The effortlessly cool fashion designers Carol Lim and Humberto Leon join to talk about two decades of creative partnership and professional collaborations running their fashion brand, Opening Ceremony.
Speaker 1:
This was our one moment, at 27, to change our destiny and also create something that we didn’t think was there.
Speaker 2:
From the TED Audio Collective, this is Design Matters with Debbie Millman. For 18 years, Debbie Millman has been talking with designers and other creative people about what they do, how they got to be who they are, and what they’re thinking about and working on. On this episode, Carol Lim and Humberto Leon talk about how their fashion brand, Opening Ceremony, has kept up with the times.
Speaker 3:
Things are constantly being created, reinvented in all parts of the world. And we have a voracious appetite to learn about what’s happening and where it’s happened from the beginning.
Speaker 4:
Carol Lim and Humberto Leon are fashion designers, but they’re also professional collaborators in the best sense of the word. Their clothing brand, Opening Ceremony, has collaborated with other designers, with filmmakers like Spike Jones, with actors like Chloe Sevigny, and with the New York City Ballet.
The story of their brand is very much the story of their own collaboration as creative partners, running a business together in one of the toughest and most fickle industries in the world. Carol Lim and Humberto Leon, welcome to Design Matters.
Speaker 3:
Thank you for having us, Debbie.
Speaker 1:
Thank you so much. We’re so excited to be here.
Speaker 4:
Humberto, I understand that one of your signature dishes to cook is Chinese lasagna. Can you tell us how you make it and what your top secret ingredient is?
Speaker 1:
Wow, that’s good research. Okay. I just call it Chinese lasagna and it has nothing to do with lasagna. But it’s a dish that I think it would be commonly referred to baked pork chop over rice. It’s interesting because I make this every New Year’s. You have egg fried rice as the base, and then you layer it with pork chops that you pan fry and season.
The interesting thing, and this dish is part of what I call Hong Kong cafe cuisine. And it’s a cuisine that was created when the British came over to Hong Kong. You do put a special tomato sauce that has Asian flavoring over that. And then you put cheese on top of that. Chinese food doesn’t really contain cheese. That’s a very odd thing. So in order for me to easily explain this to my friends, I tell everyone I’m making Chinese lasagna. It’s one of Carol’s favorites.
Speaker 4:
It sounds delicious.
Speaker 3:
It is very, very delicious.
Speaker 4:
You both grew up in the suburbs of Los Angeles. You’re both children of immigrants. Carol, your parents are from Korea and Humberto, your mother is from China. Your father was Peruvian Chinese. And when you grew up, Humberto, your mom worked nonstop. She was a seamstress. She also worked in two Chinese restaurants that she ran in Los Angeles with eight of her 11 siblings. Is that where you first learned how to cook?
Speaker 1:
Yeah, I think I learned how to cook because my mom worked so much and I had older siblings who were off doing teenage things. So somehow I was left at home as the official cook for the family. My mom would prepare all the ingredients and I would basically, through cooking show type efforts with seasonings out, everything out, I would create the meal with her over the phone telling me exactly what to do. This went on for years and I think that’s how I learned how to cook, is through the telephone with my mom.
Speaker 4:
Carol, your dad, a licensed pharmacist in Korea, worked in the US as a lab tech, and then in real estate. And your mom ran a jewelry store called The Earring Corner. Is this where you first got exposed to retail merchandising?
Speaker 3:
Absolutely. I would say even before that, watching and accompanying my mom, even if it was the grocery store or we would go shopping to the mall. We would shop the sales section and she would pick out things that she thought had good quality fabric. I would accompany her downtown to the jewelry district. Yeah, that was definitely the beginnings of looking at how you display things, how you talk to your customers. That was the foreground for, I would say, how we started our own business.
Speaker 4:
Carol, is it true you still own the first full price Benetton dress you got for your sixth grade graduation?
Speaker 3:
I absolutely do. I actually just looked at it the other day and I thought, “I think I could still fit into it.” Definitely cannot fit into it anymore, but my older daughter can. But it’s still hanging in the garment bag that we got it. It’s floral. I can take a picture and send it to you later. I have it.
Speaker 4:
Oh yeah. I’d love to see it. I’d love to see it. I actually have a dress that I loved from the sixth grade as well. I felt like we might be kindred spirits when I read that you still had that dress. Carol, you said that in high school, you would describe yourself as… I’m going to pronounce it correctly, nunchi. Can you elaborate on what that means and what that meant for who you became?
Speaker 3:
Yeah, I think early on, I would follow my parents often to either the business or whether it was church functions. I realized as a young child… I was the youngest of many of my parents’ friends’ children, and I figured out, okay, if I want something to happen my way, or I want something, you would walk into a room… And nunchi means actually many different things, but one of the things is looking at the room and making sure there’s harmony.
Also, I would say, when you kind of extrapolate the skill in a business sense, or in a sense where as a young kid, you want to get something for yourself, you figure out who has what power in the room and you start to decipher some of these kinds of relationships. So I would say, just always observing, being surrounded by older siblings, and cousins, and adults, it was something that I just observed, and I would say later has helped me in many different situations.
Speaker 4:
Humberto, I understand that by the time you were in fifth grade, you were wearing a trench coat and women’s dress shoes to school. How would you describe your fashion sense back then?
Speaker 1:
I will say, so in fifth grade, I moved from living in Highland Park to Rosemead, which is where my family moved for my later part of my adolescence. I think it signaled time for a change. My sisters at the time were listening to a lot of Depeche Mode, and OMD, and INXS, Pet Shop Boys, all these bands that till this day, I still love. And so, I was heavily, heavily influenced by them.
And so, wearing a trench coat and pointy black fake leather shoes seemed normal in my little world of this musical obsession. Now entering a new school with this look and hair that was maybe five inches off my forehead, probably made me stand out at the time. I think because I was going to a new school, I felt very ballsy to just do something totally, totally different.
So I think, at that time, it was just my way of creating a new identity for myself. I did everything that a fifth grader would do, play kickball, tetherball, play Chinese jump ropes. I would do everything in these outfits. It’s funny because I think back and I think, “Whoa, I really was doing something quite radical I think at the time.” But in the time, I just felt like I was trying to be different
Speaker 3:
Humberto probably still has these items because he is a collector, let’s say, of every single item and they don’t go away.
