anything goes with emma chamberlain - a clothing designer's mind, a talk with emily bode [video]

Episode Date: August 17, 2023

[video available on spotify] today i'm going to be interviewing one of my favorite, if not my favorite designers. she is the founder of her brand bode. maybe by definition bode is a men's wear brand, but bode is very much more than that. bode is a luxury brand with this sort of casual, vintage, eclectic edge. her brand is truly the epitome of vintage-inspired clothing, like she fucking nails it. bode makes it feel like you plucked it out of a store in the fifties. the brand really is helping to preserve the magical, beautiful craftsmanship of the past that's kind of slowly dwindling out of our day-to-day life. and bode is really one of one. i present to you emily adams bode aujla. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today I'm going to be interviewing one of my favorite, if not my favorite, designers. She is the founder designer of her brand Bodie. Maybe by definition, Bodie is a menswear brand, but Bodie is vintage eclectic edge. Her brand is truly the epitome of vintage inspired clothing. Like she fucking nails it. Bate makes it feel like you plucked it out of a store in the 50s. You know the brand really is helping to preserve the magical beautiful craftsmanship of the past that's kind of slowly dwindling out of our day to day life. And Bodhi is really one of one. I present to you Emily Adams Bodhi-Ajla, the creator of one of my favorite brands, Bodhi. Okay, I first found Bodhi at, it was a Vogue event 2019 Paris Fashion Week.

But you were at? Yeah. It was a cocktail event. But then there was like sort of like a shop, I don't know if it was like a shoppable area, but it was like kind of like a showcase of everything. And I found, you'll know this shirt. It was like all of the little foods and it was like a button up. Oh, with the calorie counts on it.

So, so good. I remember I saw it and I was like, I up. Oh, with the calorie counts on it. With the calorie counts on it. So, so good. I remember I saw it and I was like, I've never seen anything like this looks vintage and it was like this whole, like mining spending moment for me. Yeah. Okay, so that print is a reproduction. Would you can find that print as like hand painted or like on kitchen kind of decor?

So like you see it on like tea towels or aprons or the one that I reproduced was on a handkerchief. And to me it was just like so hilarious because it's so good. How many calories are in like coffee and carrots and really bizarre foods. But it's colorful and it's in a cotton oil. So it's like super thin and people kind of went crazy for it because Harry wore it for something. Yep. I remember this because I bought the shirt Oh, okay listen, so I bought the shirt pre Harry. Okay, everybody listen up. Pre Harry. I bought the fucking shirt Because I saw it at that event and then like two weeks later. I saw it openings. I saw it opening ceremony I was like oh yeah, they're gone. God, I'm so depressed. But that was a good shirt.

Amazing. Yeah. Was it like, I mean, obviously when somebody like Harry Styles wears a piece of your clothing, I think part of you is probably like, fuck yeah, that's awesome. But then also part of you is probably like, oh shit. Cause you know, a moment like that

where somebody who has so much influence, like Harry Styles and wearing something, it's gonna skyrocket things in a way. Is was that scary? Yeah, I mean, we're quite intentional with like our run. So I don't know about back then, but today it's like, that's one of like 50 or one of 200 or one of two or one of one.

He's just such an incredible renaissance man that anything he wears, I love when he wears our clothes. And I truly value our relationship. And so that's really inspiring to me, especially him. I'm really curious about you as a young person. Do you feel like the love for clothes came first or the love for crafts came first?

I think I would have to say crafts because as a kid, I mean, as much as I was definitely a fashion obsessed kid, I used to run way shows for my uncle and on. I have videos of that visiting him in the South of France, like, you know, strutting down. Yeah, dream. I like that.

That was definitely a part of my childhood for sure, but I think the first understanding of aesthetics or just building like your world in general came through craft. And I really think largely through dolls and probably through like doll furniture and, you know, making little things for that world. So I think that's where I think that's where it came from for me. When do you think your point of view, your strong point of view really started to

blossom, you know, when it comes to aesthetic things and creative things and, you know, even I've heard you discuss in videos and things about, you know, how you love collecting things and you're such a collector and you do have such a distinct vision that is so consistent and I'm curious when that sort of became solid. Like when was that really solidified?

