For most of his life, Jacob Alvarez has sought out items that he could hold in two hands. From comic books to CDs, he has a lot of reverence for physical objects in a screen-damaged world — a tradition that’s followed by some of the most groundbreaking, revered eccentrics across the globe. Think of J Dilla, who found a second home in record shops and had thousands of LPs tucked away in a Detroit storage unit, or John Peel and Haruki Murakami, whose titanic vinyl collections always seem to surface on social media.

Read more: Plushie Love is creating collectible toys of your hardcore heroes

It’s fitting, then, that Alvarez is turning his passion into preservation by channeling his love of alternative, indie rock, and beyond into bootleg action figures with Marquee Marauders Club. Since 2019, he has constructed dozens of small-batch collectibles, typically limited to one-of-one drops, that are supremely original and possess spectacular attention to detail. There’s 6 Feet Beneath the Moon-era King Krule, decked out in the brown suit that he wore during the “Easy Easy” music video, next to Tierra Whack and a shirtless Flea. No two are the same, all are hand-painted and diligently crafted, and each is packaged as you’d see them on the shelves of a vintage toy shop, complete with warning labels and sometimes a lyric from the artist.

Alvarez is a long way from his first figure — a replica of Interpol’s Paul Banks, his favorite band, which gave the project legs — but it’s a grind, chronicling the artists who are defining our current moment. He has dreams of doing something big in collaboration with luminaries like Radiohead — he’s still hoping for new music — and Red Hot Chili Peppers down the line. “I’m just hoping to make stuff that people will think is cool, but I’m always open to anything,” he shares, speaking in front of a wall of framed vinyl from Los Angeles. “What I like about this is that when I get commissions or emails, I may have not even necessarily heard the artist before, and meeting people and making connections brings me into different places that I probably would’ve never been able to go by myself.” For now, though, he’s continuing to immortalize the music he loves with every figure and create an alternative future — one where memorabilia stretches beyond a colored record or tee.

Do you remember the first artist you ever saw live?

Yes, it was in 2012 at the El Rey Theatre here in LA. My dad took me to one of his favorite bands. They’re called James. I think they’re from the U.K. They were pretty big in the ’90s. They had a few hits, but I wasn’t necessarily a big fan of them. My dad, going to school and stuff like that on car rides, would play them over and over again, so it was someone that I was really familiar with. Then when I saw that, I was addicted. It wasn’t even just the music itself. It was, “I need to go to concerts from now on. This is crazy.”

Did seeing them live change your perception and how you listened to their studio songs?

Exactly. Everyone’s staring at the stage, and the band literally [walked] through the crowd from the back and made their way to the stage, and that was something that I didn’t even know that you could do. I had never seen that before, so I was just like, “Whoa, this is really intense,” but in the best way. 

How many shows do you think you went to last year?

That’s a good question. I’ve been trying to do [more] photography, so I guess in general, with that mixed in with going as a fan as well, I would say maybe 80-90. I’ve been trying to up it every year or so.

Your figurines are totally original. How do you determine who you’re going to make — is it based on album cycles, anniversaries, and tour schedules, or is it more impulsive than that?

It’s a good mixture of all of ’em. I think at the beginning, it was basically impulse. What am I listening to right now? Lately, though, I’ve been lucky enough to get more commission work, so I’ll have more people and artists reach out to me, and they’ll want to do something for an album cycle [or] for an anniversary. I also always make a list of things like, “OK, this year all these albums are celebrating 10 years or 15 years or 20 years,” and obviously, it’s stuff that I like or resonates with me. So when that date rolls around, I’m hoping to have things done, with time permitted. My schedule’s all over the place, but I tend to try to do more of those passion projects while mixing in commissions that are asked of me.

And they’re all pretty much one of one, right?

Yeah, for the most part, they’re one of one. I’ll hand-sign ’em and label them one of one or one of 10, whatever. If you got it, you got it. If you didn’t, find it on eBay, but that’s it. I try to keep it exclusive. That’s super important to me.

What are some of the best artist interactions you’ve had with either people seeing your figures online or physically holding them in their hands?

There’s been quite a lot for me. I’m sure there’s many that I’m leaving out, but one that comes to mind was last year, I did Slowdive. Rachel [Goswell] has been following my work for a little while now because I made her something a couple of years ago, but I never sent it to her just because I wasn’t really happy with it, so I ended up redoing something [around] her new look and the album, and then I saw they were playing here, maybe 10 minutes away. Then she invited me to the after-party, and we met. It was really brief because I think they were going to San Francisco the very next day, so they had to get on the bus, but she was super nice about it, and she took a picture and was talking to me, asking me how I do stuff and about the music. Meeting people like that is really nice.

I went to a show with KAYTRAMINÉ, and my friend does work with them, so I said, “Hey, I have this idea. Do you think that they would like it?” And he was like, “Yeah, go for it.” After a couple of weeks, I finally got it done, and I went to the show. Then afterwards, he invited me backstage where they were in their green room. It was a group, maybe 10 to 12 people, and I gave it to ’em, and they were yelling and screaming and hyping me up. To get that [reaction] is cool. It’s a little bit more rare. You don’t always get that interaction with them directly, but it was really special for me, and I was just like, “Well, that’s exactly why I do this kind of thing.”

Does it normally take you a week per figure?

It really depends on how intricate the design is. Just to give myself enough time to be comfortable, I’d say maybe two weeks because the painting process is the thing that takes a long time. You got to do extra coats, get the little details right, because I’m hand-painting the eyes and everything, so it does take some time.

Some of my favorites are the ones with accessories. It feels like they have an extra-special touch, like with The Estate Sale-era Tyler, the Creator carrying the suitcase or Weyes Blood’s dog.

I’m trying to do that more often. It just gets super complicated when you’re doing little mini things. You want to make sure that they don’t break, and you want to get it just right. And to do that several times, it becomes a process. But when you’re doing just one for fun and you have all this time to put energy into it, then I try to do that as much as possible.

I also saw that your figures were used in the Eyedress and Mac DeMarco video for “My Simple Jeep.” How did that collaboration happen?

Well, he’s been following my stuff for a while now, and previously we did a few figures for him in 2021. He’s just that kind of guy that’s into collectibles like me. He has old Simpsons figures. He has a respect for it, like me. Out of the blue, he said, “Hey, you know what? I have this music video coming out. Do you want to maybe do this?” I’ve been hit up to do stuff for music videos before, but it just never worked out or the time frame was super small, so it didn’t come to fruition.

But with him, he gave me some time, and I worked with the team that was producing the video, and everyone was super cool. The director of it, Sandy Kim, is a photographer that I look up to a lot, and I’ve gotten to see her gallery and things like that. And of course, Mac DeMarco, huge fan, got to work with him, too. We had to get mini figures, so almost like the accessories that we’re talking about, but they’re trying to fit into a replica Jeep car. It was really fun, something I hadn’t done before, and it was a learning process. Then from that spawned this marketable thing where we could sell the actual figures from the video, and we did a few of those. It was a really cool experience, and my hope is to get something like that again.

