S&M

S: I’m Stella…and this is Moira and we created a brand together called S&M, which we decided is more of a production company. We both love making clothes and in particular making narrative based costumes. The idea is that people communicate themselves through their clothes consciously or subconsciously and we wanted to bring that forward into our work.
nativefunkandflash: so what are you making?
M: Well, we create whole experiences with our films and our stories and our clothes…we run the full circle…it’s not disconnected that when a person wears the clothes or sees the movie they have the connection to the clothing or to the story or the film.
S: We wanted the story to continue after the film was over, so we write these stories about these characters and we want them to connect with these characters and once they put on the clothes maybe embody some of the parts that they like about the characters--
M: --and integrating the story they now make it a part of their life, so they continue the story in their own way.
nff: What are you inspired by?
S: Just…people. I like meeting people—M: --yeah! that’s what I was gonna say!
S: the reason why I love traveling and doing what I’m doing now is just learning why other people do what they do, cause I can’t think the way they do…and just learning who they are and what makes up them as a person…cause that’s exactly how I think what makes clothes work and not work…is not what they wear but who they are.
M: and I’m also really inspired by people especially, just because their capacity for emotion and personality and just how everyone is capable of so many different ways. every time I meet someone I see that they have a complete story behind their life and that they’re capable of all these different emotions that one doesn’t normally think about when you pass someone in the street everyday, but everyone is full of all these beautiful stories and, it’s inspiring.
nff: describe your process.
S: This is a new process for the both of us, so what I’ve been doing now is taking a topic—something I want to do in my mind—right now I’m doing a second screenplay which is about traveling and so based on that I write a narrative, and through that narrative I imagine the clothes that she would be wearing or he would be wearing, and draw clothes from that. And usually during this process I talk to Moira about it and tell her the story and then she helps me out with it.
M: My process for working in general is I always have created a sort of story around things and then literally working from story to things. my process is very difficult by myself because when I get to the point of actually making I draw back and get scared always, and it always happens, so it’s helpful working with stella because I can’t have that hesitation, and it’s good having her motivation and feedback and how she can see it from a different way that I’m not seeing it.
nff: what about materials?
M: We’re working with set design, a lot of found objects and regular, everyday objects and elevating them to a more magical sense because of the way we’re using them, so it’s simple things like newspaper and cardboard, but because of the way we’re presenting it they’re magical and you believe it
S: We’re trying to encourage that you can find magic—
M: --in everyday life, it’s everywhere, you just have to see it and bring it out
nff: Do you see this collection as being continued after school?
M: Yes. And continuing working on our brand and making more things as we can until we can afford to do that by itself.