Speaker 4:
I think that you can make a little childhood museum, how you created your style from the beginning. At 14, you got what you considered your dream job working part-time at the local mall at the Gap, earning $3 and 35 cents an hour. And you had an opportunity to design the windows of this store, which you did enthusiastically. By the time you were 15, you were appointed the district digital coordinator. What were you doing in that job at 15? This was before technology really took hold of everything.
Speaker 1:
It was actually the district visual coordinator.
Speaker 4:
Okay.
Speaker 1:
Yeah. And what-
Speaker 4:
That makes more sense.
Speaker 1:
It’s interesting because, okay, so you have to imagine, when I got this job, early nineties, so at the height of the Gap, I mean the Gap at that point to me was the best brand you could ever imagine. Today’s equivalent would be like if I got a job at Gucci or Bottega Veneta. When I got this job, I was the envy of everybody at my school. I mean, everyone was like, “Whoa, you get the discounts, you get this.” I just walked around with my Gap clothing like I own the school.
Speaker 4:
I love that so much. By the way, when I was growing up, that job was at McDonald’s, just to give you some reference. But you did, you must have owned the school back then. That was the coolest job you could have had.
Speaker 1:
Yeah. And three months into it, my manager at the time, Dean Holland Camp, the one day he just pulled me aside and he said, “Do you want to do visuals?” And I was like, “What’s that?” And he was like, “Dressing the mannequins. You would be in charge of the item of the week table.” At the time, it was the pocket tee.
We had that big table in the front and you would make sure that the display looked perfect, the stacks of t-shirts, folding that jean display so it looked like one pair of jeans, but it was actually six pair of jeans all stacked on top of each other, just doing all this stuff, which I was like, “Oh my God, that sounds so fun.”
So I took this job and I took it super seriously because I really thought… I didn’t get a dime more than the 3.35, by the way. But I took this job as if I got the biggest promotion that I’ve had in my life. Then I traveled to five different stores in my area, Monrovia, Pasadena, Santa Anita mall, walking in like I own the store. It was a big deal at 15.
Speaker 4:
Absolutely. Remember those amazing ads they had for the pocket tees. I think Lauren Hutton was in one of them. They made those pocket tees the most glorious thing you could possibly own at that time.
Speaker 1:
Oh yeah. It was the biggest deal. I remember somebody, Sharon Stone wearing-
Speaker 4:
Yes. Yes.
Speaker 1:
… pocket tee or something to the Oscars. And it was all the [inaudible 00:11:39] at the time.
Speaker 4:
I think it was her husband’s pocket tee-
Speaker 1:
Yes.
Speaker 4:
… if I can remember correctly.
Speaker 1:
Yes. And it was a big deal at this time.
Speaker 4:
Yes. Yes.
Speaker 1:
It was a big, big deal. So yes, very proud moments.
Speaker 4:
Carol, you were also working at the mall, first at Ba&sh Shoes and then at the body shop. You went to private Catholic school, you had lots of Jewish friends. You were obsessed with reggae. You’ve talked about how, as you were growing up, you didn’t really identify as Asian-American until the LA riots following the beating of Rodney King and the killing of a Black teenage girl by a 51-year-old Korean liquor store owner.
You said this about that experience. “I remember my heart tremoring. I felt so much anger and sadness, but I also thought, ‘That could be one of my mother’s friends.'” And you went on to say that it was one of the first times you remember Asian-Americans coalescing to have a voice. Did that instill a more political conviction in you at that time?
Speaker 3:
Yeah, I didn’t know that was what it would be called, but I would say that growing up, I was pretty isolated in a way because I spent time with my family on the weekends, and during the week at school, I had many different types of friends from different backgrounds, and fairly neutral experiences around race. When the shooting of Latasha Harlins happened, I would say, not just for the Asian community, but for the US in general, I think it started to unravel I think a lot of what was happening underneath.
I think, for me, my parents never spoke about any of these types of issues. It was really around, “Study hard, go to a good college, get married.” I mean, the value system was pretty straightforward. So I think when that happened and many of my parents’ friends’ businesses were affected, it really showed, okay, so we’re not… Even if I have a separated life, we’re interconnected.
I think it was the beginning of understanding, okay, as an Asian-American, what is our role in society? It triggered, I think, a curiosity that I think wasn’t there before.
Speaker 4:
You both left your individual high schools with interesting accolades. Humberto, you were crowned homecoming king and Carol, you were voted most likely to succeed. Those seemed accurate at the time. Did either of you have any sense of what you wanted to do professionally?
Speaker 1:
In my mind, I had two career paths. One was either being like Angela from Who’s the Boss, because I loved watching Who’s the Boss and she was an ad exec.” And I was like, “That’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to become an advertising executive like her.” I also thought I was in love with Alyssa Milano at the time, but not knowing I was gay
Speaker 4:
Didn’t we all? Didn’t we all?
Speaker 1:
So that was happening. And then, somehow when I went to college, I just felt the pressure. I was like, “Oh, Asian parents love when their kids become doctors,” and I was like, “I’m never going to be a doctor.” But I thought, “Oh, I could be a psychologist.” I remember listening to a lot of K-rock at the time. And I was like, “I could be a psychologist too. This sounds fun, just listening to everyone’s problems and telling them what I think.”
Those were my two career paths at the time. So being in a creative field didn’t seem like it was in my trajectory. I think my job at the Gap continued and I ended up staying at the Gap for 10 years. But somehow I never really… It just seemed like a side job for me and I never looked at it as a profession until I graduated from college.
Speaker 3:
Yeah. And for myself, for me, I just thought college was a way to leave Los Angeles. I had applied to a bunch of schools on the East Coast and I had this dream of the falls and New England. My mom said, “Oh, it’s too far away. You need to stay in California. Those schools are too expensive, so stay at UCLA. She didn’t know that I rejected that when I got it.
I was like, “Okay, well, at least Berkeley is further away.” I yearned for independence. So I went to Berkeley and she said, “If you don’t like it, you can always switch.” And of course, after freshman year, which is when Humberto and I met, obviously, it was very pivotal in who I became going to that school. As for career, I never really had those conversations with my mom and my dad. So I thought, “Okay, I’ll go to college and we’ll see what happens.”