Do you collect anything else?

Yeah, I collect a lot of stuff — whatever piques my interest. I try to get signed vinyl as much as possible, tour posters. Obviously, I have a lot of band shirts. There was a year where I was just buying as many old-school band tour shirts [as I could]. I have a No Doubt one from the ’90s, and I collect other figures. I have some stuff from my childhood — comic books, CDs, stuff like that. Just anything that I think is cool. I try to do this whole thing to fit into that space and just see, “Man, that’s something that a fan would want” because everyone has a T-shirt. Everyone gets a record, but not everyone gets a figure.

It’s really something that you could only get online or at a merch booth.

I feel like there’s a lot more creators now that are coming out. I’ve seen someone that does replica baseball cards now. There’s Legos out there. There’s a bunch of different creatives doing some crazy stuff now. It’s cool to just see everything shift. I know we’re living in a digital age now — Best Buy is not selling DVDs anymore. I’ve always been a person that I like to have stuff in my hands. I like to have the CDs and have the vinyl, so I like that it’s going more in that direction, too, at least with creators like myself that are not super popular. It’s starting to bring about a change.

Marquee Marauders Club appears in our Spring 2024 Issue with cover stars Liam Gallagher/John Squire, Kevin Abstract, the Marías, and Palaye Royale. Head to the AP Shop to grab a copy. 

Hardcore is in one of its most thrilling states right now. Turnstile have entered the mainstream with their blinding, full-throttled anthems, and bands like Scowl and Militarie Gun aren’t far behind. So what if you could own a collectible plushie of your favorite bands? That’s exactly what Sophie and Emma Hendry, the masterminds behind Plushie Love, set out to do.

Read more: Zulu are expanding the look and feel of hardcore

After years of designing merch and flyers, as well as playing in bands — Emma is in ​​Phantasia, Krimewatch, and fish narc, whereas Sophie sings in Firewalker — the Hendry siblings are using their talents to make cuddly, one-of-a-kind creations. They aren’t a nostalgia trip as much as valuable, authentic pieces of merch, though, just as collectible as a tee or limited-edition poster. Each plushie is singular in its own right, and many are tour exclusives. The Power Trip plush wears an executioner mask and holds a bloody ax, whereas the Turnstile Snoozle possesses supernatural horns and baby pink fur. Glancing through their collection, you can feel the deep love and appreciation for the scene that raised them. Here, the duo details the inspiration behind their lovable and cute creations.

It’s so nice to feel seen by others who fall in the middle of the Venn diagram of hardcore music and stuffed animals. First things first, how did Plushie Love start?

SOPHIE HENDRY: We grew up obsessed with cute things like Furbies, and I don’t think it ever really went away. I had been collecting vintage plushies and living in Olympia for a few years, and Emma had an eclectic collection of cute objects and trinkets at her space in NYC. We started concocting the idea in 2019, during a time when we hadn’t spent much time together, since I moved to the West Coast. We always thought we would start a band together, but it didn’t really happen while living on different coasts and being in other bands. [So] we started Plushie Love as a project we could do together. We set out to invent what we, albeit subjectively, were calling “the most objectively cute” creature on the face of the planet. We viewed it as a scientific study based on research and experiments with proportions. 

EMMA HENDRY: We both had been playing in bands for years and designing merch and flyers. So it was pretty inevitable that our lives in hardcore and punk music would play a role in our plushies. 

What is that intersection of heavy music and plushies all about? It’s super real, however contradictory it seems on the surface. 

EMMA: We don’t go into it with any sort of irony. It’s not so different from buying a T-shirt, just another type of merch you can buy to support bands. We were pleasantly surprised by the demand for plushies by music/plushie fans. I think people enjoy curating their own collections of merch and decor in their rooms as a form of self-expression.

What are your first music memories together? Did you go to a lot of shows growing up?

SOPHIE: First music memories… We grew up in early childhood listening to New Order, the Specials, PIL, Ramones, and Social Distortion, which is what our parents played at home. Throughout high school, we attended all sorts of shows in Massachusetts, in VFWs, basements, skateparks — even the Wise chip factory once. There were lots of hardcore shows at the Christ Church in Medway where we grew up. We didn’t start playing in punk and HC bands until we moved to Boston after high school. 

What’s your process of working with a band on an item? Is it collaborative, or is it more like an ode to the artist?

SOPHIE: We always want input from the band — so it’s definitely collaborative. I’ll usually draw something up as a starting point for the conversation, and we edit from there. For the Turnstile plush, they definitely wanted him to have something special and mystical about him, so we gave him some really weird wings and extra curly horns. Kat [Moss] from Scowl asked for stars on its cheeks. I created a flower design as a starting point, and she showed me her current inspiration/mood board for their upcoming record, so we worked on the colors to make him feel more spooky and alien and neon. 

How did you name the Snoozle?

EMMA: We were inspired by retro toy names that were mashups of cute-sounding words — Furby, WuvLuvs, Popples, Chubbles, Puffkins, Wuzzles. We also wanted there to be a thematic element to the name. Since the character in our drawings looked really sleepy, we wanted to start out with the word “snooze.” 

SOPHIE: Emma came up with the word Snoozle, and I was like, “We gotta go with that.”

What’s next?

EMMA: We hope to make more accessories and unique clothing pieces [and] work with more bands, artists, and small stores that we vibe with. Also, we plan on completing our line of 12 birthstone-themed plushies. So far we have Emerald, Amethyst, Pearl, and Ruby.

Plushie Love appears in our Winter 2023 Issue with cover stars Green Day, 070 Shake, Militarie Gun, and Arlo Parks. Head to the AP Shop to grab a copy. 

Alternative culture is all Shy Snider has ever known. The first concert she went to was AC/DC while she was in utero, and even as a small child, the sounds of Rob Zombie rattled her eardrums. At 7, her favorite band was System of a Down, who she learned about from her three older brothers. There was no teenage emo phase, nor that lightning bolt moment that happens when you hear “Welcome to the Black Parade” for the first time. Snider was immersed in it, even before day one. 

Read more: Rachael “Steak” Finley is the ultimate alt girl

When she was 11, Snider went to watch one of her brothers play in a hardcore band. “I remember it being so violent,” she recalls over Zoom from her home in LA just a few days before Thanksgiving. “Someone grabbed me and put me under a table.” Nonetheless, she loved it. As she grew older and got more invested in hardcore, however, Snider realized she felt sidelined in such an overwhelmingly masculine space. She even felt it when she went to the merch table and the only options on offer were T-shirts and hoodies sized with men in mind, which looked baggy and boxy on women’s smaller bodies. 

Sick of these identikit options, Snider started printing band logos on “slutty clothes.” “I was so tired of wearing band shirts all the time — it was just so boring,” she says. “I felt like women were so underrepresented in alternative fashion, especially in hardcore. It was all skewed towards men, but women are the prime fashion buyers. Being feminine and being hardcore [amounted to] being a poser.” It ended up being the first step toward Havoc, which she started to create a space for the “hot clothes” she was desperate to see in alternative fashion. 