Was it when you were super young, like 12 or is it, you know, even more recent? I mean, I do think I had a very distinct vision of, you know, the worlds I wanted to live in, the kind of the imaginative environments for when I was a really little kid. You know, I found a notebook that I think I must have been like five or something, maybe a little older, but I was trying to

explain that like this dress came with this colored sash and this color dress came with this color and I would have like these little drawings. So I was always interested in that idea of making things but also of selling things and having objects and a vision available for other people. Well, it's interesting because a lot of people I feel like just sort of discover.

They're sort of calling later and they they never saw it coming. I mean, you saw it coming, I think. Like you knew this was like your, this was just destined from day one. That's really special. What was like your go-to outfit as a kid? I always love vintage. My mom saved all of her vintage. So it's not that necessarily my mom's close of course are from when she was a kided vintage now, but she also was buying vintage with her sisters. So, so I have things that they like had thrifted and bought it flea markets and things that they had saved. And I love that they had saved those things that I can now like cherish and wear and I've worn them, you know, throughout phases of like middle school and then in high school, I wore cherish and wear. And I've worn them throughout phases of middle school and then in high school I wore it. And then now the t-shirt isn't a longer huge on me, but I have it.

That's so cute. I love that. Moving on to a little later in your life, college. So you went to Parsons, which is, it's a design school, correct? I personally, I didn't go to college, so I'm always so curious about the impact that college has on especially creative people, because did going to college help you become more creative

by giving you sort of the technical tools to really, you know, create whatever you want? Or do you feel like in some ways it might have actually kind of put you in a box in a way and made you feel, because I think at school, you know, you're obviously taught a curriculum, right? That can sometimes kind of make you feel confined in a way. What was your personal experience with going to, you know,

in art school? Well, for me, because I come from a place where I personally love institutional learning, I thrive in those environments, whereas it's definitely not for everybody. Interesting. I think that, you know, especially when I talk to young people who are deciding their trajectory or what they want to do, I often believe in an older model that's not really around so much anymore, which is like the apprenticeship model. If you know for sure that you want to go into this thing and you don't necessarily thrive in a more institutional educational environment,

then you should apprentice or intern, you know, somewhere that you see fit. But for me, Parsons, I did the dual degree program. So I did a bachelor's degree in philosophy and a bachelor of fine arts in fashion. And when you enter into the program, at least for the fine arts degree, you have a set of I guess it's foundational learning. So like you mentioned, it's like providing you the skills to then make decisions. So it's like foundational skills of color theory and yeah, basic woodworking, things like that. Do you find moments when like maybe you're working on a project and

you end up going a direction that's the complete opposite of like what you learned in school? Like it is a course. Of course. In art school, one really valuable thing I feel like I learned, which what you said reminds me of that, is like you have to learn to be able to throw something away. Because as somebody who is making stuff from such a young age, everything was so precious that you'd make and then if you broke, and obviously I come from a world in which I love preservation and saving things. If something got destroyed, it would really affect me or loss.

Yes. That's one of the first things that you learn at art school is like they'll do this kind of little exercise where you draw something for like three hours and then you have to erase it. Oh, that is so evil. And you don't know that you're going to do that. So I remember the first time that happened in my, you know, one of my drawing classes, I was like, no, I would like to see what's that.

Like I understand what you're trying to teach me, but like, do I really have to do this? Yeah. But, you know, those kinds of exercises then help you for even, I think of that one often, you know, a Bodie where we do an embroidery layout and you're like, oh my gosh, or you know, it's finished and someone did it by hand or they laid out all the buttons for something. And you're like, oh, you have to unpick all that. And it's like, but you're gonna make it better. And totally, you know, it's the same idea of like painting over a painting. Yep. It's like, it's heart wrenching, but you know, 100%. Moving on to starting bodOTY, menswear.

