Ok, first thing - why is there “Dzień dobry” on the socks?
I grew up in the summers in Michigan with my polish family and, for whatever reason, my parents just never taught me polish. Only words I ever picked up where “dobranoc”, “dzień dobry”, “dziękuję”, “nie, dziękuję”. There were always little kids, so something like “chodź tutaj”. I only know maybe 10 words in Polish. It were the only words that I knew to communicate with all the “babcias”, “babunias”, “dziadzias” and whoever else. All I could really say was like “dzień dobry”. It was just really nostalgic. My grandmother was from Poznań and my grandpa, I don't know exactly where he’s from, but it's definitely in northern Poland.
So the beach was probably the picture from his childhood, so this is the connection. Baltic Sea.
Yeah, he was definitely close to the Baltic Sea.
“It allows people to interpret it themselves. It's like planting the seed, but it lets the individual person make their own version of it.”
Few years ago in the interview for polish magazine KMAG, you’ve mentioned that you’re willing to learn polish language. How did that go? Are you more familiar with it?
Not so good. I got like a Rosetta Stone kind of thing, I was trying to teach myself but in polish language the barrier of entry is really high. French, Spanish, Italian, even Russian it's pretty accessible. Especially Cyrillic is quite easy to learn. It's basically the US alphabet with just a couple other things or whatever.
In polish, there are nuances of the mouth sounds. My grandparents passed away, my father passed away, so not having people to actually just speak polish and kind of learn what you want its hard. I tried for a month and it was really hard, but it’s still in my lifetime goal.
Some of your works, one is also on the collection’s t-shirt, are hand-rough-drafted poems, poetry. As you’re famous mostly for your photographies, what are this poems for you?
For a long, long game - 10 years, 30 years, 40 years from now - what I want to do is just be able to make these dynamic experiences, where you're kind of building out a world and inviting people in, to really have an experience. The video and the photo for me are kind of the most accessible, it's where I've had the most success and it's really a good entry point to allow people into my world. But most of my ideas, most of my videos are inspired by music. I hear a song that I like and then I come up with the idea for the video. Same thing with photography, for the most part it’s about creating a graphic image on the surface. My VHS stills that are really saturated, really pop and it just catches your eye, but that's like an entry point into the nuance of the colour palettes and being able to interpret them and all of that kind visual abstraction.
In the video - the multiple layers and multiple screens - there is a certain level of abstractness to it. I think that is conducive to allowing the individual viewer to connect with it in their own way, when it's super literal. A lot of these images are really literal, because they're also product photographies. But my art, art driven stuff, it’s little more abstract so that it's interpreted. And I think the other mediums such as music and writing and even clothing, it's a little less literal. So you can understand it more and kind of come up with your own ideas. Of course it's a summer collection and it's with Vans, so we need to make shoes and t-shirts and it’s product driven but that is almost like a trojan horse. A trojan horse to invite you into the whole world, which is the poem and it's the music and it's the summer feeling. It's the sand on the floor. It's kind of using this opportunity with something that's very simple, very basic and accessible, like a shoe and then showing people what the shoe is a symbol for.
"To me, this shoe represents all my childhood experiences, some people are gonna want to just look at the shoe and just buy a shoe and be like “okay, fuck it, it's a shoe” but it's also an opportunity for me to create a whole world that is embodied in this thing. Specifically for this one getting to do the poem and the t-shirts and the music especially were kind of the opportunities to bring in the more artistic elements that are less literal and more abstract but also a little more personal."
As we know you have a big crush for skateboarding. Was it some kind of a muse for you? A “bridge” to acknowledge broadly defined art?
Yeah, I think so. The creativity inherent in skateboarding, the experience we have. You guys have a Szaber Bowl, my local skate park was Washington. It's so DYI, there is an inherent creativity, the whole world of skateboarding is like that, right? You have the graphics on the board and the way that you dress, the individual part in skateboard clips and the music you use. Skateboarding is like a medium, it’s so dynamic and so diverse and really embodies all of these things - photos in magazines, videos and the product. I think that having that is my base, it has really allowed me to take that mindset and now explore the avenues outside of skateboarding.
I find the collection brilliant in its simple form. For example shoes are almost as simple as basic releases, but when you take a second look into details you can catch their uniqueness. Can you say something about the sneakers picked for the collection? Also I want to ask about the details, especially about the flat outsole - what’s the idea behind that?