“The brand blew up a lot faster than I was even prepared for,” Snider says. In just two years, Havoc has ballooned into one of modern alt fashion’s hottest prospects, but despite that, Snider’s hardcore background still shapes it to this day. Havoc has frequently collaborated with numerous bright lights from the scene, including Zulu, Pain of Truth, Koyo, Twitching Tongues, and Scowl.

“I went to one of [Scowl’s] shows. I’d never heard of them, but then I saw Kat [Moss], and she was super hot, screaming in a miniskirt, and I was like, ‘That shit rocks,’” she continues. “If that was around when I was a kid in hardcore, that would have changed the trajectory of my life because I dressed so masculine and was afraid to show my body. I ended up doing that collab with Scowl because I just wanted girls who were coming into hardcore to be like, ‘I’m welcome here.’ If you start selling stuff for girls, then subconsciously, you start feeling like this is a scene for you, too, and not just the boys.” 

To start, Snider was hand-making a lot of Havoc’s clothes to order, but its growth eventually outpaced the speed at which she could put garments together. When it became unsustainable, she got manufacturers involved but found that her mental health nosedived when she was no longer making clothes. “I was so depressed. I genuinely really enjoy making stuff,” she says. Indeed, making clothes ended up becoming a vital coping mechanism when Snider was trying to get sober — an outlet, she mentions, for her addictive personality — even to the point where she’d stay up all night creating. Nowadays, the brand encompasses both manufactured and hand-made limited-run items as a means of a happy medium between keeping business sense and Snider’s own mental state.

Hand-making has also given Havoc a suitably punk, “slow-fashion” ethos. Sometimes, handmade items don’t arrive on customers’ doorsteps till between two to four weeks after they’ve ordered them, and occasionally it’s sparked questions from buyers expecting the same delivery speeds as Amazon Prime. Not behaving like a megacorp, however, is Havoc’s MO. 

The brand prides itself on being “anti-fashion,” and a large part of that, as Snider explains, represents rejecting harmful fast-fashion practices. “Fast fashion is so big, and it’s so bad for the environment. It’s literally the second biggest polluter in the world; it’s destroying the planet. Anti-fashion, to me, is fashion that’s made in the U.S., using handmade, upcycled, or thrifted garments.” Nowadays, being anti-fashion has also meant turning away from the high-end fashion houses that, for better or worse, have ripped and appropriated alternative fashion for customers who are expected to throw thousands of dollars at it. “You have Givenchy doing a shirt that’s in fucking metal font. Balenciaga is making actual track pants. It’s insane. They’re all pulling these influences from different underground subcultures. I’m not the person ripping from the small brands.”

Despite this, Snider isn’t as critical of this practice as she used to be, especially if it means that a previously uncool mode of dressing that might have otherwise put a target on her back is now seen as trendy. “I used to really hate it, but at the same time, I do think it’s cool. I got so badly bullied that I had to be home-schooled, and I felt like such an outcast in society, so I’m happy that [alternative fashion is becoming accepted by the mainstream]. Hopefully kids like me don’t have to go through that anymore.”  

Nonetheless, it’s provided a climate in which Havoc has been able to flourish, even catching the attention of stars as huge as Doja Cat and Bring Me the Horizon’s Oli Sykes. “He just DMed me asking for clothes!” Snider recalls. “It was so cool because when I was a kid, I loved Bring Me the Horizon. It was definitely such a full-circle moment in my life, and I don’t think I even realized what a big deal [Havoc had become] until he posted the photos.” The more left-field partnership with Doja Cat, however, proved slightly more controversial. “She’s hot, and she has a punk attitude,” she says. “You can’t say no to something like that when her stylist hits you up.”

Click onto Havoc’s Instagram and the sentence “JOIN A CULT!!” screams at you from the screen. As tongue in cheek as that slogan is (it even once inspired Snider to print a shirt with “CULT LEADER” written on it, which went down a storm), it encompasses everything Snider wanted Havoc to be — bigger than just a name, or a line of clothes, or even something people only superficially engage with. “I didn’t want people to stumble across it and only buy one thing,” she explains. “I always wanted people to love the brand and know what it was about and buy multiple things. There are certain brands where I own everything they make — I wanted it to be like that.

“I want it to be something people remember,” she concludes. “I want it to be something you can feel a part of.”

It’s 11 a.m. on a Wednesday, and Luke Fracher is sifting through a mound of vintage clothes on the floor of his narrow shop in downtown New York City. His store hasn’t opened yet — usually that happens “around 1-ish,” or whenever he’s ready to unlock the door to his Lower East Side boutique. 

“Can you hear me if I move around and shit?” Fracher asks as he hangs up some vintage band tees that he’s just unboxed. There’s a casual, DIY nature to the establishment, one that might mirror the laid-back attitude of the vintage shopper who hunts for luxury goods during typical weekday work hours, but Fracher is far from a hobbyist. 

Read more: Rachael “Steak” Finley is the ultimate alt girl

Opening his namesake shop last December, Luke’s marks the first buy-sell-trade shop for men’s high-end wear in New York of this caliber. However, Fracher’s vintage obsession started years before this New York endeavor. 

Fracher was one of the founders of the Round Two vintage empire, a secondhand clothing revolution that redesigned the Buffalo Exchange business model for men’s streetwear. Fracher and his partners Sean Wotherspoon and Chris Russow capitalized on the hypebeast craze of the 2010s, turning their Richmond, Virginia store into a multimillion-dollar enterprise that expanded into nine locations in cities like Los Angeles, Miami, Chicago, and New York City. But Fracher suddenly found himself more concerned with employee payroll than doing the tasks he loved — brokering deals with sneakerheads and meeting strange characters with niche designer collections.  

In 2022, Fracher left Round Two to open his eponymous business, wagering that the New York market was also increasingly interested in higher-end treasures. Through the process of hitting the ground solo, Fracher was able to reflect on the secondhand clothing business and what gaps he saw in the industry. 

“All the stores that are following in the wake of Round Two do the exact same shit and are following the same playbook we put out eight, 10 years ago,” Fracher says as he busies himself around his storefront, his pointed Balenciaga mules clacking against the wood floors. “I’ve made a conscious effort to steer the social media in a completely different direction, and do the opposite of what I would’ve done at the other company.” 

Fracher’s eccentric brand can be found in his personal style — he’s currently sporting a bedazzled “I love Jesus” denim snapback — and in the quirky decor of his shop. While the mounted television fell out of the wall the week prior, the store is usually filled with the sounds of Werner Herzog films or some other “freaky movie that no one’s ever seen before.”

Just like Fracher himself, Luke’s store is highly curated with humor, antics, and good sense, offering a community-focused experience to modern and vintage secondhand shopping. “We get everything from suburban moms to the older fashion dudes who live in Chelsea,” Fracher explains. “It’s a small space, but it’s also very intimate.” 

