Celine Kwan Brings Out the Inner Child in Us All

January 25, 2024

Celine Kwan has always lived a life in color. Growing up between the UK and Hong Kong, the designer draws from a myriad of technicolor influences to inform her boisterous designs — which often show off grandiose silhouettes and psychedelic prints created by Kwan herself.

For Kwan, her craft is about so much more than clothing. Fulfilled by putting smiles on her wearers’ faces, she has created a sartorial universe where really anything goes. Her latest Spring/Summer ‘24 collection, “Bitch Stole My Look,” offers up a range of furry matching sets, peplum skirts, and outlandish screen printed pieces — but below we dive into the wider world of Celine Kwan, and it’s unlike any other planet we’ve seen before.

Interview by Kayla Curtis-Evans
Sketches by Celine Kwan, Images Courtesy of Celine Kwan

Spring/Summer 2024

Peeling back the curtain on Kwan’s creative process, office sat down with the designer to discuss inspiration, from cheeky 2000s magazines to Tumblr, and more.

You grew up between two different places, so your inspiration is an amalgamation of cultural references. You’ve mentioned magazines like Closer as early design inspiration. What inspires you now?

I get my inspiration from a lot of artists, from just doodling, the people that I meet, and also my dog, Holly! Finding inspiration all around is definitely a way of life for any young designer. It's really important for me to learn constantly. I'll try to go to different galleries and exhibitions and just talk to loads of people. Iit makes a big difference when you're off your phone and you're actually out there learning and seeking different inspirations.

As you said, your dog is also a huge inspiration of yours and many of your prints. Since you have a background in Fashion Print, tell me about the process of developing your own prints. How do you use color as a form of expression?

I love that question because print is definitely a big part of my identity. It has always been such a big focus for me. Before I decided to do fashion at a really young age, I was drawing. I was always drawing throughout my life. And then I think I wanted to apply it onto the body, which is what prompted me to apply for fashion design with print in Central Saint Martins. When I’m coming up with prints, I honestly just go crazy and draw a bunch of things. It's a lot of trial and error. I feel like you could just slap a print on anything, but to make an impact, you really have to understand how the silhouettes work and you can't put too much on one garment. And I think a lot of my color choices come from memory as well. That's also a huge part of my inspiration — a lot of my memories with my family and growing up in Hong Kong and the UK.

I've lived in very vibrant cities throughout my life, so I got to see a lot of these colors all around me. When developing prints, I also use different mediums: color pastels, spray paints. I'm just not afraid to do anything. Like this season, I'm using icing to paint. I would never limit myself, you know? Why not? I feel like fashion is so serious now. And I'm definitely not that kind of person. I hope my humor comes through in my prints as well as my clothes.

I feel like fashion is so serious now. And I'm definitely not that kind of person. I hope my humor comes through in my prints as well as my clothes.

Spring/Summer 2024

I love how you brought up color memories because your pieces conjure a lot of nostalgia for me. They remind me of the colors and bright patterns I would wear when I was discovering my own personal style. How did younger Celine’s interests and tastes inform your namesake brand?

I'm a part of the older Gen Z crowd. I grew up with that transition between not having mobile phones to suddenly they were everywhere. I also had a lot of magazines that I read when I was younger, and then I kind of got introduced into playing games online and watching TV later on. My fine arts background influences things as well, so my inspiration is a mix of things. I don't know if you remember the game Pet Society. It's kind of silly. You used to dress up your little pets and it's kind of like what Animal Crossing is now. A lot of my work is very childlike and is inpsired by these things I loved to do when I was younger. I would reaad Closer Magazine and the really trashy magazines with bright colors that they just don't make anymore.

Those were my favorite. I loved Tiger Beat.

They had so many fun columns. They used to make a big deal out of celebrities wearing the same thing twice and I loved the whole drama of it all. Everyone was stepping into social media, but it wasn't about that at that point. I think everyone was really authentically themselves. They didn't really care about what was trendy. I think that really influenced how I design nowadays. The way I grew up as well as being in Hong Kong and the UK really pushed me to become the designer that I am today. Blending the East and the West. But definitely magazines, books, and games from back then have really stuck with me. Things were simpler back then, but they were also more vibrant and alive. I obviously took a lot of inspiration from my favorite designers as well. I never want to be boring. Designers I paid attention to growing up were Jean Paul Gaultier and Alexander McQueen — they had a strong impact. Also if you've seen Martin Parr's photography. I remember when I was in high school, I had this Martin Parr book from the library that I was obsessed with. I would always return it late because he did a whole series about food from Hong Kong and they were the most vibrant pictures. I was proud to be from Hong Kong in the UK because you could see someone appreciating it.

