Following the Creative Credo of a Burgeoning Fashion Duo

    An old suitcase is installed above Timo Weiland and Alan Eckstein’s studio door that has a motto, a phrase cut from an old magazine, mounted on it: Do your best and don’t worry. The New York designers even considered knitting the Morrissey lyric into garments, but decided against, preferring to keep it personal rather than offer it for sale. “We live by it,” says Weiland.
    For two consecutive seasons, Style.com has suggested that rather, Timo Weiland (the brand) ascribes to the philosophy that “more is more” and have yet to learn the art of editing. “We can only do what feels right for us,” says Eckstein. “We don’t intentionally go for ‘more is more,’ but we add a lot because, for us, color and print and texture are what make sense. If we weren’t designing in a way that felt right for us, it’d be less.”
    Indeed. Timo Weiland feels like the grunge-band boy dating the Chess Club president. And clearly, these two are on the fast track, though with their wits so well about them that quick success won’t threaten to waver a vision so timeless. Four collections, Barneys New York and Harvey Nichols as their main accounts, and yet Eckstein is still in school. Where their choices in shape or styling may be youthful, the construction and fabric is sophisticated and innovative. You can’t beat custom Bengal tiger jacquard.
    This morning, Weiland and Eckstein went about their morning routines, Weiland in Greenwich Village taking chamomile tea and coffee while eating a banana and reading the paper, and Eckstein in the East Village with his brother, listening to the song “Pata Pata” by South African singer and civil rights activist Miriam Makeba. This afternoon, the duo share pineapple slices in their sweltering Garment District studio while sifting through mounds of fabric swatches for their Spring collection. The chosen ones are tacked to an inspiration wall that looks like the tatters of an F. Scott Fitzgerald character’s closet. The playful debutante is in fact the central character in the Timo Weiland tale. Dressed up, but not uptight, accentuated by floral prints, preppy stripes, and popping summer-on-the-coast shades. “He lived in my town!” says Eckstein of Fitzgerald. “There are records of him jumping into a pool naked with his wife and just going wild.”
    In keeping with Fitzgerald’s West Egg tendencies, both Weiland and Eckstein are members of the quite exclusive Norwood Club, a Manhattan haven for young artists, but the two appear unaffected. They are alternately funny and awkward, and as one might expect, they do indeed finish each other’s sentences. Naturally, they’re the fashion geeks that they claim to be—though of the endearing variety. Sleeves are rolled up, hair’s undone. Granted, today’s temperature has reached 90 degrees; three interns, watchful school-aged girls, are huddled next to the AC. “It’s a never-ending bizarre story in this studio,” says Eckstein. “We have a lot of interns, a lot of fabric. We go crazy together in here.”
    Of what emerges from that circus, what is the duo most proud? “Outerwear,” they say in unison. “Jackets are the most important piece in a wardrobe. And the sexiest,” adds Eckstein. “We’re coat collectors. If you have a great coat, you have confidence.” Knitwear is a close second to the crown jewel coat. Their sweaters are a perfect representation of their tongue-in-cheek chic: color blocking, crew necks, impeccable fit, and then a cardigan splattered with ink blots and styled with shorts.
    Timo Weiland’s customer base is defined by confidence and individuality—no “celebrity consumers” allowed. “You could have a great sense of style or a horrible one,” professes Eckstein, “but if you wear what’s you, it’s always right.” To punctuate this point, given the opportunity, they’d dress come-as-you-are Kim Gordon in their menswear and Kurt Cobain in their two-piece yellow lace dress from Spring 2011. “With some cat-eyes, sunglasses, and a Helmut Newton pose,” Eckstein laughs.
    Eckstein exercises his own version of the confidence and individuality about which he speaks. While he loves hues of blues, diamonds, fleur de lis, and all-over prints, his favorite piece misses all the marks. “It’s a T-shirt that my mom really hates. It says, ‘Suck on it, babe. It’s clogged.’ It’s ripped, it smells bad, and I can’t put it in the laundry because if I do, it’ll come out in shreds. I try to wear it to school as much as possible. It’s my good luck T-shirt. It always happens in this T-shirt. I mean, not that, but…”
    One wall of the studio showcases paintings from Antwerp, empty carved-wood frames from flea markets, and inspiration for their first collection: a newspaper from 1902 with the scrawling headline: “Pageantry and Ceremonial Splendor.”
    “We actually care about these things very much,” says Eckstein. “It’s weird how much we care about them.”
    Weiland chips in, “They’re arranged seemingly haphazardly, but we definitely spent a lot of time putting them up there. We placed everything on that wall very carefully and so that it would feel natural.”
    An intentional mélange of colors, textures, shapes, and sizes… How apropos.