Feature Label: Wayne Hadly Fall 2008

Who is Wayne?

The man behind up and com­ing brand, Wayne Hadly is in fact Wayne Joffe. Joffe was born in South Africa and moved to Los Ange­les when he was eight. He still resides in Los Ange­les, but trav­els fre­quently for work. Joffe feels that “LA in gen­eral has some pretty cool street style.” How­ever he feels that Los Ange­les is not a strong source of cre­ative inspi­ra­tion. It does, how­ever moti­vate him to “show peo­ple we can do more than jeans and t shirts.”

Inspi­ra­tion in Media?

Joffe often avoids vis­it­ing or read­ing a par­tic­u­lar core base of web­sites and mag­a­zines, espe­cially while devel­op­ing col­lec­tions. “I’ve come to learn to go with my gut feel­ing. When you start look­ing at what other peo­ple are cur­rently doing, you begin to sec­ond guess your­self. So I try to keep every­thing pretty organic.” How­ever, Joffe does fre­quent Perez Hilton, although “purely for enter­tain­ment reasons.”

What is the thought process behind Wayne Hadly?

Joffe did not receive a for­mal fash­ion edu­ca­tion, but has always loved fash­ion. He was inspired to start his own line out of the desire for pro­duc­tiv­ity and change. “I was mis­er­able with my life and knew I needed a change. After I fin­ished my first col­lec­tion, I knew I was at the point of no return.” Joffe’s col­lec­tions are almost “for the Jekyll and Hyde of [himself]…I am a very laid back dresser, always in flip flops and a t-​​shirt, but I am drawn to the clas­sics. I’m not gonna re-​​invent the ‘jacket’ but I like tak­ing clas­sic fits and giv­ing every­thing sleek sil­hou­ettes with a mod­ern edge. Most peo­ple spend months design­ing col­lec­tions. For me, its all about find­ing the best fab­ri­ca­tions from around the world. Since the start of the Wayne Hadly brand, we have had three say­ings: FIT, FABRIC, and QUALITY.”

How do celebri­ties relate to the fash­ion industry?

The cur­rent media is sat­u­rated with images of celebri­ties and sto­ries fol­low their con­stant move. Joffe thinks that “some celebs have great fash­ion sense and oth­ers great styl­ists.” Along with the public’s fas­ci­na­tion with celebri­ties, has devel­oped a par­tic­u­lar inter­est in what clothes celebri­ties wear. When it comes to the rela­tion­ship between design­ers and celebri­ties, in Joffe’s opin­ion, “the sad truth is [that] peo­ple don’t care [about a line] unless a celebrity is wear­ing [it] or talk­ing about a cer­tain designer/​product. I’ve never played into that game of favors or chas­ing peo­ple to wear my stuff. If some­body has ever worn one of my pieces, its because they asked. They are just like any­body else, I will say that Pete Wentz is prob­a­bly one of the nicest peo­ple I have ever met in my life and has been so great from the beginning.”

What are the ben­e­fits of celebrity and designer colliding?

Marc Jacobs is the pin­na­cle of designer suc­cess. Main label Marc Jacobs, and the dif­fu­sion line Marc by Marc Jacobs, along with other divi­sions, ground break­ing fash­ion, and celebrity appre­ci­a­tion has pro­pelled Marc Jacobs into his own celebrity. For Joffe, being in a posi­tion like Marc Jacobs “would be great.” In a sim­il­iar posi­tion, he would be able to to be able to “solely con­cen­trate on devel­op­ing [his own] ideas and mak­ing the col­lec­tions the best they can be”, with­out hav­ing to jug­gle “nine jobs at the same time.”

Are you a Wayne Hadly man?

When asked who he imag­ines wear­ing his clothes, Joffe imag­ined, “a man who can rec­og­nize some­thing spe­cial, a man that has appre­ci­a­tion for detail, orig­i­nal­ity. A man with appre­ci­a­tion for true crafts­man­ship, and always look­ing for new and excit­ing things.”

Cur­rent stock­ists?
Scout Los Ange­les, Ise­tan Tokyo, & Love­less Tokyo

What can we look for­ward to in the near future?
“This SS09 started out as a kinda 60’s lost in Italy (best ref­er­ence would be the movie “the tal­ented Mr. Rip­ley) I played with bright col­ors and clas­sic fits to revamp and mod­ern­ize that tra­di­tional look.”

Like what you see?

For more infor­ma­tion, visit the offi­cial Wayne Hadly site.

Many thanks go out to Wayne for the interview!

I’ve had a pre­view of the spring 2009 col­lec­tion and it is excel­lent.  I can’t wait to post it.  You’re all in for a treat!

NEXT FEATURE LABEL — ODYN VOVK