Shoulder of Giants: Profile of Alyasha Owerka-Moore

Our associate Darius Interviewed legendary designer Alyasha Owerka-Moore on the shifting fashion trends in relation to “nostalgia core” and how brands are adopting heritage silhouettes, as well as the future of consumerism, sustainability, and its impact on the black community.

Darius: Do you see a lot of influence from the past in today's fashion?

Alyasha: It's endemic of fashion. One of the main things about fashion that's always been a big part of fashion is that a lot of fashion is built around subculture, whether it's punk rock or new romantic, or new wave, or hip hop, or whatever this, or goth. This is one of the few times where that's been thrown out of the window, which in some respects is exciting, but in other respects, it's just a free for all. But yeah, absolutely. Fashion's completely cyclical from a time perspective. It always will be, I think.

Darius: Well, that answers the next question. Is the future of fashion based in the past?

Ayisha: Yeah. Punk rock.

Darius: Are there any subcultures that you in particular referenced?

Ayisha: Oh, all the time. Punk rock, rockabilly, some early, early hip hop stuff, blues, like blues kids, skateboarding.

Skateboarding is a hybrid of a bunch of subcultures. When people are like, "Oh, it's skate wear," there's really no such thing. It's you wear your favorite brand T and then a handful of brands started in the 80s, apparel brands. I'd always laugh when people are like, "Oh, it's a skater style thing?." It makes no sense. But yeah, those are the main ones. And then mod, mod fashion is really fascinating to me, really cool.

Darius: When you say mod, what do you mean?

Ayisha: There's a group of kids and a subculture of music called mod. They were the modernists. There were British kids in the 60s that were paying attention to Italy for the most part. It was like an art student movement.

All context of why these staple pieces were staple pieces are removed. Doc Martens were rocking things like boots. Vans were largely only worn by kids in California and skateboarders and BMXers, because it was a sport specific shoe. If you saw somebody wearing Vans, you knew that they skated or rode BMX, or were from California or in punk rock. But it's not that way anymore.

Darius: Yeah. I feel like now more so than ever, nobody really cares about the history of a brand.

Ayisha: No. Or not just a brand, but the style of these subcultures that made these pieces iconic.

Darius: Yeah. Which I don't, well, like or understand, because I feel like designers put so much thought and stories into particular pieces. One of my favorite designers currently is Kerby Jean-Raymond of Pyer Moss, and I resonate with him because he's from Flatbush, which is a couple blocks down from where I grew up in Brooklyn. He's from Haiti.

He had a show at Kings Theater while everybody was offering him Milk Studios. He's just like, "No, we're going to Flatbush. We're going to Kings Theater." He did this. I think he said the venue held 500 or 1,000 people, or something along those lines. He packed that out and then had that same number outside. Just imagine Vogue staff, rappers who Miami and LA and they don't leave Soho, all on Flatbush, in the Kings Theater.

He was just very much like, "This is where the culture originated and this is where you guys need to see where the culture is going."

Ayisha: I love that. That's dope.

Darius: Yeah. Dope dude. What do you expect to see from the industry in the next couple of years?

Ayisha: I don't know. I don't really pay attention to contemporary fashion a whole lot. I pay more attention to vintage. I buy more vintage stuff than I do new stuff, just because I don't want to be part of the problem, if you will.

Darius: With the push towards sustainability, do you think more brands will put more effort in to be sustainable?

Ayisha: No, I don't. I think more people would do greenwashing. They'll do two or three or maybe 10 shoes a year out of recycled goods and tell people that they're being sustainable. Meanwhile, that would be like 0.2% of all of their global sales. It really doesn't make a dent in anything. It’s just marketing, and I think that's what most people would do.

Darius: True.

Ayisha: Being sustainable was a myth in the apparel industry, to be really frank. There's things you can do, like not washing denim. If you wash denim, the amount of pumice and chemicals that go into the ocean and lakes and streams is disgusting. But people don't want to do that.

There's this guy that has a company called Bionic Yarn, that makes thread out of 100% plastics and recycle bottles, and then can weave that. He's figured out how to weave or knit those threads into a luxurious feel, things that feel like rayon or silk, or wool. I'm more interested in that space.

I also think I struggle, especially being a Black man, the amount of consumerism associated with fashion contemporarily. Basically, it's flex factor. How many kids do we know that have 400 pairs of sneakers and a bunch of $300 T-shirts, but no savings, own no property? They're a victim of a system, and it's problematic. It's hood rich.

We can say, well, there's designers like Virgil that are uplifting a handful of people, when we can all raise our flag and use him as a flag and be like, "That's amazing, Virgil's awesome, we've made it to a degree." But as soon as we start paying attention to actual tangible ownership of things versus consumerism, those people are just as much agents of suppression as they are people that we should be proud of.

Darius: What are your opinions on the role of fashion in social media?

Ayisha: Here's a big generational difference. I will never say you're fly unless you styled yourself. Being fly, it's like being an MC. If somebody else writes your sh*t or writes your rhymes, you're not dope. That's where social media gets it, excuse the expression, f*cked up.

Darius: No, you're right though, because it's like you're essentially just taking credit for somebody else's work.

Ayisha: Yeah. And being lazy and high key corny.

Darius: What are your thoughts on collaborations, especially trip collaborations where it's like Gap, Yeezy, Balenciaga, or even downward collaborations where it's like Balenciaga is with Gap.

Ayisha: Here's the thing. Again, creatively, I want to say, "Oh, it's so cool." But it's also like, so how much is Gap going to sell that Kanye Balenciaga shirt for?
As a fashion house, Balenciaga is cool. They're old and they have reinvented themselves in the contemporary, the 2000s space. Via hip hop, undeniably, via Black folks, undeniably. But now, it's like, are they losing their core customer?

Darius: I was very much on the consumer front where I was like, I'm going to buy the Gap Balenciaga, I'm going to buy the Denim Tears jeans. I'm going to buy the Travis Scott Fragment cause hoodie. All of which I own and I instantly feel terrible after putting in the order.

I feel like not a lot of people want to take the time out to understand it, which is where the hood rich staples come in where you're like, "Yo, I want to look rich, not be rich," type vibe.

Ayisha: Right. For me, it's all one big conversation. I guess I could just talk about fashion and you probably weren't expecting me to go into the place that I did with it, but they're hard to separate.
Darius: Actually, you see the nicest cars in the projects. It's like what my dad says. That applies to the fashion too, where it's like you see the nicest clothes in the projects.

Darius: Yeah. It's wild.