Juliet Johnstone: In A World Of Her Own
Check out our exclusive interview below!
Hello! Let’s jump right in. How are you?
I'm good! Sorry it’s so hot in here.
Don’t even worry. I feel like it gets the creative juices flowing.
I feel like I’m back in New York City!
Truly! You said you're from LA though, correct?
Oh yes, I’m from the valley. I had the normal nice valley upbringing, quite suburban.
The valley is the best! Were you always into fashion and painting?
I come from a very art centric family. My dad is a musician and my mom worked in fashion, so I grew up always surrounded by art and music. My parents were always super supportive of me doing my thing and doing whatever I wanted. It honestly would have been weird if I did anything else but art. I have six siblings and they are all doing music. It's funny, I’m the only girl and the only one who is doing fashion.
Oh wow! You wanted to follow in your moms footsteps.
Yeah! I also think I wanted to be kinda different from them. Do my own thing.
How did you get started in fashion?
I moved to New York when I was just 18 to study art at Parsons. I was actually doing the fine arts thing. Going to school, living in China Town, assisting at galleries. I was working as a studio assistant for probably six or seven different people over the years and then one day just decided that it was time to come back here. Then literally six months after moving here, started doing this.
That’s awesome! What was the the turning point, the spark. What brought you to this?
It was totally by chance to be honest. I always joke with my friends that it was just an accident. I accidentally have a clothing brand, it was not intentional at all, still isn’t really. I have a lot of trouble calling it a clothing brand because it doesn't even feel like that to me.
What is the inspiration for the silhouettes of the pieces?
I make my own pants now, but in the beginning I was painting on vintage Dickies, Carhartt, Stan Rays, things like that. Now we do our own cut and sew here, at first I was just painting on my own carpenter pants for fun. I’ve always kind of like had my own style and wanted to do my own thing. I wanted to paint on things and wear things that were a little bit crazy. Like I said, I just painted on my own pants and was wearing them out to bars, going to Wasteland, doing the rounds. And the whole time I was wearing my painted pants and people were stopping me in the street asking if I sold them, if I had any more, and thats when the lightbulb kinda went off. I stuck to the painter pant thing because I’m a painter and I just love the way they fit.I figured I would just see what happened. So I started putting them up on Instagram. I didn't have a website, nothing. This was also probably three weeks before COVID. So end of February of 2020.
Oh right before COVID.
Truly right before. So when COVID happened I just started posting a pair of day on Instagram they started selling out. The first pair sold out in 10 minutes, and I didn't have a lot of followers. I probably had around 5,000, not anything huge, and it wasn't like I sold clothes, people weren't used to buying clothes from me, but someone bought them and then people just kept buying them.
I mean I’m not surprised!
It was just so not something I ever thought would happen. Then I realized I could actually make good money doing this. At first I was charging around $250, $300 for a pair. Now the customs are $600 on my website just because the demand is so high it takes a long time, but back then I didn't really think of it as my job. It was just like a fun thing, but they kept selling out and I just went with it.
How did you deal with the demand at first? That must have been a crazy transition.
I have a couple of friends who work in fashion who really helped me set things off once I got serious about doing this full time. I called them up and was like, 'can you teach me about production? Do you know anyone who could help me make a website, how should I be shipping this?' I knew nothing. I don’t come from a business background, I just wanted to make the clothes.
It all just really fell into your lap. That's so great, I mean, that's sometimes the best thing. When it’s natural.
It was super, super natural. Then the tipping point of when it like really shot off was— well COVID happened and it was like the world was ending, obviously a super scary traumatic time. But I was quarantining at my parents' house in the valley and I just had so much time to paint so I just kept going and kept painting on pants. Then one day out of nowhere I just got bunch of likes from Bella Hadid.
Oh, we love her.
We’re obsessed with her! But yeah, we have a few mutual friends and so when I saw she was liking a ton of photos of pants I texted our mutual friend and asked if she would want pants. He asked her for me and she did, which was amazing.
I mean that’s huge.
Oh, yeah. And I didn’t really have any expectations or anything because it’s Bella and it was COVID so everyone was inside and there probably wouldn't be any pictures of her our in them, but when I sent her some she just absolutely blew me up. She was posting grids, swipes, stories and tagging me in everything. I feel like she was probably bored quarantining and was like, let's just blow this girl up. That was the point when a bunch of other influencers and celebrities started to order pants and everything really started to grow.
I mean I just saw Devon’s custom Jesse pants, which are everything!
Yes! The Jesse pants. I’ve wanted to get her pants for a while and I love being able to get people custom pants like that. I have friends who are a couple and I made them matching pants with their names on the butt, I love it. But yeah, that was right around a year ago and thats how it all took off.
When did you make the transition into making things other than just pants? Cause I know you now have sweats, hoodies, hats, tank tops, bathing suits, the works.
I started adding new items in around last fall. I started with just tank tops, again pulling from what I wear pretty much every day. Its always been super important to me that everything is special and one of a kind. I think because I don’t have a traditional business background or anything like that I have the freedom to just do whatever I want. Everything has to be one-of-one, everything has to be numbered like artwork, and every graphic has to be different.
I mean everyone loves having something that is one of a kind!
Exactly! I mean sometimes it feels psycho and like a lot of work but I love it.
I also have to say I feel like the one of one model is really what makes your brand so special. The fact that everyone can have their very own, almost custom, Juliet Johnstone piece!