But I did always drive around… And Humberto and I talk about this all the time when listening to the radio, love songs on the coast. When you would call in, I always thought, “Oh, being a radio host would be fun, but we’ll see.” Maybe that’s another career.
Speaker 4:
There’s still time. There’s still time. By utter serendipity, you both end up at the University of California in Berkeley. Your mutual friend, Cynthia, Leon.
Speaker 3:
Yes.
Speaker 4:
Introduced you on a night that Carol, you were already in your pajamas. I understand that didn’t stop you. You just put on your heels with your pajamas and went out and got to know Humberto. Did you have a sense that this was going to be one of those defining moments in your lives? Did either of you think, “Oh my God, this is it. I am going to meet somebody who’s going to be my best friend, my business partner, and we’re going to hang out for the next couple of decades”?
Speaker 3:
I would say, yes. I mean, maybe not the business partners and decades, but when Humberto came over, he just has a way about making you feel like, you know what, anything is possible. So even though I said, “It’s 10:30 at night. We have class at 8:00 in the morning. I already brushed my teeth. I’m in my pajamas.” He’s like, “Just throw on heels. It’s going to be fine. You’ll get a few hours’ sleep. Don’t worry,” he’s equally exciting and reassuring at the same time. So he can get you to do anything.
I would say that’s been the nature of our relationship since then, which I think is why, in a way, we still work together. We hang out together. I think this sense of having fun while we do whatever it is we’re doing makes it always interesting.
Speaker 4:
How chic were those pajamas?
Speaker 3:
Oh, they were LL Bean Black Watch Plaid, the Navy… I know exactly what I was wearing.
Speaker 4:
When you were both in school… Oh, wait. Before I go on, I want to actually… Let’s go back. Humberto, did you have that sense when you met Carol, like, “She’s my girl”?
Speaker 1:
It’s funny because when I meet new people, I end up falling in love with people, and I really kind of treat my relationships that way, and I really give it my all. So I feel like I was excited to meet her. And if I’m really comfortable with people, people get to see this really ridiculous side of me. I feel like Carol definitely immediately saw this crazy energetic side of me. I think that was the beginning of just our friendship and my trust in her, and allowing me to be me in that moment.
Speaker 4:
The crowd you hung out with was described by journalist SuChin Pak as the following. “Carol and Humberto hung out with this ripped stockinged, heavy eye-lined, chain-smoking badass crew. I remember seeing them most days as I walked on campus, standing around looking bad-assy. Even then, they had their own sense of style, Northern, Cali, goth, chic, a little Morrisey meets sunshine prep.” What does that aesthetic actually look like?
Speaker 1:
It’s so funny. Okay. Hearing all this come back is so funny. I mean, I will not deny that we took getting dressed and going to school really serious. I will say that we all did hang around with a clique that really cared about what vintage clothing we were wearing. We were all shopping at Salvation Army, so it wasn’t like we were spending a ton of money. Maybe going to the outlets was our biggest splurge.
But it wasn’t shocking to see Carol and I in full faux fur coats with black boots and chain smoking on the steps of Sprawl. We just hung out with everyone who did this. We looked like a big group of people that ranged from 20 to 40 people. I mean, you would see John Cho, the actor, with us and you would see just all these people that were really into dressing up to go to college.
Speaker 4:
Leon, you graduated with a degree in art practice and American studies. Carol, you have a degree in economics. You began your career as an investment banker in San Francisco. Why?
Speaker 3:
Well, actually, I started as a consultant during the days when management consulting was very big. My first job was at Deloitte consulting in San Francisco. They offered a very good analyst program where I thought that was what I should do. And I studied economics. I wanted to get a good job. And it allowed travel. And so, I learned a lot of, I would say, fundamental skills, office politics.
I wore suits to my first job and panty hose. I wore funky suits, [inaudible 00:22:09], and I would go shopping. I’m like, “I need something funky to wear. I don’t want to just wear a normal Ann Taylor suit. And so, everyone would always comment on like… They’re like, “Wow, you have such a interesting style.” I would say that those were… My path shaped, I think, where I ended up career wise so I don’t have any regrets. And I enjoyed my time.
I did consulting and then I did investment banking before I moved to New York. So it was a bit of an interesting beginning, but I think all skills that were helpful.
Speaker 4:
Power exec. That’s the sort of vision I get of you in your suits with your blunt haircut and looking fierce. Leon, after graduation, you went back to the Gap. You were still working there. And Old Navy, you worked on in designing interiors. Then you were hired by Burberry to run visual merchandising in New York. Carol, you followed Humberto to New York and decided to try your hand in the fashion business as well.
You applied for a position at Ferragamo where you were offered a job as an intern. Coming from the investment consulting field, that must have felt like a real slap in the face. You turned it down and you got a job at Bally in planning and merchandising. Talk a little bit about that transition. How did your parents feel about you going from investment banking and consulting to planning and merchandising in the fashion business?
Speaker 3:
I think I sold them on the idea that I was going to take a year off, move to New York, study for the GMAT, because the track that I was on would send me to business school. They didn’t know my struggles in trying to find a job because, yes, everyone’s like mergers and acquisitions. They’re like, “We don’t know what that is, but yes, you can be an intern in fashion. You have to start from the bottom and work your way up.”
I thought, “How is this going to work if I’m going to try to live in New York and support myself?” It didn’t seem possible until the right opportunity found itself. Luckily, that opportunity was a block away from where Humberto was working. And so, it allowed us to always call each other and meet. We would go talk about, “Where are we going to have lunch?” That was the exciting thing, like, “Where are we going to eat?”
We would find all the Asian restaurants in Midtown. It was great because here we were now, back in the same city, and seeing each other every day and going out every night.
Speaker 4:
In April of 2000, you went on a vacation to Hong Kong together. I believe at the time, you went to shop, meet designers, eat, get massages. Instead, you had an epiphany that changed the trajectories of your lives. I was wondering if you can talk a little bit about how the idea for your business first came to fruition.
