F L A U N T
KAIMIN is the raising utopian brand initiating the posterity of attire. With a foundation of innovation and inclusivity, the namesake designer may well be sent from the future— sent back a couple of hundred years to propel the industry forward. Harnessing the power of the digital space, and the resourcefulness of sustainability, KAIMIN crafts intergalactic garments with a cunning dose of raunchiness. In a recent interview, Flaunt spoke with the avant-garde designer to discuss the evolution of the label, cyberspace, and the forecast of tech-induced fashion.
Tell us about the creation of the brand with your business partner Dmitri Pchelintsev.
My initial foray into clothing design came in 2014 with the Zero Zero Vol. 02 project – a multi-sensory, high-tech video popup exhibition with an installation by Snarkitecture, which I was the protagonist of and also directed alongside stylist Nicola Formichetti and photographer Miles Aldridge. We had the honor of presenting the Vol. 02 book at my beloved Paris store, Colette.
As part of that project, I created a stand-alone clothing capsule for the female character, and a very prominent singer ended up wearing some of my pieces in her music video. I felt compelled to create a full collection, and my very good friend Dmitri, who helped produce that very pivotal Zero Zero project, really believed in me as a designer, so we formed the KAIMIN label together in 2016.
Dmitri is a creative marketer and business operator who happens to have a very strong background in finance, having spent many years at some of Wall Street's premier institutions investing in renewables, green-tech, and sustainability. Having helped grow several tech-enabled startups, he now oversees all of KAIMIN's business strategy and operations, while leading our expansion as a digitally-native brand, including the recent launch of our SLFF KAIMIN denim line.
How have innovation and inclusivity played essential roles in the brand?
Innovation and inclusivity go hand-in-hand for me, as tolerance for new and crossover ideas breeds progress. KAIMIN leans heavily on technology in everything we do, and aesthetically we work with all types of creatives, communities, and personalities because anyone can uncover something new and beautiful, irrespective of age, race, and gender.
Besides using innovative materials, production techniques, and data analytics, the brand benefits from social media's global reach and the unprecedented direct access to talent that it affords. The Internet is a boundless creative nursery of young innovators that come from all different realms, including art, fashion, music – we love and fully utilize this cross-functionality.
I grew up an outlier in a homogeneous society, so I feel my clothes have to speak to things beyond style and promote ideals that are important to me, including social and economic inclusivity, as I feel everyone deserves a voice. In addition to connecting through unrestrained creativity, I try to make items that are more accessible, including from an economic standpoint, and which still adhere to my design and high-quality philosophy – we launched SLFF KAIMIN exactly for this.
What facets of New York's underground scene make appearances in your garments?
The New York underground scene has this alluring aura of the forbidden, with sexier and darker undertones and the sense of a risque adventure that is addicting. During our SS20 show, for instance, we contrasted the primarily bright and colorful collection with a very dark and sexy setting, aiming for the set design to evoke a feeling of an underground party with red backlighting and a minimal, heavy electronic soundtrack.
NYC subculture is edgy, extremely diverse, and creative and demonstrates some of the greatest social acceptance anywhere in the world, which really allows me to meld it with high fashion in a fun way. I love working with established as well as cool new, up-and-coming artists and personalities that grew up in this environment— I draw a lot of inspiration here for my design, music, lifestyle, and the overall direction for KAIMIN.
The digital world is a key influence to the brand, hence your Fall/ Winter 2019 collection, "2081: CYBER-ORDINARY". What were your main inspirations and references for that season?
Our Fall/ Winter 2019 collection explored archetypes of future beauty and was heavily influenced by such films as Blade Runner and Ex-Machina, specifically their protagonists – androids and cyborgs. I'm a total believer in the eventual symbiosis of man and machine.
In large part, that collection was about defeating the mundane and exploring and strengthening that which sets one apart, no matter the era. If today's fever pitch around privacy, sexual correctness, censorship, etc. ever leads to a dystopian control of self-expression, I'd want my clothes to declare: "when the extraordinary is outlawed, only the outlaws will be extraordinary."
What's your view on cyberspace and it's distraction from the real world?
I think we're in uncharted waters, and we won't be able to properly assess how good or bad this "distraction" from the real world is for a while, if ever. The cyber is already the real. There are definitely multiple ways to look at this, and it's certainly also a generational thing— just look at the debate around "screen time" for kids among young parents and scientists and the interesting arguments presented by media proponents, including Gary Vaynerchuk.
All I know is that this is the manifestation of human progress, and there's no way back regardless, but to me, the benefits outweigh the potential hazards. We are now superbly equipped for improved communication and increased input – although, where the quality of consumed content, general overexposure, and the "3-second" wars are going is a different question.
For KAIMIN, Elon Musk's Neuralink can't arrive fast enough!
What were your conceptions involving the recent Spring/ Summer 2020 collection, "INTROSPECTIVE PRISM"?
