continue sketching. But there’s always daily things to take care of, we usually do that in the afternoon. That’s a typical day when we’re sketching.
Closer to the show, it’s more about preparing for the show. They’ll be tons of people here. There’s a stylist. The Stylists’ assistants. The Graphic Designer will be here working with us on things like invites for the show. It’s kind of a mad house.
Peter: Cooks say they can taste different things and musicians can sort of dissect songs and hear layers of sounds. Do you think as a designer you see differently?
Robert: Oh for sure. I think it’s just by the nature of being a designer. You look at things differently. To me if I see somebody that has a really good style, it affects me a lot. I want to be closer to that person. It’s a beautiful thing and I want to see what it is that makes these people cool and stylist.
Peter: It’s like eating. If you taste something that’s amazing you keep tasting and you want more you want more.
Robert: Yeah but as a cook you want to figure out what’s in it. I’m not a cook, so I just enjoy the taste. But if you’re a cook, you dissect and I think that’s whats similar to a designer is that when you see something that’s beautiful you study it and you try to figure out what makes it so beautiful to you.
Peter: Do you think you’re designs have changed since been with Ana? [Ana and Robert met while at Marc Jacobs. They’ve been married for 2 years now]
Robert: I think she influences me. I think she’s one of the most stylish people. I love the way that she dresses. I love going to work earlier than her because I don’t see her putting together her outfit, so I see it finished. She has a certain quirkiness to her style that I like. It’s beautiful but has something in terms of proportions or, like the other day she was wearing neon pink socks. Something that’s a little off and I like to add that to my collection.
Peter: Is there something you think every guy should own in terms of clothing?
Robert: I don’t want to say every guy but a leather jacket for me is really cool. It doesn’t have to be this crazy motorcycle, weird shape. Just something that is a little bit worn in. Something that says “I love it so much.”
Peter: A suit or a leather jacket.
Robert: A suit is tricky, it’s appropriate sometimes but it’s not something you want to walk around all day with.
Read the entire interview at alwaysnevernyc blog
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