Speaker 1:
Yeah. Carol and I had worked these corporate jobs and me at Burberry, her at Bally. We had really just been really good employees, never took a vacation. And so, we were like, “We deserve a vacation.” And so, we decided we’re going to go visit our college friend who introduced us, Cynthia Leon, who is now living in Hong Kong as a journalist. And we said, “We’re going to come visit.”
I had been to Hong Kong a bunch, so I was like, “Carol, I’m going to show you my version of Hong Kong.” It’s like shopping, eating, massaging, all the stuff that we love. And so, when we went out there, we ended up meeting all these great young designers and all these cool people who are starting a magazine and just somebody making a bag, or just all these great people.
We were buying it up. I mean, Carol and I were shopping like there was no tomorrow. In that moment, I think sometime during that trip, we were like, “Oh my God, it’d be so cool if we opened up a store.” Because we were buying things and we were like, “Oh, so and so would love this, Ann would love this, and Scott would love this.” So we were just shopping, but thinking all the things our friends would love.
The idea of collectively bringing these people together back sprung upon us while we’re out there. Back home, we also had all these great friends, Benjamin Cho, Mary Ping, Rachel Comey, all these people who were young designers at the time. And we thought, “Oh, it’d be so cool if we came up with a concept where there was a competition.”
I mean, if you know Carol and I, we’re up for a competition every minute of our lives. So, at any moment, we’ll drop down and say, “Let’s do a hand wrestling competition right now. You and me, let’s run across that parking lot, who gets there first.” I mean, this is just our crazy mentality. So we decided to turn that energy into a shopping competition and who would win.
We came up with all these crazy ideas of like, okay, we’re going to tally, like, is it going to be the Hong Kong team or the American team? And who’s going to be winning at the end of this competition? So that’s the birth of Opening Ceremony.
Speaker 4:
Well, initially, you thought your store was going to be open from 9:00 AM to midnight. You’d planned to have a cash register that sat on a big lazy Susan, then at 8:00 PM, the lazy Susan would turn from a cash register to a DJ booth. You each put in $20,000 of your own money and you secured a $40,000 small business loan. Both your parents thought you were crazy.
What gave you the courage to do this, to take what I imagine was your life savings at that point and start something that you had no idea about whether or not would be successful?
Speaker 3:
I don’t know. Actually, I think about this all the time, as we mentor or… That’s one of the questions that people ask us, how did you have the courage to do it? I think youth maybe was on our side and a naive sensibility of, “Well, we could try this, and if it fails…” I think that was the other thing. We were like, “This might fail, but at least we tried.”
I think we were very realistic about how long we would try it. And if it failed after a year, then we would go back and go find jobs. To be honest, we had each other, like if either side was like, “Oh, I don’t know,” we would just prop each other up, and we would say, “If we don’t ever try this, we’re never going to try it.” We know the path that we could be on. We have this chance to do this together.
Remember, we could travel. A lot of it was around this idea of wanting to explore and bring things back. I think that’s what propelled us.
Speaker 1:
I also think Carol and I had been very good students and good kids on paper. We had been working hard our entire lives. Carol also started working as a teenager at the mall. So we both just were always diligent. We wanted to make our parents proud always. By the time we were 25, she and I had gone down these professional routes. And really, I think she and I were both, at some point, making six figures by the time we were 25. And in 2000, in the year 2000-
Speaker 4:
That’s impressive.
Speaker 1:
It’s huge. Huge, huge, huge for 25 year olds to be making six figures. I think at one point, I remember Carol and I talking, and I had just interviewed for this other visual job. I remember saying to Carol, and this was at the time we were concepting Opening Ceremony. I was like, “Okay, Carol, I’m getting offered this job. It’s like three times what I’m making at Burberry. It’s pretty monumental.”
We said to each other, “You know what? What’s really cool is we’ve proven to ourselves that we have a fallback plan. Like if the shit hits the fan and things don’t work out, we can go back to our old lives.” So I think Carol and I always knew we had our old lives to fall back on. She can go on the same trajectory as what she did before, I can go on my same path and continue.
This was our one moment at 27, to change our destiny, and also create something that we didn’t think was there, because we are the ultimate, most hardcore shoppers out there. And we will buy till 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning. If anybody’s selling anything, we are the number one people to sell to. There was nothing there for us because we were going to stores where people were putting plastic bags over white clothes.
We didn’t look the part of billionaire shoppers. So we would get side eyed when we come in and people would be not paying attention to us because we didn’t look like we could afford things. We thought, “We need to change this conversation. We need to create something that would be comfortable for us.” And that’s what Opening Ceremony began. We wanted stuff that was different but still affordable. And so, that was the mission, to create something for us.
Speaker 4:
This all was coming into fruition before 9/11, and then 9/11 happened. At that time, you decided to put the idea for your store on hold. But several months later, you both decided that you couldn’t “undream your dream”, which is one of the most interesting ways of thinking about our possibilities. I’m here to actually ask you to please make a t-shirt that says that, “Don’t undream your dream.”
In any case, you at that point decide to meet with a pro bono business advisor at Pace University, and you put together what you considered a real business plan. Was it really different from the original business plan that you had put together, or was that business plan just more amorphous and abstracted in your head and now you were writing it down and putting it on paper?
Speaker 3:
Well, so the aftermath September 11th, I think, we were there so close. We did, we said, “Is this the right time?” I think we agreed that we would think about it. One night Humberto called me and said, “I just saw this ad on…” What was it, New York Cares?
Speaker 1:
Yeah. New York Cares.
Speaker 3:
He’s like, “I think if we call this number, they can help us apply for a loan or maybe they’re giving money out,” so that we can start a business. He’s like, “I think it’s still the right time.” And we both agreed. When we called the number, it was obviously for businesses that had existed prior to, and were affected by September 11th.
But the people on the line gave us the number to Pace University. And Greg calendar, our SBA rep, is the best. We wrote this. No, and the business plan hadn’t changed. We put down on paper the vision for how we would imagine the store would look, the experience, and then the product. Then we put a financial plan together. It was quite a comprehensive document with a lot of description in it.
