“They make your mind race. That’s sort of the way we work”: the designer on letting time restraints work to your advantage
“Vine is gone. I actually never used it. I find most videos on Tumblr – I’ve been a Tumblr user since I was really young. And Tumblr was full of these round-ups of Vine videos, both really popular ones, and also really weird ones that were under the radar. That’s the tragedy of Vine’s demise: they’ve kept those that had a lot of attention, but a lot of the weirder accounts don’t exist anymore. I think what attracts us to these internet videos is that, initially, there’s zero context given, but you still want to watch it again, and again. It’s about how short they are. They make your mind race. That’s sort of the way we work, creating characters and fictions. A fashion show happens in ten or 15 minutes, if that. Then, it’s over. It’s the same thing. But I think that’s really powerful: just as Vine only allowed you to do three-second videos, it’s letting that work to your advantage.”
Patric DiCaprio is the founding member of the fashion design collective Vaquera, established in 2013, which now involves three other 20-somethings, Bryn Taubensee, David Moses, and Claire Sully. Originally, DiCaprio bought a sewing machine on Amazon and learned to sew by watching cosplay tutorials on YouTube. Since then, the label has staged guerrilla “anti-fashion” shows around New York City, creating garments resembling, among other things, a child drowning in an adult-sized shirt, a tattered American flag and a giant Tiffany & Co jewellery pouch as a dress. Their approach and casting reflects the diversity of reality today, and an engagement with youthful counter-culture.
Hair: Blake Erik at Statement Artists using Hairstory. Make-up: Susie Sobol at Julian Watson Agency. Set design: Ian Salter at Frank Reps. Digital tech: Frederike Heide. Photographic assistants: Christopher Parente and Max Bernetz. Styling assistants: Rebecca Perlmutar, Kat Banas and Athena Zammit. Make-up assistant: Ayaka Nihei. Set-design assistant: George de Lacey. Production: Artistry London. Post-production: Studio Private
The Spring/Summer 2018 issue of AnOther Magazine is on sale from February 15 2018.