Spring/Summer 2023

How do you bring together both of the cultures that have impacted you throughout life within your designs?

My humor definitely comes from the English side — my really dry sense of humor. I moved here when I was maybe around 12, 13 years old. So it's been more than 10 years that I've been in the UK. But I think my Asian influences include the polish and a little sense of elegance. A little bit of drama in my work comes from the East. I definitely would hope that I appeal to both sides — both East and West. I hope I strike that balance.

You have a really unique perspective in being able to bring these cultural influences and certain artistic details together.

Hong Kong residents are super direct and people from the UK are just nuts. I love playing with the mix of both of those cultures, which just creates a whole new monster that I don't even know how to explain.

We get to see bits and pieces of your creative process through your social media, but I’d love to take a sneak peek inside your brain. How would you describe the process that goes on in your head when conceptualizing new garments? How do you initially select textiles and forms?

I always start with a print first and that really informs the collection. I started with doing portraits of dogs and it kind of evolved into what it is now. Then I would take on research of garments. For silhouettes, I really take inspiration from everything I see every day. Like, if a woman's wearing a bag in a very interesting way, I would take a picture of that. Everything happens quite organically. I also love the pattern cutting aspect of things. I have very adventurous pieces as well as very simple silhouettes. Last season with Spring/Summer 24, I was hyperfixated on tug of war and how dogs love to tug on things. So my designs usually come from a random concept and then I think, 'Oh, how can I expand these concepts into silhouettes?' A specific thing that I do a lot is I am definitely a designer that really likes the styling aspect of things. That is so important to me — the end result of how an entire look comes together — because I'm very textile and texture based.

I think sometimes it's really hard for people to put their brain in that mode to see anything as inspiration. If you had to give advice about how to open up your mind to finding inspiration in unexpected places, what would it be?

I wasn't always like this. If I'm being really vulnerable, when I was in Central Saint Martins, I didn't feel as confident as I do now. I was younger and constantly worrying about, 'Oh, is this good enough? Is my aesthetic strong enough?' It's a very competitive business, as we all know. I snapped out of it after some time and realized, 'Wow, people really appreciate what I do.' So the biggest advice that I would give to anyone is that if you don't feel beautiful, if you don't feel confident, it will never translate to your work or your inspiration. I don't think you can make anything beautiful if you don't feel beautiful. And that does not mean your appearance. It really is like the mental, the psyche, if you're not open to things, then they're never gonna happen, you know? So I always tell people that are younger than me or studying fashion to always take care of your beautiful mind. Then you can be more open to getting inspiration and seeing the beautiful in the mundane. I did my final year, my graduate collection during COVID and that was a very difficult time. But I managed to thrive even in that situation because I really changed my mindset.

I appreciate how you framed training your mind as an active practice that you have to teach yourself or condition yourself to. Once you can find yourself in that headspace, I think the inspiration will come to you.

If you're bothered about your confidence lacking, that's gonna be the only thing you're gonna focus on. Everyone has their own journey. But I think, for me, when I snapped out of that, I felt more free to enjoy the beauty in things.

Spring/Summer 2023

It seems like you hit your stride when you really started to create for yourself as well.

One-hundred percent. It's really hard to be original nowadays, but being authentic is definitely very evident and very obvious when you see a brand or a designer doing it well.

What is the most bizarre or quirky design that you have conceptualized to date?

During my final collection, I just wanted a garment to be a whole living room set, like a sofa as well as a lamp and all of that. I guess that didn't really materialize, but the idea definitely arose because I was always stuck in my living room at that point. I think that is probably the strangest, but honestly, I don't even think that's that strange. I guess people would think putting my own dog on a garment is pretty strange, but I don't think that is either [laughs.] I think when things are not considered stereotypically wearable, that's what makes them strange for people. But for me, maybe just designing something really simple is very strange. Like what if I just came up with a collection that's all-black.

If I ever see that come to light I'll remember this conversation.

You heard it here! Yeah, I think that's my answer. I definitely have all-black looks I have designed that pay homage to my Tumblr emo phase.

I was also a Tumblr girl. Have you seen the current internet discourse that 2024 is gonna be like 2014 again. Like, people want that Tumblr era to come back.