I love this. What made you want to start BOTY with menswear? OK, so when I was a kid, I didn't necessarily know that I wanted to be a fashion designer. I think I just knew that I wanted to work in fashion. I have a video of me from high school saying I wanted to be a stylist. You know, I think I just knew that this wanted to work in fashion. I have a video of me from high school saying, I wanted to be a stylist. I think I just knew that this was like the industry.

I wanted to work in. But by the time I was in college, I really felt like more challenged designing for someone outside of myself. I had a professor that tasked us with doing a menswear project. He truly was the first one to be like, you're actually really good at this. It's like, come so naturally to you. Like, maybe this should be your track. And it made sense. Once it had kind of come to fruition, it definitely made sense. I loved, you know,

dressing my high school boyfriend and making clothes for everybody that wasn't necessarily me because to make something for myself felt really simple and I wasn't as interested. I was definitely more interested in making for the other. Whether it was a specific character or a guy. Personally, I'm super, I love masculine clothing silhouettes. Like I prefer them most of the time. I just I like the boxier fit. Like I like sort of like maybe even the oversized whatever.

Personally, are you more drawn to masculine or feminine silhouettes or kind of just both in whatever you like? I was intrigued by doing workwear silhouettes, traditionally men's workwear silhouettes because I wanted something that felt like extremely timeless. I mean, the whole launch of Bodhi or, you know, why I started it was to create a line of clothing that you could technically like, or essentially take a picture of somebody and not know what time period they were from.

Yes. Where is it's definitely a lot harder to do that with women's silhouettes? Yes. Where is it's definitely a lot harder to do that with women's silhouettes? Yep. And that was interesting to me that with men's where you could really hone in on this idea of like a timeless silhouette or timeless narrative and then have clothes that would last forever or that people would want to wear forever. I'm curious though what you think, what makes something timeless? It's different for everybody. Yeah. for me, it starts from the material. We use like natural materials, you know, whether it's cotton, linen, or wool, and a lot of times, you know, those are traceable. There's definitely a sustainability component to it, but it also, you know when something is made of a certain material, or has a certain finish to it, like what

era it's from, or when it could have begun to be from that doesn't mean that we don't use something like with like visco serrions, we definitely have that in our collections, but I'd say the foundation of our brand is natural materials. projects with certain suppliers and supply chains have been like so important to us because after all we are aiming at the preservation of craft but also prolonging the life cycle of our clothes and I think that's easier to do and to wrap your head around when you're dealing with natural materials. Are you ever sort of like I want to do something futuristic? Do you ever have like a moment where you're like wait a minute. No, I want to do I want to do something futuristic. Do you ever have a moment where you're like, wait a minute, no, I want to do something. Like, does that ever cross your mind? Or are you, because I'm similar to you where I love vintage, I love all things sort of nostalgic

and all things that have history. That's personally what I'm attracted to too. But then every once in a while, I'll have a weird fit where I want to dress like, I'm in Mad Max or something. And I don't know why, and I want to look like I'm an alien or something. So I'm curious if you ever have that sort of like, this creative outburst where you hold on,

I want to break this whole mold. Or do you feel like you're in this world and you're so happy in this world that you're in this world and you're so happy in this world that you're never like restless? I don't think I really venture outside it. No, but that's good. It's hard to tell because I feel like when I talk to my husband about this, sometimes he's like,

I love it. Like I never saw that coming in the collection. Like, I love the way you make things. But I think the key is that, especially with having a brand, you know, you're put in a box not by yourself, it's by the perception of the people that are the consumers. Absolutely. So it's really interesting that they might say, like, oh, that's so bodied. But then, you know, like the trousers you're wearing are plain cashmere polo. Is that bodied body still? Like how do we get people to feel that like all of these different worlds fall into

the body world? And you can do it as a brand. I don't think you're beholden to like a specific kind of vision. Do you ever feel pressure from, you know, the fans of your brand to sort of create in a certain way. Do you experience that? Or do you feel like you just... No, of course.