Greg read it and was very impressed. And he’s like, “Wow.” He’s like, “Someone hasn’t presented something this thought out.” He’s like, “So we’re going to cut 90% of it because the bank isn’t going to care about visiting countries-
Speaker 4:
The lazy Susan, right?
Speaker 3:
The lazy Susan, which you know what, one of these days we’re going to realize that vision.
Speaker 1:
I think he made it consumable to a banker, but deep down, we kept our word on everything we were doing. It was hard to explain. It’s like, if you don’t know it, you don’t know it. It was too much information for this banker.
Speaker 4:
You originally wanted the name of your business to be rooted in the idea of travel, and thought of calling it Terminal, but realized that that might conjure the idea of terminally ill. And your friend. Shannon Han came up with the name Opening Ceremony. But I read that Spike Jones has said this about your name, “Who would name a store that? It’s like naming your son Running Down The Street Wolinski.”
Did he give you some pushback at the time or was it only later that he felt that? I still don’t really quite understand it because I think Opening Ceremony, I read something about how somebody said ceremony is a hard word to be bitchy about. And I thought, “That’s pretty true.”
Speaker 1:
We didn’t meet Spike until after we opened Opening Ceremony. So thank God that happened. He would have changed the course of our name. But I think Carol and I… We did come up with names like Terminal. And every time we would come with a name, we would try to make fun of it because we thought that’s what people would do. So every name that we threw out, Terminal was a good one, because we would say like, “Oh, yeah, terminally ill.”
I mean, it’s interesting because Opening Ceremony, people always said like, “Ha ha, can’t wait for the closing ceremony.” But we thought ceremony was a word that was… It was really hard to make fun of. It was so celebratory and it felt like every year, when we introduced a new country, we could have a restart and a new celebration.
So, for us, it felt really positive and we thought it was because it was a long word, it would be hard to make fun of because the joke wouldn’t be funny anymore. This was our own internal thinking.
Speaker 4:
Fashion journalist, Eric Wilson, has said this about your early days. “Back then, no one could have predicted that Opening Ceremony, a thrifty little hole in the wall on what was perhaps the last grim strip of Soho, which was then untouched by big fashion, would go on to become the most influential retailer of its decade. The store did not seem so much designed as thrown together with clothes piled on a table or placed on racks, seemingly at random.
Browsing an ethnic print jacket or a deeply pleaded pair of pants, or some piece of fabric tied around a hanger, it wasn’t entirely clear where the men’s wear ended and the women’s wear began. The curtains of the dressing rooms right in the middle of the store didn’t even close all the way.”
Rather glorious. Rather glorious having. Having been there in those early days, it was absolutely glorious. That first year, you had created about 10 original pieces for the shop. Can you talk a little bit, for people that might not have visited the store back then, what else were you carrying and how did you decide what to carry?
Speaker 1:
I think Carol and I, when we went to look at designers or shop with designers or met with them to curate what we were going to buy, we always went for the really fun and exciting pieces. Like if you’re going to buy something from somebody, you want it to be memorable and stand out. It’s interesting because when we had bought all the stuff and Carol and I got a chance to look at it, we had friends coming, we were like, “Oh, look at all these things we bought.”
They were like, “Oh, cool. Put an outfit together for us.” And we were like, “Oh, okay.” And so we would put things together and we’re like, “Oh, wait.” Carol and I would go and whisper to each other like, “Oh, shoot, this is getting wild and crazy. These outfits are crazy.” We thought, “Wait, we’re missing some basics.”
And so, Carol and I came up with this term called basics plus, and we’re like, “We need basics plus, like a basic, but with something.” That’s how we started the Opening Ceremony Collection. It was really clothing to pair back to things you already own. This is not too far from the ethos of what we think of today, because you know what you buy from Opening Ceremony should go with things you already have.
It’s not meant to be you wear it head to toe. I think a lot of designers have this vision of like, “You’re going to wear my designs head to toe.” For us, it was we’re like, “Okay. What’s a great top to go with pants you already own? Or what’s a good dress to go with this amazing bag that you have?” The vision was always about creating a line that could go with what you already own.
That was the vision of how we created and that’s how Carol and I pulled together. We were like, “Okay, let’s list off the 10 items that we want.” It was a t-shirt, a sweatshirt, a jacket, a skirt. At the time, there wasn’t really gender involved, just because I would be like, “Oh, Carol. That’s a cute skirt.” Like, “Yeah, let me try that on.”
And so, we would just try on each other’s clothing. It’s funny because 20 years ago, I don’t know that we knew this language that we were speaking today, but there were a lot of things that today seems progressive. But at the time, we were just being so functional about what we were doing.
Speaker 4:
The diamond hoodie was your first big hit. The sweatshirt featured a diamond design, four triangles meeting at a point near the wearer’s sternum. It evoked a semaphore flag. Chloe Sevigny, who went on to design six fashion collections with you, said this about the shirt. “I first remember thinking, why is this fucking two-tone sweatshirt everywhere you look?” I’m wondering, did you ever figure out why it became so popular?
Speaker 1:
I think it was fashion without trying hard. It was something from a brand that had a point of view, but understandable to all. So whether it was a skater kid, a goth, or someone in fashion, everyone could relate to it because it was just easy and it wasn’t trying too hard. It was one of our best sellers and it was collectible.
Also, I think because Carol and I could only produce so much of everything, we started this mentality of a drop, or whatever you call it today, we started that, but mainly because of our resources. We only had X amount of funds in our company. So we created this momentum of, “If you don’t buy it now, you won’t get it.” And even with those sweatshirts, we created these limited colors that would…
I think because she and I owned it, so we were like we were on to the next and on to the next. And we were just making things that we loved. And so, there was this collectability to these things that we were making. But I think at the essence of it, we were creating just functional pieces with a design attitude.
Speaker 4:
Yeah.
Speaker 3:
You could throw it on and feel like this is an element that has been considered, but it’s very easy to wear. I think that that’s still a philosophy that we think about as we design collections today.
Speaker 4:
Beginning in 2003, you focused on bringing new products to the US from a different country every year. You introduced New Yorkers to Havaianas flip flops from Brazil in 2003. I understand that you saw those plastic flip flops in a grocery store in Brazil and filled your suitcases with them. What gave you the sense, again, like this diamond hoodie, you were able to pinpoint and create the zeitgeist at the same time?