I mean, it was such an iconic time.

That's why I love speaking to creatives who are close in age with me because we all got such niche aesthetic inspiration growing up. And if you get it, you get it.

It was so silly. People loved mustaches and galaxy prints — it was a really weird moment.

Each of your collections exists in a world of its own. If there was a Celine Kwan planet or universe, what would it look like?

Oh my God. It would be amazing, wouldn't it? I think everybody would definitely have to have a dog. There would be colors everywhere. It would be very joyous, obviously. My main goal is definitely people not being afraid to be bold and wear color. It would be be super dog friendly everywhere. I'd definitely put loads of cucumbers in water so everyone can have cucumber water everywhere. I think it would be a little bit chaotic 'cause I feel like I'm definitely a very creative and chaotic person — who isn't? I think one of me is definitely enough though, so I don't know if there would be more of me. Definitely a lot of pink. It would be a place where people could just be who they are. It would be a pretty free world. I would definitely make a rule that people have to lay off their phones for a day, though, you know?

Your designs take dopamine dressing to the max. How do you hope people feel in colorful Celine Kwan pieces?

The most important thing for me is how people feel in my clothes. I feel like the most happiness that I have received was when a customer was like, 'Oh, I wore your piece during my birthday and I felt invincible.’ And I just thought that was really beautiful. It's something that really pushes me to be like, 'Hey, Celine, you've chosen the right path because you've really empowered someone to feel like that.' I really wanna make clothes that make people genuinely smile. It's my main goal. I feel like the curiosity never dies. As we get older, we become more self-conscious and there are more worries and questions we have. I just want people to forget that for a moment when they pick up one of my items. So that is also a big ethos of my brand — being in touch with your inner child. Even though I feel like people do want to grow up and mature, but there is definitely an inner child in everybody.

Fashion

After 30 years and over 100 cult fragrances, COMME DES GARÇONS PARFUMS 1994–2025 BY SIMONETT & BAER launches this month

December 17, 2024

“I have to add that the topic is, of course, an irrational one, because it's not art and it's not fashion. It has to do with scent, which is something in the air,” explains Dino Simonett, renowned art-book maker and designer/publisher of the new COMME des GARÇONS x SIMONETT & BAER book, which details 30 years of CDG perfumes.

“The moment you smell something is irrational,” he continues. “This book transports you and brings you to the idea behind the perfumes. People have gotten thousands of art catalogues from me, but this fucking perfume thing really drives people a little bit crazy, you know? Because everybody has this bottle; and that bottle smells like this on them; and this bottle I need; and all the memories and everything. I like it a lot that we made this.”

As fans and family of the world’s coolest brand prepared to gather at Dover Street Parfums Market in Paris to celebrate the launch of the book, our Editor-At-Large Paige Silveria shared some coffee and cigarettes with Simonett to discuss his wild trajectory, making books with Joseph Beuys and Tilda Swinton early on, and the importance of nonconformal thinking.

By Paige Silveria

This fucking perfume thing really drives people a little bit crazy.

Paige Silveria: Tell me about yourself. You make books.

Dino Simonett: My books are my art. Each book might be a painting or sculpture. And you should not do the same sculpture all the time. When you hike somewhere, you never should go the same way back home — this is something my mother taught me when I was young. In the same way, it's boring to make the same stuff all the time. So I try to find a way to invent my own language.

PS: This book you’ve made is really beautiful.

DS: It’s hyperrealistic larger-than-life images of boxes and flacons in an endless row presented on paper the thickness of a children’s book.

PS: I loved how it said in the press release that you woke up one Sunday morning and the idea for the book suddenly came to you.

DS: The backstory is that Remo Hallauer [COO of COMME des GARÇONS International] is a true book lover. We met at the Offprint book fair in Paris. And one day, shortly after peak COVID, this email came from him asking if I’d think about a possible collaboration with one of the young stars here — and no hard feelings, but it didn’t work out. So then, as it is in life, which is the essential thing, you have to have an idea. And most of the time, they’re not good enough. You have to have another and another and then you go, Ah ha! Perfume.

PS: And you’d already been pretty familiar with their fragrances?

DS: I’ve known this stuff since the beginning. I wore the first perfume they created. It was part of my life all the time, and I thought, It's so funny. There’s a connection with how I make the books: like two, three books a year, all collaborations and each is different. Just like their perfumes. So I immediately texted Remo.