Have you always been interested in fashion?

Yes.

As a kid even?

I come from a small college town in Charlottesville, Virginia. My dad’s a shrink, my mom’s an English teacher. Fashion was never something that mattered to me or my family growing up. I was wearing fucking Airwalks and shit you would just buy in Supershoes, whatever was cheapest. Shopped in Marshalls my whole life. When I turned about 12-ish, I started being on the internet way more. This was the early 2000s, so NikeTalk was huge. It really started with rap music, hip-hop shit; seeing how New Yorkers or D.C. dudes or Atlanta dudes were dressing and being like, “Oh, this is cool. This is a representation of who they are or the places that they come from.”

So who were some of your style icons?

Cam[‘ron] and Dipset were huge. As I got more into high school, Wayne, Young Dro, a lot of Southern dudes were a big part of it as well. But early on, mainly New York shit.

When were you introduced to the world of vintage?

I was never really a thrifter. I worked at sneaker stores my entire life, from 15 through to when we started Round Two. I tried to do a real job after college, but it didn’t really work out. I was never wearing vintage for myself until I got into it through Sean [Wotherspoon] and Chris [Russow] from R2.

So how did Round Two come to be? How did you get involved with Sean and Chris?

So basically I had known Sean for a while, just because Richmond’s small, and we would always be in the lines for Jordan releases. He would resell them, and I would just buy them for myself because I’ve always been into it. We’d be the only two white guys in those lines, and we would just see each other and say, “What up?”

I started working at DTLR, which was this hood sneaker chain from Baltimore. I was working there four days a week, and I was working at the Saks Fifth Avenue the other three days in the Gucci women’s handbag section, doing stock associate shit.

Sean was working at this store Rumors. It was basically like a local Buffalo Exchange. You could find a Supreme piece for like 20 bucks before people knew what it was. And Sean was like, “I think we can adapt this model for purely men’s stuff.” And so there was this store in Richmond called Heads Up, which was like a festy dude store. They sell Seedless fucking hats and LRG and 10 Deep.

The dude who owned that moved to Colorado, and the space came up for rent. Sean and Chris were very much like, “Let’s do this shit.” They had been working together for a long time. I was the odd man out. But I think Sean wanted me on there because he knew I had retail experience. I was hugely risk-averse at the time, so I didn’t want to do it. I was up here for a couple weeks, fucking off, partying.

Up here in New York?

Yeah. And when they were like, “Do you want to do this with us?,” I was dragging along and bullshitting. Then I just saw on Instagram that they had signed the lease for this shit, and I was like, “Oh shit.”

“It’s happening.”

Yeah. “I should probably do this.” I was calling them, and they wouldn’t pick up the phone. I was like, “I feel like I fucked up.” So I took the bus back, and I had $2,500 left from selling weed in a safe. I went to Sean’s house and gave him the bread, basically, like, “Here’s my buy-in for it. I’m the right person for this.” They called me an hour later, and they were like, “You’re in.”

We opened in 2013, June, in Richmond, and I think our rent was like 600 bucks at that space. I had just started a job as a teller at Wells Fargo. It was my first real job. The third week we were open, I had just gotten my paycheck from two weeks of working as a teller, and it was $286 or some shit. I come into R2 on a Friday night, and they’re like, “Do you want your cash for the day? We’re just going to split the cash in the register.” And they gave me $350. I was like, “Oh, fuck this other job,” and I quit that.

When did you start expanding?

We moved to a bigger space a block down, and then in 2015, we moved to LA. Jermaine from Utmost, a friend of ours who had a skate company clothing line, was living in LA, was like, “You guys should come here. Fuck any other city.” We felt we had the biggest support system there, so we went out to LA. And then that’s when Round Two really became what it was.

What was the transition from Round Two to Luke’s?

How candid should I get with this? Basically, I had wanted to make a move for a long time and not really known what that pivot was. My buddy Alex was working for Grailed and was like, “We’re bringing on new sellers, and we’re going to charge them no fees.” I was like, “All right, well this makes a ton of sense for the company,” and my business partners were like, “We don’t really want to sell through another platform.” I hit Alex up, and I was like, “Can I do it through my name?” He’s like, “I don’t fucking care.”

I had enough stuff personally where I could fill a Grailed page. They pushed [my stuff] on there, I got a bunch of followers on it, and I was kind of buying and selling stuff in the streets via Instagram, higher-end stuff that we wouldn’t sell at R2. And I was like, “Oh, shit, I forgot that I’m actually good at this part of the business and I enjoy this,” because I’d been doing operations for a nine-store company for three years, and running payroll and all that other shit. 

I realized that this was the pivot that I wanted to do. I was like, “If I make half as much money, but have 10 times less stress, it’s probably worth it,” because I felt like I was killing myself, stressing myself out running a company that size.

So basically I was doing that, but brick-and-mortar is all I know. I either wanted a showroom or a storefront. I was talking to my buddy Mike [Bray], who owns Kind Regards, Valentino around the corner, Ding-a-ling. I’ve known him for a long time in this neighborhood. He was like, “I think there’s a space in this building that we just got Bongos in,” which was what they transferred Valentino to. He was like, “It’s like a shithole and it’s tiny, but it’s going to be three grand.” And I signed the lease sight unseen. It’s a small space, but it’s also very intimate and easy to carry correctly.

What types of people do you get in here?

We get everything from suburban moms to the older fashion dudes who live in Chelsea, to the R2 customers, to younger kids who are just getting into this stuff. For the first four months we were open, 90% of the people who came in here were people who knew who I was through Round Two and Instagram. But once we did The Times thing and Throwing Fits, word has gotten out that we have the best stuff in New York. More and more random people are coming through.

Have you found that there’s a secondhand vintage community in New York? Do you know other store owners?

Obviously, Brian and Jess from Procell are the progenitors of this whole reselling vintage thing. They’ve been doing it the longest. They’ve been doing it the best. John from Grand Street Local, Frank from Leisure Center, Xavier from Rare Bodega, Emma Rogue. There’s so many people. I think there’s less of a culture here doing it than in LA, just because of the flea market culture and the rag house culture in LA, but I think it’s done better in New York. 

Tell me about your band music T-shirt collection here.

When it comes to selling vintage, every vintage seller has their own niche, whether they’re into only selling Marvel shit and comic book shit or fucking Disney shit. I’m not super into that. For me, it’s the music stuff. When we first opened, I had 40 Nine Inch Nails tees because I’m a huge Nine Inch Nails fan. I hate the Grateful Dead, but we get Grateful Dead shit, and it sells. I try to get obscure stuff.

How do you source your clothes?

99.9% of the shit in the store, people bring to me. I do buy, sell, trade. But I’m not outsourcing product because it’s difficult to source [these types of pieces] unless people bring [them] directly to you. It also gives me a chance to interact with people one-on-one, get to know them, get to talk to them, and gives them a chance to come see what I have and drive traffic to the store.

Do you have any favorite looks or styles or pieces right now that you’re really interested in?

