Mark Eley and Wakako Kishimoto met in the late 80’s and the design team quicly gained a reputation for incisive and intelligent print design. They have worked for Louis Vuitton, Marc Jacobs and Alexander McQueen, to name a few. In the mid 90’s they launched their own label: Eley Kishimoto. Recently the design duo made […]
Interview: Eley Kishimoto
Mark Eley and Wakako Kishimoto met in the late 80’s and the design team quicly gained a reputation for incisive and intelligent print design. They have worked for Louis Vuitton, Marc Jacobs and Alexander McQueen, to name a few. In the mid 90’s they launched their own label: Eley Kishimoto. Recently the design duo made a collaboration with Weekday and today you can finally get your hands on the Eley Kishimoto for Weekday collection…
The girls at Anywho sat down with the couple to talk….
Anywho: How and when did you meet?
Wakako: We met in 1989 when we both did an internship at the same company in New York. We are both textile designers which is why print is our main focus.
Mark: We got married in ‘92 and have lived together in London ever since.
Anywho: … how do you separate private life from work life?
Mark: Work is life, life is work. We don’t know it any other way. When it’s really stressful, you sometimes you just want a 9-17 job. But on the other hand I know I couldn’t do it. I would get really bored. I’d rather have the flexibility and the creative day to day notions.
Anywho: Where did you get the inspiration for the Weekday collection?
Wakako: It’s a quite simple story of a good girl who meets a bad boy in town. The girl is kind of posh from a conservative family. She’s a really nice girl, but she want’s to try out.
Anywho: What inspires you in general?
Wakako: I like working with story telling. I like to think in characters.
Mark: We’re not the kind of designers that say: ”this collection is inspired by the 50’s”. It’s too contrieved and doesn’t allow openness.
Wakako: And it’s too easy. Why should it be something as easy as that for you to summarize? We’re definetely more into the narrative approach.
Anywho: What do you think about blogs?
Mark: I had a blog since ‘95. I startet one of the first fashion blogs with Diana Pernet. In the beginning nobody knew who Eley Kishimoto was. Was it a boy? A girl? Are they from Japan? When we had the blog opportunity I really wanted to be very open and allow people in. We didn’t want to create this kind of hierarchy about us. I also want people to know our mistakes. I think a deeper understanding of who we are as persons will make people understand why we do the clothes we do.
In general it’s really interesting how it’s all developing. I’m very open to that form of communication. It’s incredible what’s going on and I think it’s getting better and better.