So you have to remember anybody who makes things. And we tell ourselves this all the time because we get comments not just from customers, but like from stores and buyers. Oh, yeah. Press. And if they knew what was best for your brand, then it just doesn't logically make sense. Because when I launched BOTY, these shirts

made from these textiles and these silhouettes and this heavyweight textile or the lace shirts, for example, none of that I was told would succeed. So, and yet it did. And you have to remember that, or I guess you have to trust your own instincts and trust your own gut on that because it's really easy to be like, oh gosh, this person has worked at this like incredible historic department store for 15 years and they worked here like 20 years before that.

And it's really tempting to listen to those people and To like your top client who you know, where's the close so well or you know has 80 pieces of booty But at the end of the day, they're buying it because you made those decisions and you yes started that vision so You have to take it with you know with a grain of salt. Do you wear? Only your own clothes like because I I would, if I was you, if I knew how to make clothes, I would not wear, I would just make what I wanna wear. Do you, do you wear your own clothes?

I do wear my own clothes, but I wear a lot of vintage. I'm not necessarily buying all of these to wear though. I am also buying them for inspiration, but I'd say on any day, I mean, I try to wear a body every day too, because I think it's really important. Totally. And even, you know, I tell like our employees to like, it's not just because I love seeing you in the clothes, but we learned so much about the clothes. Yes. Like, oh gosh, like, I love the red lining on the inside of our shoes. It definitely comes off on your socks and like, who's annoyed by it? And it was like, you know, because to me, I'm like, doesn't annoy me because I love

the lining, you know, but you learned so much about wearing the clothes. Yeah. And I think it's the best way, especially when you're starting out, it was the, I think it was the most organic way for me to grow my business. And it was how I got really organic press. And totally from day one, you know, from wearing my own clothes. How do you feel when you see people wearing the clothes? I mean, customers, but also celebrities too. That would be kind of interesting to see like what celebrities, although celebrities aren't special, they're also just like the regular customers, so fuck celebrities. What are you going to say?

Yeah, how does it feel to see people wearing the clothes? Oh, it's the best. I mean, I truly think it justifies what you're doing. Totally. More than even like winning a competition or an award, running into people wearing your clothes, especially not in your neighborhood. Oh, yeah. It was one thing to we open to store on Hester Street in like so downtown New York,

you know, you might go over to this coffee shop and you see a guy and then you might or if like I recognize the client, that's super inspiring, but it's when you're driving on a random street in a day of spending. Oh, I can't even imagine. And there's a guy in a coffee shop wearing a shirt. It's bizarre. It's bizarre.

Totally. It's amazing. And especially, I think a turning point for the celebrity thing for me was, you know, when I first started the only way for people to really get the clothes were like, Bodie, like through our office, right? Or maybe through like a handful of stores

maybe there were like eight stores. And now that there's so many stores, we're kind of like, wait, so they didn't even go through like the press office, like this person just like shopped it, you know? And that makes you feel really good because people are actually buying it. Absolutely.

Especially when even when you're event dressing, where you could easily just ask for a press loan, or a press piece or a loan. But if you're event dressing for red carpet, and you actually bought it from a random store and who knows where, that's pretty incredible because it means that they've truly fallen in love with the clothes. So you have a lot of vintage, you're very much a vintage collector. Do you feel like you

get your inspiration? I mean, I'm assuming you get it from everywhere, but would you say like treasure hunting and finding these antiques is the main source of your of your inspiration? Or would you say you also are like watching the movies and reading the magazines? Like are you like going back in time across the board or Are you just more into the antique side of things like I know, I guess my question is, are you sort of in this world fully, like it's your entertainment? It's your, because I know some people sort of fully dedicate themselves to sort of their aesthetic or their theme. Like, are you? Are you? Yes, yes, I'm curious if that's like, if you know, the Spider-Man movie comes out like, is that a little bit too, I can't see that.