I think obviously jerseys for the summer are really big, just because it’s so hot. Everyone’s on that Y2K or post-Y2K shit. But I just have been on really freaky dress shoe shit personally. I’m not really into sneakers anymore, but footwear is still the first point of reference for everything.

Do you feel like the vintage market is getting saturated? Is there a next frontier for eclectic dressing and finding cool pieces?

The trends that I see right now are people trying to be unique or just be different from everyone else. Vintage and secondhand is always going to be a huge part of that. As the world legitimately starts to fall apart and people worry more about climate change or shit in the oceans or the piles of clothes in the Atacama desert, people are going to be more and more attracted to secondhand shit. And just as consumerism gets more insane, and as fashion has become more mainstream, there’s going to be more secondhand shit. So I think if people are there to facilitate that, it’s going to stay around.

When glancing at Helena Eisenhart’s leather-clad, punk-infused designs, what you see doesn’t even scratch the surface of what truly lies behind each garment or accessory. The New York-based, independent designer always had an inclination toward the offbeat — “fitting in” just wasn’t in the cards for the multi-media creative because it wasn’t as fun anyway. 

They began their namesake brand in 2015, fueled by a desire to create without confines and to tell stories through preloved, reworked garments, or found textiles. Eisenhart’s practice relies on a distinct creative synergy, a delicately balanced harmony between fine arts, fashion, and self-expression. All of these components have yielded one-of-a-kind pieces, such as a veil and gloves upcycled from a blood-stained wedding dress. 

Read more: How Anna Sui created some of music’s most iconic looks

With looks created for Rico Nasty, SOPHIE, Dev Hynes, and more, as well as a solo New York Fashion Week exhibition under their belt, it seems like Eisenhart has truly found their niche. But they have labeled the brand as a “continuous exploration of identity” — both for themselves and for the wearers — signaling that there is still much more to come.

Alternative Press spoke to Eisenhart about their craft, their inspiration, and how their identity is inevitably interwoven into every upcycled creation.

You have a background in fine arts that eventually led you to fashion design. How did this new medium allow your creativity to flourish once you started experimenting with creating one-of-one garments through your brand? 

I felt like I had been looking for a way to marry those mediums for such a long time. But around my graduation from school, I realized that garments don’t always have to be wearable, and sometimes you can think of them as sculpture. A lot of my initial garments were created from doodles, not even real full-blown sketches. When you look at my old sketchbooks, you can tell I come from more of an arts background. I had a professor who was a painter and also a designer, and she was super encouraging. Her name is Susan Cianciolo. She’s a great artist, and she’s still making clothes and art today, but she’s also a painting professor at Parsons and a design teacher at Pratt. I give a lot of credit to her because she really was able to find those students who felt a little bit lost, and she was able to hone their abilities. She opened me up to think, “No, it’s not a bad thing that I want to do all these things.” It’s actually a great thing.

You’re from the Bay Area but now create out of your studio in NYC. Typical East Coast versus West Coast style sensibilities differ in silhouette and “aesthetic.” How do you blend your upbringing with your current city setting through your craft? 

Whenever I see my family, they’re always testing to see if I’m still a Californian. Maybe just ’cause I was a little bit emo. I always wore black. That’s just been my uniform, ever since middle school. But I think that’s actually very East Coast. A lot of people in San Francisco also really like all-black, but I grew up in the hippie suburbs. Everybody is bohemian and laid back. I had culture shock when I finally moved to New York because I noticed that people care about coordinating more here, like actually styling. I don’t think that’s a thing as much in the Bay Area. In Northern California, a lot of people say they don’t care about fashion, but anyone who says that just doesn’t understand what fashion is. Because saying that you don’t care is caring in a way. In New York, I definitely felt pressure to have a sense of style. And I think I now bring many elements of my style and these places to my process. 

I feel like there’s this inherent sense of rebellion within your creations. To me, it sounds like that always existed within you, and now that still carries through with the brand.

I mean, I also love that hippie bohemian style, but I have to do it in my own way. I still feel like an outsider when I go back home. I’m always wearing something different than everybody else. It’s not even that I’m trying to do that — it’s just that I don’t like what everybody else is wearing.

Another core tenet of your process is using found textiles or found resources for your designs. Some of them are super unusual and unexpected. It’s so important for people to see designers like you creating from resources that you don’t typically expect to be used. What intrigued you about employing these textiles or resources in your process, and then what do you think wearers can learn from that inventive approach?

There was a lot of cool stuff at the thrift store growing up, but it wasn’t my size or wasn’t fitting the way that I wanted it to. So that’s where I started altering garments and figuring out how to sew. I also think because I was playing with lots of weird materials for my other art, I decided to add those in. I always mention when I knitted cassette tape for a look — that was a cool one. A lot of it also comes from not having any money and just using what I already had and creating my own textiles. I want to make somebody look at something and think, “What the fuck is that?” And I want it to be something that no one else can make.

But since my clothing has become more of a brand in the past few years, I’ve had to make things that are more wearable in order to sustain myself as a label. So to blend those worlds, I am working on putting together some art shows that incorporate original ideas. I’m also noticing a lot more designers who are using found materials becoming more mainstream, which I think is great because that means there will be more upcycled materials accessible to wider audiences. Typically, stuff like mushroom leather is so expensive and inaccessible to smaller designers. They only offer that to brands like Gucci and Chanel. You basically have to be invited to go to places like that — or create it yourself.

There’s this notion of accessibility that you mentioned that shows creatives or blossoming designers that it is possible to create using anything. It opens up space for a lot of people who may feel like there isn’t a place for them in this industry.

It’s a great exercise. That was something I even learned initially in school; we had a whole lesson about upcycling, but I wasn’t planning on becoming an upcycler. Those kinds of exercises were not only beneficial for learning how to be eco-friendly or sustainable but also for your own creativity. And it’s a good thing even just to practice at home. There’s a recent collection I created in 2021 that was all upcycled from the thrift store and antique stores in my neighborhood.

I think that the heart of upcycling is taking something old and imparting your own new perspective onto it. In your case, you do a really good job of connecting the old and the new. How do you feel that you honor each material’s past life while also telling a new story with your cutting-edge designs?

I tend to source my materials based on color or textile. Anything that is in poor condition and has holes or fraying, I’ll see if I can still use that part and add it to the garment somehow. I actually love showing the wear of a fabric if it’s not going to completely fall apart. I’ll end up using fabrics that I would’ve never normally used because I’m only using a small piece of it. Or maybe I’ll take that print and scan it, put it on Photoshop, and embroider it into the garment. And it’s not all garments that I’m upcycling — some of it is bedding, tablecloths, and kitchen towels. As long as it’s clean, then you’re good. A lot of those materials just end up becoming waste if I don’t recreate them.

Another element that imbues itself into your process and your work is your identity. You encourage a more fluid approach to identity. As you’re a nonbinary creator, how do you feel that weaves itself into your designs?