PS: And what perfect timing, with the 30-year anniversary.

DS: Yes, but this was two years ago or so. I hadn’t had the jubilee in mind. It might not look like much, but there was a lot of work to do.

PS: Many of the advertisements and images weren’t archived, physically or digitally, right? You had to search all over for a good portion of the material?

DS: Well we also had to wait for the official deal to go through in the beginning. Adrian Joffe [President of COMME des GARÇONS International and Dover Street Market International] wanted to do it but he didn’t have the mind space at the time; they were about to open the Dover Street Market here in Paris. So we were on our own for a bit, developing the project from zero. We looked all over the Internet and tried to create the chronology. I had a young guy helping me. He kept reminding me to be patient and to continue to work on growing the book. The door was open, but we had to wait in front of the next room. So we took little steps to prepare ourselves. And stuff slowly worked out.

PS: And thank God for the Internet.

DS: Yes, because as you mentioned, there was no archive. We thought surely they’d have something in the basement. But no, that didn’t exist. At one point they sent us a list of all the perfumes so we had a clear checklist to manage. I had to become an expert.

PS: There are so many, over 100?

DS: Yeah, and at one point the CDG team was activated. It was like a machine and in the spring suddenly a load of stuff was coming. First we had to grow the grapes, then make the wine and then the grappa. And at the end, it's a really strong grappa. And so things came together, and then one day Adrian said, “All is fine, but Rei [Kawakubo] must now also approve it. This is how the system works.” But nobody had told me! So Remo met with Rei to show her the book.

PS: That’s a bit of pressure!

DS: She could have said no and we’d have to throw everything in the garbage, two years of work. There was indeed a little bit of pressure. But it was fine. She liked the book. Then at the end of this summer we met again and they asked if they could have some of the finished copies on 20 November in Tokyo. I said, “I’m sorry, what?” He was thinking that the book was finished, you know? I told him we still needed a lot of material to finish it. Sometimes it's nice though to have this pressure. It's motivating and thrilling when you finally accomplish it all.

PS: Let’s go back. How did your upbringing inform who you are?

DS: It has to do with nonconformal thinking. Most people think the same. And we’re constantly pressured as well, by everything around us to conform. You have to really fight to keep your head and so I had this upbringing with this rather eccentric mother who was absolutely nonconformistic in every way. She was resolute. Why should we follow the path of the masses? It was never my thing. Voilà.

PS: How were you in school?

DS: I was not so good at school. I was only skateboarding at that time. I was on the Swiss National Team. I even was here in Paris at a European championship when I was 15 at the Trocadero. And my mother said, “You are not going to school anymore. You need an apprenticeship. It makes no sense to send you to school any longer.” I was independent and had my first salary at 16.

PS: What were you doing?

DS: I was a carpenter making tables, chairs, all that stuff. All my friends went to high school with like 16-week holidays, while I had only four. And so it was really, really tough shit for a 16 year old. But I learned two important things. The first one was discipline; seven o'clock each day it started and lasted nine hours. And the second thing was precision; you have to do things right. People always said to me that the apprenticeship was good as I’d really use it for the rest of my life. And I always thought that was such bullshit. But actually, it's kind of true. And so anyways, the moment I finished my apprenticeship, the very last day of the last test, I went on the Interrail for one month and never went back to a carpenter shop.

PS: What’d you do after?

DS: I wrote a letter to this very super famous music guy, Claude Nobs who was organizing the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland, telling him I’d like to work there that summer. I mentioned that I’d just finished my apprenticeship for carpentry. He phoned me back immediately after getting the letter. He said, “Oh you’re a carpenter? You can come right now.” He was renovating his apartment in Montreux. So I stayed and worked there alone while he was up at his chalet. I felt like Kevin McCallister from Home Alone in this completely furnished apartment. And then the festival started, and there was this guy from New York doing a large mural painting. It was Keith Haring. I had no idea who he was. We became friends. Then I met George Benson and Herbie Hancock. It started from nothing and then one thing comes, another thing comes, another thing comes. This is how I started, which is maybe not the natural way. But I was following my intuition and taking chances and putting myself out there.

PS: And you're going after what you have a passion for.

DS: I think that’s the best way to live one's life. It was like my own private art school. I met all the guys I was totally hot about. I met Joseph Beuys and told him I wanted to do an art project with him. I got his number and he told me to ask for his assistant. But I took everything for granted, what people said to me. So I had this phone number in Berlin. And I called the guy 20 times until this fucking meeting with Beuys finally happened. And we met and made a small collaboration art magazine called “Quer.” You just have to stick to the stuff.