This season, our main collection shared the runway with the launch of our SLFF KAIMIN denim line, which celebrates self-confidence and self-expression. The overall creative direction was influenced by the sub-conscience theories of Sigmund Freud and films like Annihilation, aiming to expose inner fears to release suppressed identity and desires— literal empowerment through self-discovery.
The collection explores two distinct notions for evolution of human form – through technology and through biological mutation. From the outside, the driver is mechanical – artificial furthering of self via machine. From the inside, the driver is bio-spiritual-- the natural furthering of self via selective mutation of flesh and mind— a physical metamorphosis through the unrestrained self.
This season's motto is:
"Introspective Prism – Refract all versions of self, Mutate desire and identity, Evolve in spirit and form."
With our current climate reality, how do you plan to focus the brand on a more sustainable level?
Being on the cutting edge is important to us to both achieve a futuristic design and to help push progress, validating applications of new technologies. We always keep an eye on the new tech that has shown promise in helping to lower the environmental impact of manufacturing, and we try to do our part by using many recycled, sustainable, and organic materials, including Better Cotton Initiative fabrics in our SLFF KAIMIN denim line. As we grow, we will continue to place greater emphasis on better production practices, safer materials, and less waste.
Explain some of the laser cutting, production techniques, and 3-D print experiments that are implemented throughout your garment construction process.
KAIMIN utilizes quite a bit of technology for manufacturing, content production, and branding, including 3D printing, laser cutting, digital art, AR/VR, motion tracking, etc. and we always seek to emphasize our future-forward thinking in our designs. For garment construction, we use some techniques because they create unexpected and groundbreaking visual results, while other methods actually make sense from a time and capital-intensity perspective.
We're pushing the brand's tech boundaries with the "Stratasys x KAIMIN" 3D-Print Denim Capsule Collection— the first time ever an industrial-quality 3D geometry is printed directly onto denim. We designed the intricate CGI geometry, multi-depth opacity, and colormap in collaboration with Fitchwork to make the final print.
Stratasys are pioneers in the additive manufacturing space and have some of the most advanced 3D printing technology in the industry, accompanied by an inherent desire to experiment and come up with something new and cool. They wish to make everyday life better by bringing 3D printing technology to a greater part of the world faster and disrupting the fashion realm is quite big on the radar of Stratasys global creative director, Naomi Kaempfer— so what better way to help assimilate and democratize the tech for clothing than with one of the most common garments, jeans!
How do you envision the future of fashion norms?
I'd like to think that the future will bring abundance and innovation not just in the material sense but also in our culture and thinking, where humans will finally reach total equilibrium with nature, and each other— no prejudices— and KAIMIN clothing is but one way to represent this future.
Like everything else in our society, fashion will continue to be transformed by technology, faster and more accessible information transfer, and diverse global audiences. This, of course, means a lot will change in fashion's tangible areas, like materials with never-before-imagined physical properties, more efficient production techniques, the continued proliferation of smart garments, and increased expectations of what clothing should do for the body and mind.
But, to me, the most interesting changes are already occurring on the more intangible, creative side. People's unprecedented ability to communicate who they are has opened up new frontiers. In only a few years, social media exposed how varied yet similar and interconnected different cultures' tastes are, and how people of all walks of life can become influential by traversing these different planes. Being skilled in multiple areas has become the norm for many young creatives today, and this 'polymathism' affects fashion a lot. There are so many cross-functional innovators out there, and fashion definitely benefits from this, becoming more interesting and multifaceted.
What's next for KAIMIN?
KAIMIN's mission is to keep innovating ourselves and keep collaborating with people that push the boundaries across the various artistic disciplines and product segments. We want to be more cross-functional and would love to do more than just fashion, even if it's in a more non-permanent format like seasonal collaborations. I wish to meet and inspire more people and to learn from them so we can all come up with a never-before-seen symbiosis of unlikely fields that not only is cool but also could change lives for the better and bring signature KAIMIN flavor to people in more than one way.
With that said, I hope to continue building our artistic community and form a creative confluence platform – a culture nebula for local and global artists – to support innovation. To that end, we have already established an endowment fund some time ago, via our Zero Zero Project initiative, which periodically disperses funds to help finance targeted projects. And in that same vein, KAIMIN presented the SS20 show in collaboration with Studio 525, an iconic exhibition & event space housed in the former Andrea Rosen Art Gallery in Chelsea, as the inaugural project for Studio 525 Art Accelerator, which has a very similar vision to ours and aims to provide a physical place for work and showcases to artists and the creative community in general.
Produced by: Morgan Vickery
Photography by: : Franco Velastiqui
Art Direction by: Delfina Pia Rey
Styling by: Noah Diaz
Hair by: Takuya Yamaguchi using R+Co
Makeup by: Kevin Cheah
Model: Cassie Priestley at Next Models.
Styling assistance by: Sabrina Aguirre and Mila Sanguinetti
Credits: FW19 KAIMIN clothing, and GIUSEPPE ZANOTTI heels.
