Stine Goya and Umbro Are Meeting in 90s Britain

This collection uses materials like key rings, zip ties, stainless steel, and paracord in really unexpected ways. What made you want to work with these materials?

I normally don't consider myself a textiles-first designer. I've been in the industry for almost ten years, and I got very used to being product-driven and focused on ready-to-wear. After starting my own brand, I became very curious about materials in a more intuitive way. I was really interested in chunks of metal, paracord, zip ties, and chain mail, and the collection evolved organically from there. I also had a huge group of friends who were incredibly talented in areas like knitwear, crochet, wovens, and tailoring, but weren't always able to use those skills fully in their jobs. The collection really came together through all of these materials and all of these people. We were able to manipulate industrial materials into something more wearable. It definitely wasn't easy. The chain mail, for example, has to be made twice: once out of key rings, and then all the gaps are filled with zip ties. But I like that the materials are durable. I don't believe in working with things like silk or feathers that can be ruined by one drop of water. I like that these materials can be thrown around and still look great.

You describe the collection as an exploration of “the alien in all of us.” What does the alien represent to you, and how does that idea connect to the more intimate, human parts of the collection?

There's obviously a theme of science fiction that runs through the entire brand. When I started it, I was coming from a more mature place in my career, and I was burned out by all the conceptual storytelling in school. I felt like I was much better at making things with my own two hands. At the same time, my love for science fiction and futurism started bubbling back up, along with the aesthetics of who I was as a teenager: very emo and very dark. I'm Colombian and a first-generation immigrant, and I grew up queer from a very young age. I started connecting that to science fiction and thinking about Alien from the perspective of the alien. I always thought, “That's the immigrant experience.” This creature is stranded, trying to survive, and everyone is trying to kill it because it's seen as foreign. To me, that's a story of resilience and refusing to disappear. The alien became a metaphor for being an immigrant, being queer, and always feeling unwanted. And I think everyone has some sort of deep, dark desire or secret that they don't tell you about. Everyone's got something. I think the world would probably be a better place if everyone embraced their inner freak a little more and wasn't so afraid of being different.

A lot of the collection feels like armor. What does clothing as a form of protection mean to you?

There's camouflage, where people dress to blend in, and then there's dressing to stand out. I think a lot of queer people and people who are considered “other” have had a tough time growing up. You get picked on, so you develop some sort of warning system from afar. Maybe you can't fight, but you can cover yourself in spikes and make yourself feel tough. Part of it is that it makes you feel tough when you look at yourself in the mirror, but part of it is that it weeds out people from a distance who wouldn't even dare to come up and talk to you. I think that defense mechanism is actually more about fragility and vulnerability than aggression. It's visual armor. The aesthetics of protection and offense can actually be a defense.

You describe the spikes and sharp shapes as a kind of “leave me alone” message. Do you see fashion as a way of setting boundaries or protecting yourself?

Yohji Yamamoto had a famous quote about black: “Black just says, leave me alone.” You can do that in a lot of different ways. Black can be very expensive, like Celine, where it's like, “I'm too expensive; don't even try to talk to me.” It can also be extremely grunge, heavy metal, scary, or intimidating through aesthetic aggression. But you never know the reason why someone wants to be left alone. Sometimes it's privacy, sometimes it's anger, and sometimes it's just a very sensitive or fragile person who takes things very seriously. I think more alternative people are often very interconnected with that sensitivity.

The collection plays with ideas of toughness, danger, and intimidation, but also vulnerability. How do those two sides come together for you?

I think they're the same. I don't think anyone is 100% tough or 100% vulnerable. Everyone is capable of strength and fragility. Even Achilles had an Achilles' heel. If you only ever see one side of someone, you're missing the other. Someone who looks fragile may actually be incredibly tough, and sometimes toughness is a performance because someone is actually insecure. I think strength and vulnerability are heavily interconnected. It's interesting which side can be projected aesthetically and outwardly and which is lying beneath the surface. There's a silver dress in the collection that looks very delicate and simple, like it's hanging by a thread. But it's actually incredibly heavy, and the model has to carry all of that weight around her neck. The models are amazing at making things look effortless. That's part of their job.

The collection is very precise and geometric, with grids, straight seams, and structured shapes. Was that need for order and uniformity always a part of your creative vision?

Definitely. From the beginning of my fashion education, my strength was pattern making. It's the architecture side of making clothes: figuring out shapes, angles, how things fit, and how to translate a 2D design into a 3D shape. My brain has always worked in that spatial, 3D way. So when I design, I think about pattern making very early on. For the ready-to-wear pieces, like the cargo and jackets, I think in a very razor-sharp framework of the body. The pattern making and the lines drawn on the body are really the crux of the design. The material actually comes later. I'll draw something in gray first and care about the lines and shape, and then decide what fabric it should be made in. Pattern making was also my first job when I moved to New York. I initially wanted assistant designer positions, but every time people saw my technical skills, they told me they actually needed a pattern maker. Eventually I took the job. Weirdly enough, embracing that technical side led me toward a more creative career. As an assistant designer, you're often making photocopies and running errands. As a pattern maker, I was actually working with my hands and sometimes given rough sketches and told to complete the design. I felt like I contributed more creatively that way.

The show ends with bright silver looks that you mention represent hope and optimism. Why did you want the collection to end on that note?

I think everybody really needs it. When I think about science fiction and futurism, I remember how mesmerizing it was as a kid because the future seemed so promising. Cancer had been cured, HIV had been eradicated, and everything had been figured out. I feel like all of the dystopian parts of science fiction have already happened. We're living through the material problems of dystopian science fiction, but we're missing all of the beautiful aesthetic promises of the future. I feel like it's important to end on a positive note. The world is already so heavily dystopian and pessimistic, and the headlines we read are scary enough. Within the futurist world I'm building, I would rather leave the door open for good things to happen. The world can be dark, but we're all here celebrating. I'd rather relish in the richness of clothes and silver and allow myself to be distracted by the glistening lights. Allow yourself to stay a little bit in a fantasy world.

Is there anything else you would want people to know about the collection, particularly when it comes to its craftsmanship?

I think a lot of people don't realize that young designers are capable of incredible craftsmanship. There's an assumption that if it's a young brand doing streetwear, it doesn't mean as much or isn't given the same consideration as a couture collection. But this was kind of a couture collection. Some of these pieces took hundreds of hours and involved many people to make one dress. The collection has the entire range of craftsmanship. There's heavy industry manufacturing, and then there's extremely painstaking needle-and-thread work that can take a thousand hours to make one dress. I think that's something that's very strong and unique about what we're doing. There's a ton of amazing handcraft in this collection that's really hard to see in images. Unless you understand what pattern making is, you don't understand how hard it is to make a collar perfectly sharp or achieve all these small details. I think it's important for designers to make that craftsmanship appreciated, even if at the end of the day all we care about is an amazing image.