I think that when people see the clothes in person and try them on, most are happily surprised by how easily they fit. And not just because a lot of my pieces are oversized, but because I’ve taken time to make the patterns unisex. That’s another thing that’s become more popular, which is great. But I always think it’s so funny when you go to a store and you see “unisex” or “gender-neutral,” and it’s just a hoodie and sweatpants. A lot of things are just unisex without having to label them that way, like a button-up shirt. When creating certain pieces, you just have to pay attention to certain things about crotch length, shoulder width, and anything that is very specific to certain body shapes. I really enjoy opening up masculine and feminine styles and mixing them together. New York is always gonna be my home base for my brand no matter what because people here want to be weird. It’s cool to be weird here.

This ties into that rebellious outlook, going against the grain, and doing things the way that you want. What struggles have you faced in asserting your perspective and your way of production in an industry that can often be dictated by certain unspoken constructs?

Well, that’s a big question. I mean, even right now I’m getting orders from stores, and I’m struggling between balancing consignment and wholesale. When you go to school for fashion design or are self-taught, no one is really teaching you how to do business. Everyone that I’ve worked for, whether it’s a small designer or a big designer, has been pretty much self-taught about business. It’s such a learn-as-you-go kind of thing, and some people are following the fashion seasons in the very old-school traditional sense, and some aren’t. On top of honing my design, sketching, cutting, and sewing — it’s also about figuring out how you want to put yourself out there.

Tell me about your strangest, most idiosyncratic reworked design and how the concept came to be.

I don’t know if this is the weirdest, but this is still the coolest piece to me. I worked on an [oil-painted] dress with Tara Atefi in 2022. It was all upcycled from different Army sleeping bags, and that was so funny because I had to argue with the guy at my local thrift store about how much he was charging for Army bags. Tara did these crazy medieval-style oil paintings, and just learning how to do something like that with another person and collaborate is definitely one of the most artistic pieces, as of recently, that I have worked on.

Collaboration is another example of the creative synergy that you rely on in your practice, whether it’s you working with someone else or incorporating multiple different mediums into something that you’re working on. Who do you envision wearing and embracing the brand?

I always love the idea of a punk, downtown type of person like Lydia Lunch or Kembra Pfahler wearing my pieces. Somebody who’s more of a weirdo artist who loves wearing fun pieces. When I was a little kid, I always loved Karen O. I remember my dad sent me an article written about Karen O where she was wearing car parts onstage, and I thought that was so cool. I always envision a performer of some type, somebody who’s onstage, whether they’re a singer or an actor in a film. I would love to make costumes for a film or for ballet. I’ve done that briefly, but not on a huge scale, so that’s a bigger goal of mine. I like to see my pieces in movement as well, and it gives me so much joy to see people wearing my pieces out and about. Most of my audience are pretty creative themselves, so I got lucky in that sense.

What other parts of yourself and your craft do you hope to dissect with coming collections?

I have some ideas for the next collection that I really want to explore, although I don’t want to give away too much. I really want to explore beauty pageants because I’m Filipino, and beauty pageants and karaoke are two huge things in the Philippines. I just think showing a more masculine side of a beauty pageant would be really interesting, so I’m thinking of doing that for spring/summer, and everything would be upcycled. I’m exploring, ironically, a more feminine side of myself, but through a masculine lens. Beauty pageants, because they’re so campy, are a really fun way to dissect that for me. So that’s the direction that I’m headed in currently. After spending the last few summers feeling pretty masculine myself, I feel like I’m starting to come into more of a softer, feminine side. But I want to examine that in a way that I’m still poking fun at westernized beauty ideals.

Picture this: Deee-Lite’s music video for “Groove Is in the Heart,” is thumping on your computer. Lady Miss Keir, glowing in a fur coat (labeled faux in the first frames) and shimmering shorts, struts around a black backdrop. She’s a mind-boggling sight, prancing around the stage before asking with an inflated French accent, “How do you say… Deee-Lite?” Cut to swirling visuals of the band in gaudy psychedelic attire, featuring several looks from Lady Miss Keir as she dances through the song.

The fabulous Lady Miss Keir was one of New York-based designer Tyler McGillivary’s earliest style icons. “She has that hyper-color, hyper-fun style that I used to be really obsessed with,” McGillivary says, smiling. “When I started getting into fashion, that ‘90s-mod, psychedelic energy was what I used to be really drawn to.”

Read more: How Anna Sui created some of music’s most iconic looks

Five years ago, McGillivary launched her namesake label with that same vibrance. Graduating from New York University’s Gallatin School of Individualized study in 2017, McGillivary fused style with her studies in visual culture, sociology, and nature to form the brand identity. Her botanical and peculiar works have caught the attention of celebrities like Charli XCX, Wolf Alice’s Ellie Rowsell, and Madonna.

This year alone, McGillivary has been on a winning streak. Recently announced as a participant in Disney’s Create 100, and being part of Coach’s circular sub-brand Coachtopia, the latter includes two exclusive pieces in collaboration with the label. 

Growing up in suburban Washington, D.C, McGillivary recalls turning to nature as a creative playground. Having often felt bored in the suburban plane, she found peace going outside.

The brand came of age around the advent of Instagram’s shopping feature, when other smaller designers were beginning to market their work. Creating more experimental, personal pieces for the shop, like flower tops and clothes with interchangeable fabric, McGillivary recalls being moved by new age ‘60s furniture as inspiration. “It’s hard to think of a time where it didn’t exist,” she says, explaining that the saturation of these amorphous aesthetics felt very new in the internet’s hive mind. 

“You’re all absorbing the same visual information [on Instagram]. For artists, it causes a reaction where we’re all reacting to the same stimuli. It creates an overlap of ideas. People genuinely come to the same idea, because they’re looking at the same thing,” says McGillivary, brushing her sandy blonde hair behind her ears. “I do also love that there are so many different outcomes that come out of consuming the same imagery.”

When it comes to the convergence of nature and style, the work offered by McGillivary has its own eccentric, surreal quality to them. Having never seen these ecosystems, its creatures, and forms in their organic states because of her suburban upbringing, McGillivary deliberately chooses to highlight their natural beauty. Transforming the wearer into butterflies, poisonous frogs, and carnivorous plants, McGillivary’s work offers a uniqueness that a floral print halts.

There’s a certain fairytale-like aspect to being covered by flowers, butterflies, or the ocean. “I think they’ve often existed in fantastical forms,” McGillivary notes. On a particular day in the studio, McGillivary had been looking through different images of butterfly gardens. The thought fluttered in like a quiet premonition, “what would it be like to be covered in butterflies?” And just like those butterflies twinkling around their gardens, the idea was manifested into the “Elsa Dress,” a poly-satin dress with laser cut butterflies appliqued all over the dress.

In a recent drop, McGillivary took to the sea for reference. When it comes to the ocean, coral reefs are like “gardens of the sea” for her. There’s an undeniable mystery about the ocean that McGillivary resonates with, even in a way that gardens and flora aren’t. “I keep returning to them, especially jellyfish, sea slugs, coral, stuff like that.”

