Halflife Q&A: The Picture of Joey Gray

Posted 3 years, 6 months ago on November 3, 2008 by

halflife Halflife Q&A: The Picture of Joey Gray

MEET JOEY GRAY, THE CREATIVE DIRECTOR OF HALFLIFE WHO HAS A PENCHANT FOR THE COLORS BLACK AND WHITE. WHILE OTHER COLLECTIONS CONSIST OF HIT AND MISSES, GRAY’S CLOTHES ARE SURE TO END UP IN YOUR WARDROBE AS THE ESSENTIALS REGARDLESS OF SEASON.  UNLIKE DORIAN, WITH A STEADY HEAD ON HIS SHOULDERS, THIS GRAY’S FUTURE IS LOOKING BRIGHT.

The Fash­ion­isto: How did your inter­est in fash­ion start?

Joey Gray: I’ve always been inter­ested in fash­ion, though not always from an insider’s per­spec­tive, more in the sense of fash­ion as an art form or an act of expres­sion. The way peo­ple dress says so much about who they are, or really who they’re try­ing to por­tray them­selves as. It wasn’t until about two years ago, when I began Halflife that I ever really became aware of fash­ion as it relates to cul­ture and how defin­i­tive it could truly be to a time or a social move­ment. That inspires me.

TF: What is your fash­ion background?

JG: I don’t prop­erly have one! I know that sounds ridicu­lous, but truth­fully the first time I ever actu­ally sat down and sketched and pat­terned a gar­ment was for the first HL col­lec­tion. It’s strange now to think that my first exper­i­ment with design became a real­ity and was man­u­fac­tured and sold. I’ve always been the type of per­son who feels they can do any­thing they set out to do. I guess I’m an all or noth­ing guy. One of my great­est fash­ion idols is Hel­mut Lang, not only for the inno­va­tion and genius of his designs but because he was auto­di­dac­tic — I admire him for that.

halflife2 Halflife Q&A: The Picture of Joey Gray

TF: Per­son­ally, what are your own shop­ping habits?

JG: Well, I gen­er­ally don’t look at price tags when I’m shop­ping — not because I’m loaded, trust me, but because I like to decide what I think about a gar­ment before know­ing what it costs. There is so much infla­tion when it comes to fash­ion, espe­cially at the higher end level; some­times I’m con­vinced the label is worth more than the piece it’s sewn to! That said, since my label is pretty basic (being that it’s only black and white) I tend to grav­i­tate toward the cra­zier fash­ion pieces that I can mix into my own wardrobe, i.e. my multi-​​colored-​​Balenciaga-​​high-​​top-​​trainers-​​impulse-​​purchase this past sum­mer. I got a lot of shit from friends for that one, but I’ve still not seen them on any­one else – which is either really good or really bad for me!

TF: What design­ers do you like?

JG: There are so many direct and indi­rect influ­ences… As I already men­tioned, I’m a huge fan of Hel­mut Lang, also Yves Saint Lau­rent, Vivi­enne West­wood, Rick Owens, Ann Demeule­meester, Yohji Yamamoto, Calvin Klein… the list goes on. I’m just so fas­ci­nated by design­ers who have been able to influ­ence soci­ety and affect the col­lec­tive con­scious­ness through fashion.

halflife3 Halflife Q&A: The Picture of Joey Gray

TF: How did Halflife come about?

JG: Under­stand­ing that most peo­ple tend to wear the same few things all the time – I ini­tially set out to design a col­lec­tion of those basic pieces that you want to live in. I started sketch­ing before I ever had a name for the label and even­tu­ally the aes­thetic was very clear to me; it was about min­i­mal con­struc­tion, fit, com­fort and most of all it made you feel sex­ier and more unique than if you were just wear­ing the same old mass-​​consumed t-​​shirt as every­one else. The deci­sion to make the line entirely black and white stems from my fas­ci­na­tion with the con­trast between what is mas­cu­line and what is fem­i­nine and I felt that the min­i­mal­ist, mono­chro­matic color scheme was a way to give cus­tomers the free­dom to infuse their own sense of style and self. I cre­ated the graphic t-​​shirt series as a com­ple­ment to the col­lec­tion and a com­men­tary on pop cul­ture, pol­i­tics and society.

TF: What is the pro­duc­tion process from idea to fin­ished product?

JG: My process is prob­a­bly not unlike many oth­ers, except for the fact that I han­dle every aspect of con­cept, design and pro­duc­tion myself. It always starts with a sketch. From there, I work with the pat­tern, cre­ate the sam­ple, and have any num­ber of fit­tings until I have finally approved it for pro­duc­tion. Dur­ing all of that, I work on the accom­pa­ny­ing graphic series, draw­ing inspi­ra­tion from music, art, movies and/​or peo­ple I find to be stim­u­lat­ing. The whole process takes any­where from two to four months until, finally, it all comes together as a fin­ished col­lec­tion. But, the work is never done. Most peo­ple prob­a­bly wouldn’t imag­ine it, but since HL is such a hands-​​on oper­a­tion, I lit­er­ally cut, tag and pin every sin­gle gar­ment myself for deliv­er­ies – just one of the many per­sonal involve­ments I have with the line.

halflife4 Halflife Q&A: The Picture of Joey Gray

TF: From an insider’s per­spec­tive, what is the LA fash­ion scene like? Any obstacles?

JG: LA is inter­est­ing because on one hand you have the celebrity-​​driven Hol­ly­wood scene, with red car­pet attire and paparazzi, and on the other you have this great vintage-​​inspired hip­ster scene. I think the obsta­cle here really is just con­vinc­ing the rest of the world that Los Ange­les is a fash­ion for­ward city. It just isn’t taken very seri­ously. There is no ques­tion that there are some very tal­ented design­ers and labels here, I think it’s a mat­ter of tak­ing the empha­sis off the big­ger cor­po­rate brands that seem to have cor­nered the LA mar­ket and pay­ing more atten­tion to what’s hap­pen­ing under the radar.

TF: Style wise, what inspired the look of this collection?

JG: Clean lines and sim­ple shapes. Sim­plic­ity can be so effec­tive. One of my favorite artists is Dan Flavin. His work with flu­o­res­cent light bulbs is dynamic and com­pli­cated and yet totally restrained and acces­si­ble at the same time. Those are qual­i­ties I strive for with my col­lec­tion. In a world that is sat­u­rated with so many over-​​embellished, uno­rig­i­nal attempts at authen­tic­ity I feel like it is say­ing so much more by, in fact, say­ing less.

TF: Any­thing else you would like to add?

JG: Just that any­one who would like to know more about Halflife can go to www.halflifeclothing.com

HALFLIFE — The Art of Seduction

Posted 3 years, 7 months ago on October 10, 2008 by

halflife HALFLIFE The Art of Seduction

halflife2 HALFLIFE The Art of Seduction

“Orig­i­nal cut-​​and-​​sew gar­ments and hand-​​printed silk screen graphic tshirts for men and women, with a mod­ernistic per­spec­tive on the basics.” Now avail­able at the offi­cial HALFLIFE web­store.

(more…)

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