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!

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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.