Alexander's favorite piece of clothing is a light-wash denim coat from his Season 1 collection. While he was making the coat, he had the idea to turn it inside-out and distress the seams.
“I remember I finished the first part, and I called my friend," Alexander said. "He was freaking out, he was like, ‘Yo, this is some shit that Travis Scott would wear.’”
Most of Alexander’s clothing items cannot currently be produced at a larger scale, due to the sheer amount of time and attention to detail that goes into each piece.
“A jacket could easily take 20 to 25 hours,” Alexander said. “But, when you can put that jacket on, that is the coolest feeling you will ever feel,” he said.
Daree “828TRiG” Wynn, the sole model for Season 1, said he quickly recognized Alexander’s drive.
“I was really impressed by his setup," Wynn said. "He told me he got it done by himself in a day."
Alexander said he photographed the entire look book in his bedroom, yet he was still able to produce professional-quality results.
Alexander planned to show Season 1 at N.C. Fashion Week, which was initially supposed to take place in May 2020 but was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Now I can go with this first collection being really complete,” Alexander said.
Alexander said he hopes to finish his second collection by the end of the year.
“After I’ve done it once, I have a much better idea of how to approach it and what I am going to need to make, and how to think about the collection as a whole,” Alexander said.
Surrealism and Digital Art
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Alexander looks for practicality and aesthetic in his fashion designs, but when it comes to digital art, he hopes to capture surreal moments where the line between fact and fantasy is blurred.
“I like working with water and clouds, because they look the way they do for just a moment. If you’re watching a wave, once you blink, it looks totally different; that wave is gone,” Alexander said.
Alexander also said he often manipulates color in his art to create maximum impact for the audience.
“You can change the color of something, and it almost makes it a whole new thing. People are so used to seeing that object being ‘X’ color. As soon as you change the color, it changes the whole meaning of the object and how you look at it,” he said.
Monetizing His Art and Designs
Although Alexander is not selling any of his clothing or digital art pieces yet, he said he hopes to develop an e-commerce business focused on luxurious, yet relatively affordable, pieces.
What will he call his brand? Idyllic by Ian Alexander.
“Anything I attach my name to is literally going to be the highest quality that I can get," Alexander said. "It’s definitely going to be a little more expensive than maybe what the average person would want to spend on a t-shirt or something. My t-shirts, they feel like Yeezy (Kanye West's clothing brand) t-shirts, and Yeezy t-shirts are like 150 bucks, where mine will be a lot less than 100."
Partia Eslami, Alexander’s close friend from high school, said every aspect of Ian’s designs serves a purpose.
“With the kind of climate that we’re in, people are starting to realize that it’s not all just consume, consume, consume,” Eslami said. “There’s an aspect of quality behind (Alexander’s clothes), there’s a reason behind the price, there’s a reason behind every stitch, every detail.”
Fashion Feedback and the Will to Keep Going
Alexander said he receives mostly positive feedback about his fashion designs, but does receive occasional online criticism on some of the forums he uses to share his work, such as Reddit and Twitter.
“They’ll be like ‘That looks homeless, I just saw the guy on the street wearing that jacket,” Alexander said with a laugh. “I’ll always hit them with a comment like, ‘Thank you for your support, you’re a hero.”
Alexander said his visions for his pieces coming to fruition is what keeps him pursuing his dream. He said his goal is for Kanye West, his artistic idol, to one day wear an item of his.
“I feel like if Kanye West wears your clothes, you know you’ve made it. If he wears something, you’ll see the price of that item instantly go up and it’ll sell out everywhere,” he said.
Alexander, who has had no formal fashion design training, said he is constantly learning as he continues to design pieces, and is always aiming higher as he becomes a better designer.
“I’m always pushing myself, so if I’ve done one thing, I’ve already done that,” he said. "Now I need to do something new. I need to do something fresh. I get more ambitious. I just keep impressing myself.”
@emmatcraig
Arts@dailytarheel.com