Can't see that not not, you know what I mean? Definitely not. No, I, I, you know, my design practice is object-based, like for sure, you know, tan from tangible product. But I, I love older movies. You know, that was one thing that really shocked me after doing some student crittex at a couple colleges was I actually feel like that is not as much in, I don't even wanna say in trend, but when I was in school, it was normal

and encouraged to look back at history, but like primary resources. So whether it was books or movies or newspapers or you know going to exhibitions or working with catalogs. And this was the first time that I had ever done like senior crits where people weren't necessarily doing that. Which I thought was kind of a shame because I learned so much about you know my the world and who I am based on the histories, not just like my own family histories, my personal history,

but by the histories of others and the cultures of others. So going into designing a collection, I have the objects themselves that are super important to the inspiration process, but it's also the narrative. So it's interviewing somebody, usually it's somebody who I can physically interview. Sometimes it has been a family narrative

that I'm referencing. But so that's like the intangible concept behind it or the overarching concept. And then I pull in all of these artifacts and antiques and objects from another, wow, place. So obviously that sort of creative process that you have to do twice a year, I'm assuming, or even more, because there might be times

when maybe you start it and then you're like, and then you, you know, a lot of work, do you enjoy the fashion industry? Like obviously, I feel like there's, you can love fashion and hate the industry. I'm curious how you feel about the industry and maybe you have mixed feelings as we do about most things in life but you know what's your sort of feeling about the industry itself? I mean we definitely

sit within the fashion industry we show on the Paris calendar but I mean, we definitely sit within the fashion industry. We show on the Paris calendar, but I mean, that being said, we are definitely not as much of a capital F fashion brand as a lot of brands that we might like sit with in Bergedorff Goodman. You know, when I launched Bode, it was virtually unheard of that you could sell one of a kind product on like an essence or a match's or that didn't exist. You know, I, you know, there were definitely brands who had done it, who had made product from antique materials, but it wasn't in the way in which we were doing it.

I made the choice to be a part of the industry. You like, yeah, I made the choice. I wanted to show on Paris Fashion Calendar, Paris Fashion Calendar from starting on the New York Fashion Calendar. I wanted to sell in these stores because I loved that I could have dreamt that I was gonna be selling in like, sacks and burgdorf and as a kid and Barney and then that we actually made it happen.

So that's like a big part of who I am is hitting those goals. Absolutely. I also think what's so even more sort of satisfying about it, I can imagine is you didn't do what anyone else was doing. Touching upon what we talked about earlier with like taking advice from other people, when I launched, I remember this extremely important menswear guy coming to my studio. And he was like, there's no way these shirts are gonna sell, they're too heavy, you know,

because I was making clothes out of, oh, I still do. Domestic textiles. So it's like tablecloths and yep, and they're boxy and they, you know, they drape as a certain way and they're short and they're crottony. It's like, there's not a customer for that. Right. And they're totally is. And it's like, I, you know, that's an instance in which like you can't always listen to people because they just didn't know it yet. Like they, it wasn't a part of what they had ever sold before.

So of course they couldn't imagine selling it. I don't know if you can succeed and bring something new to the table unless you kind of flip off literally everyone who's succeeded before who comes to you and, unless you kind of flip off literally everyone who's succeeded before, who comes to you and says, you gotta do it like this. Like I don't think you can listen to anyone, because I think the second you start kind of listening to everyone,

then you disappear into the abyss of what's already been done in a way. Of course. And it's just, but it's so hard. It's almost like the hardest test of, you know, like staying true to what you want to be creating. It's why I think it's so hard. Right. And what voydery trying to fill, you know, I think it's a really important question to ask, you know, I felt that it was really hard for guys to buy clothing, especially

to buy vintage clothing and have it fit them or, you know, even last certain amount of time. And that was, you know, another impetus for launching the brand was filling this void of like, I have guy friends, you know, that loved wearing vintage, but it was like, yeah. Definitely a lot harder to shop vintage as a male. And so, you know, feeling a place in the market was, you know, is a really good exercise to thinking like, how could I create a successful business?

