Step Into Tia Adeola's World

Since releasing her SS21 fashion film “Black is Beautiful,” Tia has been nominated in five different categories at the International Fashion Film Festival, but the designer continues to push herself and break boundaries. Her capsule collection includes her signature ruffle can be seen adorning the bikinis, along with intrequirely tailored custom gowns with methodically chosen garments sourced globally.

“The capsule was made with the Tia Adeola girl in mind, and how she re-enters the world after being locked up for so long and feeling like her better self. For me, it’s always been the feeling of walking into the room and being your best self, and that room could be the pool or a dinner,” explains Adeola.

The possibilities are limitless for this New York-based designer as her garments can be spotted on people such as Dua Lipa, SZA, Kali Uchis, Gigi Hadid and more. In an exclusive interview with office, Tia Adeola opens up about her collection, her upbringing, and how being in quarantine has shifted her design process.

Read the exclusive interview below.

So you just recently launched your summer capsule collection featuring Paloma Ford. How was it like working with her and what was your inspo behind this collection?

I met Paloma at my New York Fashion debut for my Autumn/Winter 21 collection. She walked in that show and she was just all for the brand. Sometimes people who have followings or people who are doing things can be quite tough to work with. But right from the second I met her, she was like, "I love your brand, so much I believe in your art, and I’ll do anything you need me to. I’ll wear anything you need me to." And that's always really reassuring. So since then I always tell her whenever I'm dropping something new and she's always really excited. She's also an artist herself, so it's really cool being two female artists who are doing it.

The collection for me was a very small collection. I kind of wanted to make a few looks that go even beyond myself and what my target market would want to wear post-pandemic. I got stuck in Nigeria during the majority of the pandemic and I spent a lot of time just imagining, and dreaming what I’m gonna do when I can finally get back to New York. What am I going to wear when I go out and I just started visualizing all that. I knew I wanted to spend a lot of time on the beach for sure, so swimwear just felt right to me and the time to expand my brand beyond apparel. I want to do everything. I want to do footwear, I want to do fragrance, I want to do jewelry. So I just felt like Tia Adeola Swim felt like it was the right time.

I feel like you can see that with the new stuff that you've come out with. But you're releasing for the first time made-to-order pieces as well, what's this process going to be like?

That whole collection, made-to-order was from the last collection I did which I released as a fashion film. And again, it was a post-pandemic collection. The second I got back to New York I started working with different artists and seamstresses that I've built really strong relationships with and we hand-tailored everything. Getting to work with people who've been doing this for years has been an amazing learning experience. And I mentioned, we sort of built relationships. So now, when someone orders something, I work with the small community that I've recently built and create these amazing pieces for people.

So, I saw that you were a Culture and Media major. When did you decide designing was what you wanted to do and did your major tie into your designs?

I always wanted to go to The New School to study fashion design, but I come from a family where fashion design is not a quote-unquote worthy degree. And to my parents, me going to an art school was already bad enough because I was supposed to be in the UK studying law. I secretly applied to The New School and ended up getting the scholarship. And I told my dad who's more chill. And he was like, “Okay, just keep going. See if you end up getting scholarships, don't tell your mom yet.” And I ended up getting a partial scholarship. So, that was the only reason why I didn't end up in the UK studying law. And so culture and media was the closest thing to anything that I was interested in that my parents thought was a decent degree.

Yeah, I definitely understand. My parents are Haitian so just being a journalist is like, what are you doing, just become a doctor. I noticed a lot of the time that you talked about the Renaissance being an inspiration to your designs, what is it about the Renaissance era that inspired you to put that aesthetic at the core of your design process?

So, I was a bit of an art history nerd in high school. I wrote my graduation dissertation on 16th-century Spanish dress in painting. In order to write a 30-page book on such a precise topic, I have to sit through archives and archives of paintings. I felt like sometimes I could almost feel the fur, feel the velvet, and ruffles were so intricate. But there were never any black people wearing those extravagant garments. They often took on the roles of a jester and were wearing cotton. So for me, I wanted to take trends then and rewrite history through fashion.

One of the biggest trends then was the ruff, which we now call ruffles. They sort of were a representation of your status as societies and the Queen would have a huge ruff that almost covered her face, whereas the court lady would have a small one on the wrists of her shirt. In my film I released, I sort of played on a few things. So I had an all-black female cast, and I had white men serving them food wearing my black Jesus T-shirts, which I sell as basic. So yeah, just writing history through fashion.

