Christian Cowan Makes Fashion and Technology Meet

In the fashion industry, it’s no secret that there is hardly ever any downtime and with that, it is seemingly impossible to keep track of meetings and events to attend. The New York-based designer proudly thanks Amazfit for aiding in the assistance of his day-to-day tasks. On top of that, as the world continues to only delve deeper into a realm of technological assistance and saturation, it’s important to note the role that smartwatches can play in this intersectionality.

In an exclusive interview with office, Christian sits down to talk about this collaboration along with how it ties into him being the sophisticated and confident-boosting designer that he is known for.

Continue reading below.

How are you feeling coming off New York Fashion Week?

I'm feeling really good. It was wild because it was a long period leading up to it. We're doing fashion films and stuff, but I was itching to get back to New York Fashion Week. I'm just feeling excited and happy to be here doing it and have it all done. The week was madness with the Met and VMAs all at the same time, it was a lot, but I kind of thrive off of being really busy. I wanted to up my game coming into this Fashion Week and in fact, this is where the watch was really helpful, the GTR 3 Pro. It was just so helpful because I can organize everything.

How do you keep up with doing all of it? Because it was back to back in a matter of two weeks.

It's all about lists and setting alerts on the watch has been great.

You're stepping into this smartwatch collaboration. Is your design process different from when you're designing gowns and garments? Walk us through the whole entire collaboration.

I like to collaborate with products that make sense in my life. I never want to collaborate with people who don't make sense for us. It's always got to be organic, it's always got to be something that I would use or the brand would be aligned with. I've always been interested in where apparel and technology intersect. Even on my Met Gala gown, on one of the people we dressed we had QR codes. So it's always a way to integrate it and most of it was a perfect match. We talked about ways to do some really interesting stuff within fashion and it organically came to fruition. I'm their experienced consultant, so it's nice to be able to help them come up with cool ways to do more in the fashion space in the future as well.

Going back on your QR code gown, what was your thought process behind that?

So I worked with Hans coming up with ideas on how to integrate a QR code into a collection and we did it for the show. We were dressing Saweetie as well and that was so sleek. So I wanted someone else, and Isabel, the model, we dressed to be the opposite, like huge volume.

What was the inspiration behind Saweetie's look? So beautiful.

Thank you. It was really collaborative. I really like Saweetie, we zoom or chat on video loads and we changed the concept a lot. She's so funny, even the red carpet interview, she was like "shout out to Christian for dealing with me and changing my mind all the time." But at the end of the day, it was Saweetie's first Met, and I wanted it to be quintessentially her. I don't think it's a time for her to be something else. It was about showing her incredible body and then, in terms of the American theme, we wanted to reflect that America's made amazing by people coming from outside of America to America. So we paid heritage to her Filipino father and then the Black Heritage Flag.

So fashion has changed so much and the way that we wear things and how we go about it. How do you feel like you witnessed the evolution of fashion and how we go about it today?

I haven't been around long enough to really be able to comment. The best people would be people who have been in fashion for 30 years because they'd really see it, but from what I've seen, I think things changed when the pandemic happened. I think it's kind of helped push a more excessive aesthetic from happening more and more. I think people want to go out, be looked at, and dress up. People were reminded of how style is not about how you look, but it's about how you feel in those looks. That was the case for me throughout the pandemic where I would get dressed up for nothing because I feel fab. Trends have changed in terms of once upon a time you can look at a decade and be like, that's the style of the decade and that's not the case anymore. I think those days are over it's about a million micro trends happening at the same time. And I think the Internet's because of that.

How was the pandemic for you?

I try to look at the positives. I think as designers and everyone we're all so busy in the day-to-day constantly hustling, making everything happen, but you don't really have time to sit back and be like, "what is it that I want to do with my brand?" So it gave me that time to mature the brand and work out some things.

A nice reflection.

A really nice reflection and a mental break. You get so busy sketching for different jobs and stuff that sometimes you get so caught up in it that you kind of forget about the true pleasure of it. To have that break I was like I just love fashion so much and you just get in touch with it again.

That's so nice.

So lovely. Yeah, it really reminded me that it truly is my favorite thing to do. It makes me super happy.

I know for a lot of people it was kind of a revolutionary period for them where they realized they hated what they did. So it's really nice that you're able to sit in it and reflect and be like, "no, I love what I do."

This defines me. I'm not someone who works to live, I definitely live to work. It's my favorite thing to do.

Your designs are sexy, but in the most elegant way, what makes this such an irresistible combination for you and your consumer?

I like to have a juxtaposition, definitely within design, but if not within a specific design, within the collection. If something's already well-textured, there'll be a silhouette that you recognize. I never overcomplicate it even though stuff is really abstract. And in terms of being sexy and sophisticated, I only ever design from the perspective of I want the woman or whoever's wearing it to feel sexy. It's never about trying to look sexy for the viewer.

You just want the people to exude their own sexiness, their own confidence and that's what brings your garments out.

It's 100% for them. How you wear Christian Cowan clothing is to make you feel amazing.

You can see that though with your show and Met looks. You can see that they were next level of how they felt about themselves wearing the garments.

That's what I want because I was raised by fabulous Spanish women. I think that's just something I tried to bring through into my work like this confident, fab, loving-life woman. And I want everyone to feel that way.

So how else would you say that you bring your culture into your designs?

I think the older I get the more I realize how much I'm influenced by my mother. A Spanish family is so different I think in terms of it's very intensive. The women are absolutely the pillars of the family. I don't think I realized it when I was younger, but I'm completely in every way influenced by that.

Isn't it funny that when you're a kid you're like, "Oh, I'm not going to be like my parents. I'm going to go off and do my own thing." But then as the older you get, you're like "wait, I'm literally doing exactly what my parents did even though I did not want to go down that route."

I am drawn to the energy that those women my family gave me. I was sat next to Rosalía at a dinner the other day, and she's from Spain as well, and I was living for her so much and I realized I was like it's because she reminded me so much of my cousin.

Aside from your exciting collaboration with your watches, what do you have planned for the rest of the year?

So it's about leveling up and upping your game every single time and I want to start working on the next collection. I will always do Fashion Week, but I want to do drops in between, I don't like waiting the whole time. Let's just do more and people want it too so might as well. You'll be seeing more products in between and then also collaborating in as many different categories.