I feel like people are drawn to it! They want to play the game and have something special that’s just theirs that doesn’t look like anyone else's. Sometimes I feel like the only one who cares about the numbers, but then I get messages from people in their tank top and which number it is and it feels good to know that other people care!
You’ve got a lot of tank tops out now too, right?
Yeah. We used to do drops of 25, but now were on tank top, god, over 1000. It can get hard to keep track but it’s so worth it. I still do them all myself and I just can’t stop!
Look I don’t think anyone wants you to!
I hope! But yeah, we started with tank tops, then went into baby tees. We don’t have that many product categories. We also have hand painted and hand dyed trucker hats, printed bucket hats, one-of-one sweats. Everything but bathing suits are still one of one.
That makes sense. I feel like figuring out how to paint on a bathing suit would be a bit difficult.
It’s just a different kind of product. For example, the tank tops are printed, but it’s a print of the painting so it can keep its integrity for longer. The hardest thing is definitely keeping up with the one-of-one model, and the more people want it the higher the demand is and I can only do so much so fast. People ask why I don’t just make an image and print it over a thousand times, and that may be what a normal brand would do, but thats just not my model.
I think that is something that makes your brand so special! The dedication to sticking with what you want to provide, which is something special for everyone in your community.
Exactly! And I want everything to still be accessible for people too. I know not everyone can get a custom pair of pants so having the custom tank top is still something that is just theirs. I do have some more stuff coming out that isn’t going to be one-of-one. I have these club dresses that are kind of impossible to make one-of-one since I am also trying to keep the cost down and keep it as accessible as I can.
Everything is made in house correct?
Yeah basically everything is made right here. The hats are vintage but we paint and dye them here. All the cut and sew stuff is made right here. I think I’m at the point right now where I’m figuring out how this can grow, while still keeping everything intentional and keeping the one of a kind thing going.
Keeping things special.
Totally. And with some things like the dress, even though it isn’t going to be one-of-one, it's still super special and super high quality and beautiful. At first I was only offering custom orders for the pants. $600 is a lot of money to spend on pants, it’s hard for a lot of my customers to be able to afford that, but I wanted to provide them with an option that they could afford. That’s why I started selling pants with just one design on them, it still is the same fit as the carpenter pant and is the same quality, but its more accessible for people. Everything is still hand painted and hand dyed, just more affordable and still special.
Is it just a basic carpenter pant fit?
Oh no. I make sure that, even for the non customizable pants, the sizes can be whatever you need. It’s so hard as a woman to find pants like this that fit correctly, you’re either getting that little back gap, or it fits around the waist and not around your hips. That’s another reason why I make everything in house, I want people to be able to have a cute pair of pants that fits them perfectly.
That is so important. I feel like buying pants is one of the worst things in the world.
Right! It can be almost impossible to find something that is perfect around the waist, and hips, and long enough. All my pant sizes are custom. My customers are amazing and this community that we are building has really supported me through this.
I mean everything you make is so personal I’m not surprised. The font the designs are so unique to you and your brand, it’s so special. It makes people feel like they're a part of something.
Thank you!
Now I must say I am so obsessed with your designs. How did you come up with the fonts, the designs, the prints you use?
So everything is painted, even if its something that is printed on, the print is just a scan of one of my paintings.
How did you decide on the style you were going to stick to?
So first it started off super floral, just flowers everywhere. I think part of that was the time of the start of COVID, it was so traumatic and I just wanted to paint something that made me feel happy. Also, after art school I was having such a hard time making work. I felt stuck in this trap of having to make work that was so conceptual and have so much meaning that it blocked me from making anything. It felt like there was this pressure to change the world with a painting and I just couldn’t do that.
I wanted to make something that was fun and nice to look at, and I just wanted to look at a butterfly or a pink lily. My role can be to just make people happy or feel this childhood nostalgia. Butterflies became a huge part because they represent freedom and beauty, also everyone just like loves them. Now they’re just a part of me.
In terms of the text, I’m super inspired by sixties and seventies concert posters. Like I mentioned, my dad is a musician and he has so many old music books and posters and I just love the look of that block letter, swirly, sixties font. The Old English gothic font has become a huge part of my work too. I wanted my work have a bit more of a masculine edge so that font started comeing up more. Growing up I always loved the Vivienne Westwood, John Galliano, Chrome Hearts look so that is almost paying an homage to them.
Do you cut and paste any of the paintings you make?
Sometimes, it’s always mixing and matching things, but I try to not use the same image too many times. There are certain designs that have become kind of iconic with the brand like the JJ heart, a couple of the butterflies, one of the orange lilys. Some graphics people are just super drawn and always come back.
Can they ask for those when making a custom design?
Yeah! When getting a custom there is a box where people can write a little note and a lot of the time they will add in that they want a bird like the one from pant 180 and the color of pant 63. Sometimes they will say that their favorite butterfly is a monarch and they grew up in Idaho so I think of ways to bring that into the design. I had one person order pants who grew up in Kenya so I looked up the national flower of Kenya. I just love getting to know my customers and, again, make them something that is special just for them.
It’s a real community!
It really is. It’s been such a blessing to be able to create a business and community off of my love of art and also my love of people. To be able to give all of my customers a little something special. Giving them back the love that they have given me is more than I could have ever asked for out of this whole whirlwind. I can’t wait to see where it all goes from here.
I am so excited to see where this takes you and continue to watch you grow!
Thank you! And thank you for coming out here I am so glad we could make this happen!