I love that. Kind of tying into that, rewriting history and of changing the narrative of how royalty is viewed. How do you want Blackness to be portrayed when it comes to your clothing?

I want people to feel a sense of loyalty and a sense of luxury. And I'm really a believer in Black luxury being normalized. And even just beyond that, at the sample sale, I let people try clothes on, even if they weren't necessarily buying anything. I sat in the corner and just watched people's reactions and put stuff on, predominantly black women, and be like, "Oh my god, I feel so good. I literally feel so ethereal." And that's how I want women to feel and look when they put these garments on.

That's beautiful. So, from Slashed by Tia to Tia Adeola, what are some of the changes that were evident with the name change?

The name Slashed by Tia came about because when I was in college, I was making these cross back tops because I’m way smaller now, but at the time, I had really big boobs, and I didn't feel confident wearing a backless top because I couldn't wear a bra. So, I started making these types of a slinky frontal area that distracted from your chest with a flash, open back, and I just started selling them on Instagram, and I kind of needed a name. So, I just called it Slashed by Tia, but then after I graduated from college, and I realized that when you have a brand, it goes beyond just design and beyond creative. You actually have to run it as a business. And this is what I plan to do for the rest of my life. I don't really have a Plan B so I just felt putting my name on it would add that level of seriousness and importance to it to me. Even to me personally beyond people now I'm like okay, this is all you now. So which again, I guess made me move production to LA, made me want to make made-to-order pieces that everyone has access to and made me want to make a new website, just doing things as best as possible.

Yeah, I definitely remember when I followed Slash by Tia and then it turned to Tia Adeola. I feel like I could see a big change in how more serious it was taken. Because I think when I started following you, you were still in college. Seeing the metamorphosis is really, really cool. Who is the designer that you look up to the most?

I always get this question. And I get kind of stuck because I mean, there are people that I'm definitely inspired by. Some of the greats like John Galliano, John Paul Gaultier. But, when it comes to having a favorite designer, or my biggest inspiration, I don't really have one. What inspires me is, people and experiences and going to the fabric store and finding things that resonate with me, I don't really look to anyone. Which also, it sucks because the other day I was talking to a friend, I was like, 'I don't know any Black female luxury designers.' I always wanted a mentor but, I want my mentor to be a woman and to be black. I've done research like, who is a black female luxury designer? Nothing really comes to mind. So, I guess I'm just inspired by people, and life and experiences, the future.

I think it's really admirable that you're taking all of these lessons, not only for yourself but for future people to follow in your footsteps as well. And kind of creating that path for future generations to have somebody to look up to and with you speaking on all of these panels and allowing for customers to try on your clothes in the sample sales and all of that, too. It's paving the way and separating yourself from everybody else as well. You've lived in many different parts of the world. How do you think that the different cultures have sort of tied into your designs? And how has that shaped you as a designer?

I feel like it's helped me. I lived in Nigeria. Nigeria is very conservative, my mom is barely cool with the clothes that I make. And then London was such a cultural melting point with amazing fashion. I think I'm not being biased, but I think Europe has the best fashion in the world. So, being able to travel to all these places helped me understand what people would want to wear. I always talk about how in the UK, you walk down Oxford Street, or Bond Street, Carnaby Street, and we see people in fitted clothes, everything perfectly fits together. And I guess it's just, giving me an eye for what sort of looks good on everyone.

Coming to New York made me so much more confident. Because, like I said, I come from a place that is very traditional where an elder who is literally a stranger on the streets kind of calls you out. So wearing something that's too short, or wearing something that's see-through, and I moved to New York, this crazy city where you could literally be wearing a trash bag and no one would look at you twice. And as I get older, I'm a woman now. I feel like I'm learning to embrace my body and learning to embrace, wanting to look sexy and wanting to look chic and I feel like Nigeria just needs to get with the party. Even the images, this interview I would have never thought to even take pictures like that. But just being in New York and being in the Western world has just showed me that it's okay to be a woman that's sexy and embrace it and still be smart and still be respected.

So what's next? What's next for you and your designs? Where do you see your brand sort of heading? I know you said that you were getting ready for fashion week as you're going to be showing there but what else can we kind of expect to see out of you.

So you can expect to see footwear, you can expect to see jewelry, you can expect to see more stock in, for sure. Just everything, I just want this to be a huge house. My ultimate dream is to have a huge glasshouse somewhere in America with my all-female staff and just making crazy things, everyone trained to the best with good resources and infrastructure and just going crazy creating fire garments and beyond.

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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.