Suddenly they were everywhere. Suddenly everyone had to have them. Havaianas ended up having a huge retail presence in the United States because of that moment. What gave you the sense that these little plastic flip flops would be such a mega hit?
Speaker 1:
I think it shows Carol and my interest in just design. I don’t think that we’re thinking high end or low end. It’s just what Carol and I love. I mean, that particular trip, Carol and I were in Brazil, jet lagged. I think it was like 2:00 in the morning and we asked our friend, we’re like, “Let’s open. We want to go shopping.” And they were like, “You guys, shopping at 2:00 in the morning, there’s nothing open. There’s this 24-hour market that’s I think equivalent to a Walmart or things like that.” We were like, “Oh, really? Okay, cool. Take us there.” And so we go to this Mercado at the time.
Speaker 3:
It was called Extra.
Speaker 1:
Oh yeah, Extra. We go there and I remember Carol and I each took a cart, because that’s how crazy we are, because we’re not going to mess around. We came across this wall of these flip flops, and our friend was like, “Oh, yeah, these are these Brazilian-made things. It’s for Brazilians. It’s just a casual thing.” And we were like, “Oh, okay, cool.”
So then we just went and we were like, “Okay, this is for my mom, my sister, my friend.” And we ended up each filling up both our grocery carts with, I would say, probably 50 pairs of Havaianas. We looked at each other, we were like, “Wait, should we bring some of these back for Opening Ceremony?” And we were like, “How do we get it? And we were like, “Okay, let’s write down this…” I don’t even think we had cell phones that could take pictures at the time.
But we were like, “Let’s write down this phone number on the back of this tag, and we’re like, “We’re going to call them.” Our friends thought we were insane. Our Brazilian friends were like, “What the hell are you guys doing?” And we’re like, “We’re just buying this stuff.” They’re like, “Why? This makes no sense.” And we’re like, “Because we just love these and they’re so cool.”
I don’t know if we bought a small quantity or we got them to ship us at wholesale a couple boxes. I remember Travel + Leisure came in just out of the blue and they’re like, “We’re going to take some pictures of your store.” And we’re like, “Okay.” All of a sudden this mad calling from people all around the world to ship them Havaianas, that, I think at the time, they were $15, and people coming off the street, taking off their boots and their sweaty socks and trying on a thousand pairs of Havaianas.
I remember our coworker at the time was like, “I am so grossed out with everyone just trying on all these flip flops all the time.
Speaker 4:
A lot of feet.
Speaker 1:
We ended up selling thousands and thousands of pairs per week. This became a crazy phenomenon that just started from this random market trip that we did. There’s thousands of examples of those types of experiences that happened in all these different places that we traveled. That was the start of it.
Speaker 4:
There’s a scene in the Devil Wears Prada that I really feel was stolen on the model that you guys created, especially at the time that the movie came out. The movie came out in 2006 and you were bringing all of these new products to the world from different places in the world. I just wanted to share it with you because I really truly believe that this is based on you guys.
In the movie, the Vogue editor, Miranda Priestly, played by Meryl Streep. She chastises her assistant, Anne Hathaway’s character, for laughing at a decision that they’re making about choosing one of two blue belts that she thinks looks exactly the same, and then excuses her ignorance by stating she’s just learning about this stuff.
And Miranda says this to her, “You go to your closet and you select that lumpy blue sweater you’re wearing because you’re trying to tell the world that you take yourself too seriously to care about what you put on your back. But what you don’t know is that sweater is not just blue, it’s not turquoise, it’s not lapis, it’s actually cerulean.
You’re also blithely unaware of the fact that in 2002, Oscar de la Renta did a collection of cerulean gowns. And I think it was Yves Saint Laurent who showed cerulean military jackets. And then cerulean quickly showed up in the collections of eight different designers. Then it filtered down through the department stores and then trickled on down to some tragic casual corner where you no doubt fished it out of some clearance bin.
However, that blue represents millions of dollars of countless jobs. And it’s sort of comical how you think that you’ve made a choice that exempts you from the fashion industry, when in fact, you’re wearing a sweater that was selected for you by the people in this room from a pile of stuff.”
I thought, “Wow, that’s what Carol and Humberto were doing. They were picking out the fashion of the time for the people.” I just don’t know how you were able to strike gold over and over and over and still do to this day, 20 years later, where you pick out things that other people want. What’s the secret?
Speaker 1:
I mean, I think Carol and I just go with our gut with… And I think we’re really curious. I think that’s probably the start of it. We’re very, very curious people and we want to know, we want to learn, we want to dig, we want to seek. And we’re not too good to dig anywhere. Like we will go and find and drive and hound someone in some random country because we heard they make these crochet socks.
We will badger them to open their doors, even during the pandemic, and say, “Please, we’ll buy it for you. I know you’re not selling to stores and you’re not open for business,” and we’ll be like, “We’re going to buy stuff, we promise.” I think that’s just our way of… We’re just curious, we love shopping, and we just love seeking. It’s been amazing because through Opening Ceremony, we’ve also had a bird’s eye view of this domino effect of fashion that you mentioned, where we got to see every designer come through and shop and inspiration shop and look, and to see where collections began.
And so, I think it’s really interesting. We happen to just be at a really interesting point of view. It’s interesting just to see the circle of fashion and where it all begins.
Speaker 3:
Yeah. Things are constantly being created, reinvented in all parts of the world. We have a voracious appetite to learn about what’s happening and where it’s happened from the beginning. Where are the original sources? I think we’re probably the last generation pre-internet, so I think you had to do your research, wait for that monthly magazine subscription to come. You’d read it covered to cover. I think we are very interested in origin sources.
Speaker 4:
You went on to introduce Topshop from the UK in 2005, Cheap Monday and Acne jeans from Sweden in 2006, SUNO from Japan in 2008, Carven from France in 2010. You also helped launch labels from Alexander Wang, Rodarte, Proenza Schouler. When you see something that you like, like the Havaianas, that first product, or even the diamond sweatshirt, do you have like that spidey sense? Does something come over you that says, “This is it,” or do you sense that you’re taking a gamble?