The Style 31 - I really thought about that it is just everyday shoe. Just the most basic shoe, so I wanted to keep it super classic with the gum sole. But with the Authentic, I think it is such an iconic, staple silhouette, so it was more of a challenge to figure out how to make it your own. It was already been done in every single colour, in every single fabric. All of the details have, sort of, been done. So, it is the combination of what you can bring together.
First one is the side soul. Having that flat sole just feels a little more elevated to me. When you hold it, it just feels a little more expensive, which I kind of liked, especially knowing that the Authentic is slightly more elevated. My association with the side sole is that flat sole was invented by recycling old tires and we have the tire on the t-shirt. So that's a funny tie in.
But also, when I think about the sole, I really associated with boat shoes and I have a lot of memories with them from lake Michigan. There was always one family that had a boat and like maybe two times in the whole summer, we’d get to go on a boat - I remember that it was little more aspirational, a little more special. Richer families had the boat and the boat shoes with flat sole, so I wanted to sneak that detail of really special experience in this weird association into the shoes.
"The main thing was how the colours would fade, when you wear them every day. In the sand, in the mud, when you get them wet in the ocean. By the time it's the end of summer, the vibrant colours will shift into a fall colour palette."
What was the concept behind colours? Are they referred to something? For me, shade of red on the Authenthics is like tomato soup.
Actually I was thinking about red, white and gold as a polish colours. Officialy it’s red and white, right? But the gold is also on the eagle. I was actually thinking about the tomato soup also but the main thing was how the colours would fade. It starts off new and vibrant, then it will basically fade out to kind of rusty colour. The yellow, gold is going to fade out to kind of like a brownish, these (green Style 31) are almost gonna lighten up into a blue and the purple is gonna turn into grey. I was trying to think about colours that would start off at the beginning of summer really vibrant but if you wear them every day, in the sand, in the mud, you get them wet in the ocean, by the time it's the end of summer, when we reached September, the colour palette would shift into a fall colour palette.
What about the details on the apparel. I’m very curious about the truck-buttons on twill shirt jacket - what’s the story behind those?
I have an old pickup truck, I just thought it is kinda funny. I also remember, but that’s not actually my experience, it is kind of the iconic images of the summer freedom - hopping in the back of your friend's truck and driving down to buy fireworks and coming back. I was thinking about sort of staple summer experiences - going to the beach, hang out with your family, lighting off fireworks and hopping in the truck to go to the liquor store, whatever - details of more general experiences, how to fit them in.
I’ve also noticed some drawings printed inside the shoebox - can you say something about them?
I took the drawing from a photo that I shot in Union Pier on Lake Michigan on 4th of July, which is a big summer US celebration day. It sums up the idea of childhood memories - summer culminates on 4th of July. Everyone gets all their fireworks, teenage kids get rowdy and light them off, the families get together - it's just really romantic and idyllic - a big summer celebration.
The reason I put the drawings inside of the shoe boxes, I wanted to try and think about how to give the shoebox more of a life. I really try and think about the things like about the art objects, how to give things multiple meanings. It's the same way like the shirt has the poem - if you forget your book, you have something to read. I thought if you could unfold it (the shoebox) it has an image that is nice enough to frame it. It gives the shoebox a second life. It almost becomes an artist print in this colouring book style. I love that because again, it allows people to interpret it themselves. It's like planting the seed, but it lets the individual person make their own version of it.
"It's kind of using this opportunity with something that's very simple, very basic and accessible, like a shoe and then showing people what the shoe is a symbol for."
Last question is about the phrases “Pure Imagination” and “Pale Fire Sky” which we can find on the shoes and apparel.
I was thinking of different phrases that go with different phases of life. One thing that I notice when I was in Poland, when you go to the parks in Warsaw, you see this intergenerational mixing. You see the grandmas, you see the young parents with the kids or the 40 year old dudes with cigars - there's a lot of intergenerational mingling and that's something I always remembered from the Michigan, because I feel like that intergenerational mixing is less common in the US. So I tried to think of phrases that went with different phases of life.
“Pure imagination” for me is really about childhood, when you're a kid everything is magical place and you're just lost in your own world. It's kind of magic place where you're really just in your imagination. I also remember that on a rainy day in the summer, we would go to the library and rent a movie and then watch it on the tv - movies like Hercules or Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - “pure imagination” is from that. “Pale fire sky” - I took that phrase from the image. I was trying to think about how to describe the sunset in Michigan - it is so fiery but also little bit soft. It is how I would describe the feeling of looking at that sunset but also to make it feel a little bit angsty or a little bit cooler. Like it's almost a poster, like the movie poster for summer. And yeah - the “pale fire sky” phrase feels a little more teenage to me.