PS: Wow. You don't still have one of those copies around, do you?

DS: I had one and I brought it to Remo at one of our meetings. Adrian saw it and immediately took it … I hope he gave it back to Remo. Adrian has a pile of my stuff that he wanted to see, so that’s good.

PS: Yeah, of any coffee table in the world for it to be displayed, his is probably in the top 10.

DS: So then I decided my dream was to be a film director. There was a film school in Berlin that I applied to. They only took about 18 people from 600. We waited all week to see this list on the wall for the final call back meeting. And my name wasn’t there. I was like, “Shit!” And then a week later, I received a letter saying I’d been accepted. Later the director told me it was clear enough with my application and the art magazine I’d sent that I’d be accepted. I don’t say this to brag. I say this to tell you that every young person that wants to go somewhere, all they have to do is fight. You have to get out of your house and your small town and your comfort zone and all that shit.

PS: I agree. So you’ve made films?

DS: I made a feature movie and went to the film festival. It was really amazing and everything, but I was not Tarantino, you know? So it’s the last semester and Tilda Swinton is supposed to teach a seminar. I really wanted to attend it. It would be the cherry on top of the cake. Then she postponed it once, then twice. The third time, I’m on the tube and there’s a woman in front of me with a newspaper that says that Tilda’s super mentor, Derek Jarman, had passed away. It’s the very Monday morning that her seminar is set to begin. And I thought, Oh shit. She’s not going to be there. But then she was there after all and it was a fantastic week. There were only five of us students and we all fell in love with her. And she fell in love with us. I’ve known her since.

PS: I can only imagine. How’d you make the transition into books?

DS: You have to find out what you're really good at. I had long discussions with this guru, an old guy who was a very diligent, very bright guy. I was really miserable, feeling directionless. He asked me why I wasn’t continuing with filmmaking. And I couldn't give him an answer. Then he said right into my face, “Probably it’s because you’re not good enough.” The message was one-hundred percent received. It was a relief; I'm not a bad person. This guy told me the truth, and I could accept it. And when you can do this, you can figure out what you actually want to do, what you’re actually good at. I started making books. I made one with another film director. And we visited Tilda at her hotel, bringing one to her as a present. As we’re knocking, I thought to myself, If I did another book focused on people in this business, it’d have to be her. And she opens the door, looks at the book and says, “Oh, I would like to have a book like this on me.”

PS: These situations seem unreal.

DS: I spent five years on her book, which was an enormous success. It included stills from all her films and launched it in different cities. Fantastic shit.

PS: And now you’ve just released this soon-to-be iconic CDG book.

DS: I've learned to be patient; things can take you years. This book with Adrian and Remo took two years and I didn’t even know if it was going to be approved! Follow your dreams as much as you can. It's not so important which dream it is exactly. If I see a step in front of me, I try to take each chance I get. This is what I wish for everybody, in whatever situation you find yourself, start to do something with nothing. This book started with just a simple idea. You can not find anything like this on the Internet, this compilation, this narrative. It’s something we had to bring together with enormous work. And here we are. I think in our digital, splattered times sometimes you have to make something which is real. That you can sit with and focus on in silence and really take time alone with it.

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Fashion

Heron Preston Launches his Long Awaited “Orange Label”

The labels themselves have a rich history; first introduced in 2016 as part of the “UNIFORM” exhibition, a collaboration with the NYC Department of Sanitation. Heron has since recovered deadstock labels from that project, breathing new life into them for the collection. While the exact number of remaining labels is unclear, there are only a few hundred left, and once they are gone, the project will come to an end.

The t-shirts themselves are crafted from 8oz, garment-dyed heavyweight cotton and come in two classic colorways: solid white and solid black. There are no graphics or designs—just clean, blank surfaces. Made from 100% recycled cotton sourced from waste fibers collected during cotton yarn production, these shirts reflect Heron’s commitment to sustainability. Each t-shirt is unique, with the label hand-stamped with the L.E.D. logo, the date of purchase, “Made in USA,” and a unit number, ensuring that no two pieces are the same. Only 300 t-shirts will be produced, making this a rare and limited edition release on ledstudio.com. A portion of the proceeds from the collection will benefit the DSNY’s Sanitation Foundation, the nonprofit partner of the Department of Sanitation.