Speaker 1:
I think Carol and I get those butterflies in our stomach where we’re like, “We need this now.” And it’s coming from a really personal point of view, but we’re really just like, “Wait, we need this now. Okay. Its sample size is not going to fit us, but we need this now.” I think it’s just that feeling, and I think it’s the same when we walked into JW Anderson’s first show and saw his first collection.
He was like, “Oh, you’re the only retailer buying this.” And we’re like, “Great.” We were so excited. It was these spiky Doc MartEns and crazy, crazy clothing. And the same feeling when we saw the first Jacquemus presentation, and we went to that. The cool thing is I think we were a lot of people’s first retailers to really, really be behind their brand.
We still get that butterfly feeling when Carol and I see something that we’re obsessed with. I think we’re easily, easily obsessed with things that have a really, really good point of view and something that looks and feels new or different.
Speaker 4:
You’ve also had collaborations with brands, including Pendleton’s, Levis, Doc Martens, Vans, Bass, Timberland, Teva, which blew my mind, Nike, COACH, Esprit. You did Capsule Collections with the Muppets, with Mickey Mouse. You created an Intel smart watch. Yoko Ono designed men’s pants for you, one with a hand print on the crotch and others with the sheer panel over the wearers behind.
You created, as I mentioned, Six Collections with Chloe. In 2010, you collaborated with Maison Margiela, which was their first co-branded project in its history. After all of these successful collaborations, you decided you wanted to work more deeply with an individual brand, and in an effort to make a bigger impact in the overall business. You began pitching fashion brands, but were turned down by everyone you met with except Kenzo.
Why did you get turned down so often? What gave you the sense that this was still something you wanted to pursue, even despite the rejection? What did you do to win Kenzo over?
Speaker 1:
At the time, in 2012, it was our 10-year anniversary, we said to each other, “Okay, what are we going to do in our 10-year?” We said, “Okay, aside from a celebration and a party, we know that’s going to happen, we need to prove something to ourselves, that we can actually transform a business,” because I think nobody saw us as a business transformer, a financial, like we’re going to help a company make money.
I think Kenzo was actually the first company that we went to at that time. They were like, “Interestingly enough, we’re actually looking to change creative directors, but we already made a decision and we’re going to announce it this week.” We said, “You haven’t heard our version yet. We are Asian. This is an Asian-found house. We think you could really tell the right story by having Asian creative directors come in and totally shake up the game of what a luxury brand could be.”
I think that statement piqued their curiosity and they said, “Okay, if you can come to Paris in the next two days and show us what you’re talking about, present it to the board, you could have a chance. But just so you know, we’ve already vetted this. We’ve interviewed 10 different, huge designers to take on this role and we’ve landed on one, and this announcement’s going to be made on Friday.”
So Carol and I spent two nights. It was like our overnighter in college again, putting together a collection. We thought, “Okay, aside from putting together a collection, we’re going to put together a marketing plan, a digital plan. We’re going to put together videos that we’re going to make and commercials we were going to make.”
So we put together all this, including a three-minute reel, and an accessories collection, all this stuff. Flew to Paris and Carol and I had our interview. I remember we had about a 60-page presentation, as well as a three-minute video. 20 minutes into our presentation, there was, I think, maybe about six people in suits sitting around us, including Pierre-Yves, who was, at the time, the head of this division at LVMH.
20 pages in, we could see he was smiling when we were presenting. Because we’re nerds, we really worked on our presentation. He closed our presentation and said, “Wow, you guys, you’re hired.” And we said, “Okay, we still have half more of our presentation to go and we have a video to show you. So I’m sorry, we have to continue.” We went on to continue our whole presentation. And-
Speaker 3:
There was clapping at the end.
Speaker 1:
There was clapping-
Speaker 4:
Oh, nice.
Speaker 1:
There was laughing. There was smiling. And then we went to tour the offices that night. Obviously, there were still people working there and no announcements had been made. But I remember him walking into the office and saying, “This is going to be yours.” It was probably one of the most magical and surreal moments of our lives.
Speaker 4:
Did you ever find out who was supposed to get that job?
Speaker 1:
We did. We know everyone that interviewed for that job and we know. This person that was going to take over the job, actually, we came back to New York and we had a party and this person happened to be at our party. He came up to me and said, “Humberto, I want to thank you.” And I said, “For what?” And he said, “It’s going to be announced this week. I’m the creative director of Kenzo.”
It was the most shocking thing. I remember finding Carol and then saying, “Oh my God, Carol, this is happening, this really awkward moment. We are going to be announced on Friday and this person is going to… I don’t know what this person’s going to think.” Needless to say, this person landed an incredible, incredible position, who still works at this incredible post.
It was meant to be, and I believe that everything in life is meant to be, and he’s one of the best designers in the world. I’m so happy it worked out the way it did, because I think the world of fashion would have been very different today had that not happened.
Speaker 4:
2020 was a monumental year for the world. It was a monumental year for the two of you as well. You created your last show for Kenzo in June of 2020. You also made the decision to close your retail stores in the US and Japan and sold Opening Ceremony to New Guards Group, which owns Off-White, the great brand, Off-White and Heron Preston. You’re still very much the co-creative directors of the house line and run the business. What has this transition been like for you? It’s almost like a huge astrological event occurred in both your lives.
Speaker 1:
And then the pandemic happened on top of everything.
Speaker 4:
Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1:
So I really think that-
Speaker 4:
And we talk about timing to close the stores right before the pandemic. My God.
Speaker 1:
I know. It’s funny because nothing… I mean, things were planned, but the world wasn’t planned.
Speaker 4:
Right.
Speaker 1:
I think Carol and I always take what’s given to us and we really run with it. I think that it was an incredible time for us to reset and rethink how we work, and what we want to do, and what our priorities are, and what is fun, and what is exciting, and just, I think, how to rethink everything.
We looked at it as this incredible time for us to just rethink, process, reignite our excitement and creativity to want to do more, meet new people, to bring along in our community and just really reassess, I think, how to think about the future of what we’re doing.