McGillivary cites media like Belladonna of Sadness, Fantastic Planet, and Hayao Miyazaki’s illustrations for Studio Ghibli as inspiration, but she is constantly sourcing old wildlife books, looking through nature photojournalism and National Geographic magazines.

She describes the upcoming season as “the fragility of life indicated through nature.” Dutch paintings, darkly romantic, and rose-tinged pieces tell the story of the collection, showing beauty and rawness through decaying forms. Moved by the hyper-symbolic motifs of Dutch paintings, McGillivary intends to evoke those same emotions.

The concept of a Tyler McGillivary flagship sounds like the vivid daydream of a cartoon fairy, but is still very alive and in the works for McGillivary’s brand — a cozy log cabin, set in a bizarre forest, where the vivid colors of McGillivary’s work illuminates the shop; life size pillows of plants and insects; homegoods that McGillivary is currently in the process of manufacturing. 

Whether it’s being wrapped in a butterfly’s wings with her “Dani dress,” or possessing the attitude of a venus fly trap from the “Dover tank,” McGillivary’s vision for her brand is as clear as it is thrilling. “I want to feel like a little person living in a big garden,” the whimsical designer says. The metamorphosis is exquisite.

“The city is a big fucking mess in a way that makes me feel turned on creatively every single day,” says Johnny Valentine, a New York City chainsmith, SoHo loft dweller, and sidewalk head-turner. 

Their desk, it seems, is no different. Valentine laughs as they watch my eyes widen as I scan the gleaming, silvered junkyard. Scissors, reading glasses, metal polisher, and a bottle of Advil are nestled in the thick layer of tangled hardware. Metal rings, the size of various coins, sit delicately in scattered dishes. Two desk lamps, one on either end, point inwards like football stadium lights.

Read more: Sarah Pardini’s vibrant photos capture artists with authenticity

Like the workspace of any artist, there’s a methodical touch to its chaos. “It’s crazy, but I know where everything is,” they say. Valentine pulls open an oak drawer where 20 silver chains lie on a flattened bandana in neat rows, polished and twinkling.

Valentine’s chains are chunky, yet delicate — punk and elegant. They embody the ‘70s and ’80s industrial street style of the Ramones’ New York City, while remaining a timeless staple of punk fashion. More than that, they are crafted with extreme care and thoughtfulness for the people taking them home. 

“I don’t really travel past my four-block radius,” says Valentine. “So it’s so cool that I get to make something and then send it off with someone.” On any given night, Valentine’s chains might be sparkling on the red carpet or thumping on the chests of rockers on stage. 

Most of their business is from word of mouth: neighbors, friends, and artists who have spotted Valentine’s hypnotic chains in the wild. The chains are almost always on tour, whether it’s with Nile Rodgers, Surfbort’s frontman Dani Miller, Paramore’s touring drummer Joey Mullen, or The Go-Go’s drummer, Gina Schock. Nile Rodgers’ chain even made it to the Queen’s jubilee where he performed with Duran Duran, grooving on a white Stratocaster in an ivory suit.

Valentine calls their chains, “armor,” metal adornments that protect and reinforce one’s sense of identity when walking out into the world. When Valentine steps out into the world of West Broadway, there’s a jovial clinking that follows, layered chains jingling against each other like wind chimes.

“Jewelry makes me feel cool and empowered,” Valentine says, pushing the brim of their leather biker’s hat up slightly, exposing their hot pink eyebrows. Valentine wears a turquoise bandana around their neck and cobalt cargo work pants. Their jet black hair is kept in two neat braids that graze their belt. Tattoos poke out of their AC/DC band tee, dancing down their arms all the way to their fingertips.

“I want everybody to feel tough and cool, but with a softness and sweetness,” says Valentine. The contradictions welded in the chains come from an innate tension within Valentine. Identifying as non-binary, they cherish the dual spirits of, what they describe as, “tough and tender.” Their craftsmanship is propelled by the same tenants of the harmony found in opposition.

New York City is the inspiration, primary motivator, and the beloved backdrop to Valentine’s career as an artist. Influenced by both the tangible and intangible parts of the city, Valentine recreates urban life in their chains. “Some industrial aspects of the city can inspire that in a very literal way. Like the way a trash can is chained to the pole,” Valentine says. “And then there’s also the softer influences, like seeing a film and wanting to express the feeling of that.”

Valentine is a serial movie-goer. “I see a movie in the theater every single week,” Valentine tells me, explaining that in their apartment there are no computers (they only recently installed Wi-Fi). “Whatever I’ve been watching that week influences my chains.” They’re currently on a Midnight Cowboy kick, as seen in the Western neckerchief they’re sporting today. “I came home devastated from the movie and immediately just started making stuff to process it,” they say.

Many of Valentine’s references and poignant cultural milestones are set in the romantic dreamscape of cinema. Growing up in Hannibal, Missouri — the sleepy, Americana town where many of the Tom Sawyer books took place — movies, books, and music were the main source of aesthetic and creative fantasy.

Particularly in regard to style, movies contained a portal into the world of punk fashion. Pretty in Pink’s iconic hodgepodge working-class styling was pivotal in teaching Valentine that dressing well didn’t depend on wealth. “I was obsessed with Duckie and Iona’s style,” Valentine says. “You could make pieces to create your own special style which started me on making things and altering thrift store finds.” 

The DIY, punk ethos of détourning vintage aesthetics spoke to Valentine’s budding identity. “I was so inspired by the New York punks!” Dead Boys, Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, Johnny Thunders, Ramones, and Blondie were Valentine’s fashion icons.

“Everything I read takes place in New York in the late ‘70s, early ‘80s,” they explain. “I’m drawn to art that is based on the New York that I thought I was moving to. But when I moved here, it wasn’t like that anymore.”

When Valentine moved to New York in 2007, they searched for the bustling beatnik community they had seen in the movies. Valentine began working as a hairstylist at Mudhoney, a salon and punk institution opened in 1989 by Michael Matula. He was doing everyone’s hair in the ‘90s: L7, Hole, Metallica, Kurt Cobain, Smashing Pumpkins, Guns N’ Roses, Aerosmith, Megadeth, Radiohead. “Mudhoney was like school for scoundrels,” Valentine explains. “The perfect place to learn about everything cool. Music books, film, clothes, hair, makeup.”

“I’ve definitely fucked around with my appearance a lot. And as a hairstylist, I’ve had every type of hair,” says Valentine. But they weren’t always as unabashed and experimental with their style. “I was a late bloomer in every sense of the word. It took me a while to not be so anxious that I could actually figure out who I am,” they explain. 

After graduating high school, Valentine moved ten minutes south of the Las Vegas strip, next to the Liberace museum. They quickly became obsessed with the ornate, flamboyant style of the pianist, frequenting the museum as their house of worship. Valentine resonated with the contradictions of Liberace’s self-expression: the tensions between masculinity and femininity and the marriage of maximalism and traditional. “His personal style and self-expression blew my mind,” says Valentine. “That’s when I got into jewelry and wearing rings on every single finger.”