Like does this already exist, you know, in the market? to sort of the sort of the internet's impact on the industry as a whole. I mean, there's this whole new phenomenon about like no outfit repeating. Like if nobody outfit repeats on social media. And that's the complete opposite of your ethos, you know what I mean? But do people like exclaim that? Like, I don't see outfits. You know what? To be honest, no. It's like a sign, okay, okay. It's not like people, I'm well, they're probably listening.

It's like a social role or something. Yeah, it's become, I mean, there's a lot of people now that are sort of like completely going backwards and like rejecting it. But even, you know, growing up in the age of social media as I did, it started when I was like 14 and all the sudden, like the girls that were all like, we're posting on Instagram or we're like going to the dance and it's like, I can't wear that because I've already worn that. Right.

And it was something that sort of stemmed from social media somehow. I don't know maybe it's like seeing celebrities constantly in a new outfit never in the same outfit and then my generation was like okay so now you know a lot of us are unlearning it me me too. I think like one way for me to say how I've experienced that is with like event dressing. Yes, I've noticed that it's a thing like you can't wear. I mean, you can, you can, but you don't traditionally wear the same dress. Unless it's like years apart, you know, to events. If you're going to do red carpet and if you're going to do, if you're not doing red carpet, you can wear whatever you know, totally wear the same dress you order.

But celebrities get weird sometimes because you're like, I'm not wearing that because she wore that and then people are going to be like, for sure. That's that's kind of what I've thought of. Like, you know, it's, yeah, which I do get because then it's like everybody's making a collage on Instagram, like, who wore it better and then it's a nightmare. Well, some people do it purposefully too. Yes, because they do the who wore it, but and they know they'll do the who wore it better. We're just kind of fun. And if they know that they're going to wear it better.

Yeah, you have, yeah, that's, yeah, caddy. That's the women's wear world that like I'm not so into. Yeah, but it is, I mean, it's crazy because like a men's are like men's clients, you know, we have, we dress a lot of people for their weddings. Those guys are wearing their wedding suits like every event after their wedding forever. Yeah. You know, yeah. And I mean, even with like Aaron, like he wears his wedding tux all the time, you know, and like, that's totally normal.

But I think that's, that's more of like a basic tux. So I think it's like if you have like a perfect black dress, maybe you can get away with it. But yeah, it's an interesting concept and you're right, I'm sure social media has only like fueled that. I guess I, yeah, I guess I don't post enough on like my personal Instagram to really even think about, did I wear that dress? Yeah, but it goes through my head for events. You know, I passed you in the Met Gala line and I was like, I should say so.

No way, wait, you were there. Oh yeah, because I did red carpet and then I was like, oh man, she's like literally in interviews. I was like, I'll see her in a little bit. To be honest, I get, I'm so blacked out in that setting. I'm like, I'm just like full robot mode. Right. Who knows how pleasant that would have been. I think I'm in a much more pleasant state of mind here. You also always forget that not of even of course your interviews are being filmed, but like everybody on the carpet is

being filmed about to go on the carpet also Oh, well, that was new. Oh. That's never so they decided to move the camera from the top of the steps to the bottom. So everyone's in the back being filmed. Caused some drama. Yeah, yeah. Well, what's next for you? What's next for you? What are you excited about?

I'm really excited for women's wear. That's pretty exciting to me. Huge. Because we're exciting to me. Huge. Because we're gonna learn so much. Like this first season, you know, some things might like fail terribly or some things might sell out really quickly that like they didn't expect.

And that's always really exciting because I worked retail for so long, like throughout college and after college and that learning experience is so valuable to a brand. And I'm excited to see what happens there. It's going to be huge. And I mean, I do you think, do you think designing for women's wear is now designing for you? It's probably more so the women in my family. It's like my mom and her sisters when they were young. At least that's what this last collection was.

And I think that's the entire identity of the Bodhi woman is my mom and her sisters. I love that. I'm gonna be wearing all of it. Good, I can't wait. Thank you for coming in and flying here for me. I mean, like, oh my gosh, of course. I'm honored.

I mean like oh my gosh of course I'm honored.