Thakoon up - new star of New York Fashion
Fashion designer Thakoon is known as a very simple, very polite.
This is the first thing that strikes you about him. He is soft-spoken, polite to a fault, but fortunately not so submissive, even if no cost of long-haul red-eye from New York. One has the feeling that even the act of splitting his surname, Panichgul, his label less to do with the desire to have a single nickname (Cher, Madonna, Jesus has to create - many fashion designers believe they are a magical combination of three) a little easier for people to say to it than just.
Thakoon may be polite, but not their clothes. You are brave and bold. It will support designers often stored in this "New New York" because his clothes still focused and difficult even a decade in his career. Offered his first collection deconstructs photographs taken by Cecil Beaton Charles James dressed debutantes. Since then, he has given us a Maasai Marie Antoinette, Bollywood-colored spaghetti western, and worked with the artist Laurie Simmons curved on a pinup dancing with legs instead of pink flowers crown printed.
This is one of the signatures of Thakoon - print eye-catching, the nature of Michelle Obama, a supporter of Thakoon confessed raised. Embroidered Fall / Winter 2013, Thakoon on the neoprene and top with rose print dragonfly, floral blend with floral in mini dresses with panels that come to have similar computer pixelated images with a half load. They jump off the screen - and rails shops, too. "People ask me," How do you get the inspiration "But I do not know," said Thakoon as I was with him, "You live and you inspire how you can every day delight with this .. do you? , leave to bubble, you connect the dots, you say, "Why am I interested in?"
Why are we interested in Thakoon? Apart from the fact that one of the stars of the younger generation of designers in New York, his story is so complex and multicultural as his clothes. Born in Thailand, he moved to Nebraska with his family (including an older brother, now a photographer, Thakoon referred to as "Irish twin") 11 years old. "I think it opened me to be more creative," Thakoon reasons this culture shock. "I think I should go in my head dream a little more, because it really was nothing cultural in Nebraska at the time." In fact, the only thing it was, it was the way. "The only way for us to enjoy something was the kiosk discover books and magazines, and that's what I have in fashion magazines," he said, "I collected Vogues. British Vogue, all kinds of Italian Vogue fashion magazines ... I loved the industry. Loved dive, the fashion was a revolutionary in Bruce Weber photos and all of these stories. "
Ironically, despite the magazines, Thakoon did not see fashion as something glamorous. "After we moved to the States, my mother was a seamstress work," he said. "It was more a way for them to put food on the table She sewed coats Pendleton So for me, I do.." Mode I associate with that - you could not make money, it was a blue collar thing. "
Thakoon went on business, not to study a fad, but still packaged in the industry, first working for J. Crew Bazaar and U.S. Harper's under the direction of Kate Betts. "He's a gentle soul," says author and journalist Camilla Morton, who worked alongside Thakoon during his four years at Harper's Bazaar and recognized his talent early on.
How does the passage to write actually do just about clothes? "Two years after Harper, I've decided that I'm not a writer," says Thakoon today. "I did." It was also something the driver file, or rather the designer file for his efforts. "I see the clothes and be like," Why do they want it? You should stop this way ", or see what it should have been shorter, have with organza on the floor or something. Profiling In the meantime, we have designers and new ideas, and when I talked to them, I think," Wow, these are the ideas I have in my head, these are things I scribble anyway "It was something that was parallel to me to think in their own way and my way of thinking."
Thakoon courses at Parsons School of Design in New York, but after that, instead of his own label, was the first impulse, work internally. "I went to try and apply for jobs as a designer and I have failed," said Thakoon remembered today. "So the only way to do it yourself."
He created his first glimpses while working at Harper's Bazaar. Morton remembers her reaction when she saw the clothes, samples sewn together in leisure Thakoon: "I also knew it was a big deal"
The "big deal" was the first collection that still contemporary today air, shards of plastic attached lace edge or ditch ras tweed blazer. This collection was pretty impressive for financial support Thakoon net, and a star, as they say, was born. And as for the singular nickname this hangtag? "The only reason why I was called because Thakoon ... if your name, you do not copyright it!"
Pronounced for the record, "Thakoon" "Tack-oon," but if you seen the September issue, as you probably understand. After all, it was probably the presence of the great designers in the documentary filmmaker RJ Cutler follow the evolution of U.S. Vogue September 2007 bumper. And Anna Wintour, the all-powerful Vogue editor seemed like Thakoon.
It is a love based on reciprocity: "Of course we can talk about Anna Wintour, the only person I could say with certainty only champion of young designers in a way that was really effective is," said Thakoon today ' Today. "You build a designer brand from scratch - you have no money, especially not support you, you do not need much, the fact that they do this in order to determine with people .. and made sure that they were placed and provided, their clothes sold in stores ... she understands that new blood needs to happen. "
At the time, Thakoon - was surely new blood, just three years - label. The next year, he hit a decade in business, with a sister line, Thakoon Addition, offering their creations at a price, easily accessible, and collaborations with artists such as Mango and Gap under his belt. Thakoon is now a label people know - even if the designer himself is something in the shadows.
He is happy for the stay that way. Thakoon the issue in September and he blushed. "I have not even seen this movie," he says, though when I asked him if he answered honestly, he sold more clothes for this reason: "My company has shown that the effects of several ways ... I had a lot of different ways this film. I think Michelle Obama is out, too. "
And the people on the street recognize? "Yes, do! Many children, even those children who want fashion. For me it is nice to be able to give back."