Speaker 3:
I think we’ve also always embraced change. I think, because we are two friends and business partners, we haven’t had anyone to answer to. We have never minded change, and I think that’s been, I think, our strongest asset in terms of… Or one of our strongest assets, because as the world change, as people and brands and how people talk directly to their customer, the landscape has changed from when we started in 2002 to 2020.
We said to each other, “What’s the ultimate reset?” And we’re like, “Okay, let’s change. We’re not afraid to do it and see what this next chapter for the brand can evolve to.” And yes, the whole world went through a monumental shift. In many ways, we couldn’t have timed this any better. And I think we’re excited. We’re informed also about, from what we experience as human beings. We’ve never separated what’s motivated us personally and professionally.
And so, as things have been happening, it’s given us the chance to think about how to use our platform in ways. Humberto has twin daughters. I have two daughters. I mean, there’s a lot that we think about that’s different from our days in New York in 2000. That’s great because we’re not back there anymore. So I think moving forward is always what we get excited about.
Speaker 4:
What is the secret to your long-term successful friendship? I know so many people that started businesses as friends, that didn’t end the businesses as friends. The businesses changed because of the strife in the friendship. You seem to really just enjoy each other’s company and get a lot of joy in collaborating. Are there ways you’ve managed to create that ease? Is it something that you’ve had to work on?
Speaker 1:
I think we’re friends first and then we work together. At the end of the day, we’re going to hang out, and veg out, and go eat, and do silly things. We know that that’s what we’ll do, no matter what. 20 years from now, she and I will go and find some hole in the wall restaurant and go and seek it out and go eat it. Yeah, I think we’re friends first.
And in our business, we talk about everything, and it has to make sense to both of us. We’re good about considering other. I think every decision we make, we consider the other person. So it’s thinking about, what is it that we want out of this?
Speaker 3:
Yeah. I think having been friends since 1993, I think we… I can anticipate the things that would excite Humberto, and things that I know he wouldn’t be interested in. So in a way, I can precut out any guesswork. And so, I think when we apply that to business, I can already ask all the questions.
If there’s a business meeting, we’ve gotten to the point where he may not even need to be present anymore, because I’ve absorbed the things that he would look out for and vice versa. And so, I think when you think about that, it’s really about, “Oh, I know…” I mean, maybe we’ll argue about where to go eat and he’ll always say, “What do you want?” And I’ll say, “Oh, anything.” And then he knows secretly I have probably an idea in my mind and he’ll be like, “I know you want this. Let’s go there.”
But the most important thing is we still have a lot of fun. I mean, we are laughing all the time. Our motto is squeezing fun no matter what, even if we’re driving in the car. I mean, often when we travel, we’ll be in a taxi and we’ll like, “Please stop for five minutes.” We’ll jump out. I think we have this spontaneous energy that is very similar, that allows us to continue going forward into the future.
Speaker 4:
Well, the last thing I want to talk to you about is your collaboration with the Linda Lindas, the all-girl punk group and the most exciting band to emerge in a long, long time. In fact, I think that they’re evidence that civilization is not doomed right now. Would you agree?
Speaker 1:
Yes, totally.
Speaker 3:
100%.
Speaker 4:
Leading question.
Speaker 1:
Totally agree.
Speaker 4:
Leading question.
Speaker 1:
Totally agree. Carol and I are obsessed with them.
Speaker 3:
Aside from the sheer talent and great music that they create, I find that exactly to be true, that they’re a shining light. They’re really, to me, hope. I really get so emotional when I see them perform or I hear their song. My daughters love them. They’re like, “We want to be the Linda Lindas when we grow up.” I just think that’s right, and we need to nurture more of that.
Speaker 4:
Humberto, you directed their recent video, Growing Up. Can you talk about how and why you decided to get involved with the band, and then ultimately how you created this visual aesthetic that is so compelling and so unique? I’d love to hear as much detail as you can share. I’m obsessed with this band, as you can see.
Speaker 3:
Oh.
Speaker 1:
We were having an event for this Herb Ritts launch at Chifa for Opening Ceremony. So it was this multiple collaboration. Carol’s cousin happened to know one of the dads, because the dad, this guy named Martin, who’s Eloise’s dad, started this magazine called Giant Robot. They were mutual friends, had mutual friends in this. So then he invited them to come to this party.
We met them, Carol and I. Obviously, this is after Racist, Sexist Boy. And so, we were obsessed with them. We were so excited. Everyone there was like, “Move out of the way. They’re coming in.” They were treated like Madonna was walking in, in the 1980s.
Speaker 4:
Yeah. For our listeners that might not be aware, the Linda Lindas, the age range is about 11 to 17, four young women, just so we can get a good visual as people are listening to you.
Speaker 1:
Yeah. They came with all their parents, so they were a party of 14 or 13 or something like that. Carol and I became friends with them, and I was like, “I’d love to direct a music video for you one day.” And they were like, “Oh, cool. Yeah, sounds great. We have a new album coming out.”
“Each of them wrote a song and we don’t know which one’s going to be the single. So it’s early in the stage. Why don’t you listen to them and tell me which one you want to make a video for?” I said, “I know that you guys love cats. I want to make a video about cats for you. But I want to like twist that on its head.” And they were like, “Okay.”
And so, I listened to the songs, and Growing Up, to me, just felt like an anthem for them, but also for me and everybody that listened to that song. It just feels like the most positive song out there, that anybody could relate to.
Speaker 4:
It seems like a really perfect nother serendipitous match. Carol Lim, Humberto Leon, thank you so much for making so much work that matters. And thank you so much for joining me today on Design Matters. It has been an absolute honor.
Speaker 1:
Thank you so much.
Speaker 3:
Yes. Thank you. And next time we need to ask you some questions too.
Speaker 1:
You can find out more about Opening Ceremony on their website, openingceremony.com. This is the 18th year we’ve been podcasting Design Matters and I’d like to thank you for listening. Remember, we can talk about making a difference, we can make a difference, or we can do both. I’m Debbie Millman and I look forward to talking to you again soon.
Speaker 2:
Design Matters is produced for the Ted Audio Collective by Curtis Fox Productions. Interviews are usually recorded at the School of Visual Arts Masters in Branding Program in New York City, the first and longest running branding program in the world. The editor-in-chief of Design Matters Media is Emily Weiland.