Over the pandemic, Valentine was able to focus more on their metalsmithing, eventually quitting Mudhoney to focus on their jewelry business full-time. “A phrase that often pops into my head is Liberace’s quote: ‘too much of a good thing is wonderful.’ I repeat that in my head when I’m getting dressed or making a new chain,” Valentine says. 

Now, Valentine rents the back-facing unit of a pre-war building on West Broadway. They hold two charcoal-colored poodles, Liberace and Ramona, in each arm as they walk me through their sunny loft. Thick wood beams stretch across the ceiling’s skylight, and Persian rugs and large-scale oil paintings fill the echoing space. Pat Kaufman, a 94-year-old painter, bought the entire floor back in the ‘80s when SoHo was less luxury boutiques and brunch spots, and more galleries and artist lofts. As Kaufman heads to Florida for the colder months, she’s thankful that she’s able to rent the spot to someone who is able to enjoy the Bohemian culture that remains in the building. Almost all of the tenants, who are mostly painters and sculptors, bought whole floors in the ‘70s when the apartments were desolate spaces. 

“The fact that people in this building are still making art every single day and being able to talk to each other about what they’re making, what I’m making, feels like the New York that I dreamed of as a teenager,” Valentine says. “Like when I watched fucking Party Girl when I was young and felt like, Oh my God, I wish I lived in a loft and had neighbors who were doing cool stuff.” 

“I certainly have my neighborhood people that are so cool and I’m happy to see every day and talk to them about what they’re doing and making,” says Valentine. “But there’s also a hundred people waiting for brunch next door at Sadelle’s, asking if they can borrow my dogs to take a photo for Instagram.”

Valentine has cultivated the spirit of the city in the rugged chains that adorn downtown’s coolest denizens. “I feel like I have a piece of old New York,” Valentine says. “And that feels really fucking good.”

Though photographer Sarah Paridini heralds from Portland, her work, in aesthetic and ethos, embodies Los Angeles. It’s grit and glamor, smut and grace. Scrolling through the artist’s Instagram page, you’ll find a FOMO-inducing amalgamation of imagery —from glossy album covers for blackbear, Rebecca Black, and Corey Taylor to fashion campaigns for Jeffrey Campbell. And that’s not all, Pardini’s stylish, tongue-in-cheek POV extends behind the scenes, capturing the chaos that occurs everywhere from the depths of the pit, to the back lounge of a power disco band’s tour bus. 

Read more: Harmony is literally following her dreams with Dystopia Girl

While she originally moved to Los Angeles to enter the fashion world, today, her portfolio reads like a high-contrast, cultural quilt, fabricated with a hard flash and a discerning eye, eagerly capturing the interwoven stories of creative characters across the country — featuring a long list of beloved alternative musicians. Whether traditional portraits or otherwise, Pardini offers a narrative that is as cinematic and colorful, as it is raw and documentary, and over the years, the robust, vivid nature of her work has garnered due respect across creative industries, and led her portfolio to boast the impressive list of clientele it does today.

[Photo by Sarah Pardini]

Just this year, Pardini went from a month-long tour with LA power disco outfit Cobra Man across North America, capturing their skater-heavy fanbase crowd-surfing to synth anthems, straight into shooting a commercial beauty campaign. This might not be every day, it’s close enough — there isn’t a creative arena Pardini’s lens doesn’t consider.

But while the content can vary, the artist’s highly unique perspective persists throughout, a signature style that, upon meeting her, is easily matched to her own personality. Whether her hair is electric blue with a star dyed into it or dark and shaggy, there is a casual, indescribable coolness to Sarah Pardini that feels neither pretentious nor impenetrable. Rather, there’s a warm and inspiring aura to her — one which both explains why musicians have been increasingly drawn to her, and the way her works seem to balance stylized composure and the casual authenticity of an artist all at once.

AP spoke with Pardini about Warped Tour, the highs and lows of making art in Los Angeles, and her first time living on a tour bus. 

[Photo by Sarah Pardini]

What were your first experiences going to shows, and being around live music? 

I grew up in small towns, so my first live show experiences were house shows. The houses would get so gnarly and hot, the ceiling would literally drip everyone’s sweat! When I was 14 I did my first Warped Tour. That was pretty impactful. It was super inspiring to see how everyone dressed from different cities. 

Do you have a specific memory from that Warped Tour — was there an outfit, or a type of look that stood out? Who was headlining? I remember my first Warped Tour and house shows—and it wouldn’t be far off to say that that experience, compacted with going to hardcore shows at way too young an age, changed the way I listened to music and dressed for the rest of my life. 

I wore a little black swimsuit top and denim shorts! I still wear this same type of fit to any sort of festival I go to. I think Underoath was one of the bigger bands I saw that year.

[Photo by Sarah Pardini]

Now that you’ve shot an album cover, do you remember any album covers you felt drawn to from an early age? 

It’s funny growing up I collected a lot of records just for the artwork, not even to listen to the band. When I started in photography I didn’t think I would shoot an artist’s vinyl! I always loved Autograph’s That’s the Stuff album cover. The artwork was done by Hajime Sorayama and it’s one of his sexy robots giving a thumbs up. This cover hit and still hits pretty much all of my dots: I’m obsessed with robots and hot girls; she’s giving alt girl with her black latex tank top; she’s super sexy but doing a silly pose which is something I think I do a lot in my own work.

Can you speak to this idea of mixing seduction with a tongue-in-cheek attitude? It’s definitely something I can see in your work, and honestly your own personality.

I think it’s a really important thing in creative fields and entertainment as well, almost a version of humility.

[Photo by Sarah Pardini]

What brought you to LA? Did you intend on ending up so intertwined with music, or did that happen organically?

I moved to LA from Portland. I had been living there for three years working as a photographer, and I knew if I stayed in PDX I would end up shooting for Nike or Adidas. The industry up there is heavy sports. I wanted to move more into fashion or beauty so LA felt like a good spot. I didn’t intend on doing so much in the music industry and now that I am, I am so grateful and feel very comfortable. I feel like I’ve finally found my spot as a photographer.

What do you think sets apart the LA music scene? Sonically, and visually?

LA is very competitive and has a lot of opportunities. A lot of artists live here. I think that is one of the big things that sets it apart. Because it’s competitive everyone is doing the most, and working really fast. Visually I feel like LA is a bit more playful and fun. I like to compare LA to NYC. NYC is so obviously NYC — it’s sexy, serious and clean, and chic. LA is sexy but a little silly? 

[Photo by Sarah Pardini]

Your work feels incredibly timeless, which is often a goal shared by musicians. In which ways do you think being a visual artist is similar to being a performer? What are the values, and mottos that you find you share with your subjects in particular?

A lot of my job is a performance in a way. Sometimes I only have five minutes to shoot an artist, so I have to be ready to do the damn thing. Visual artists have their own little dance and routines just like musicians do. Sounds basic but it wasn’t until I truly started to do whatever I wanted that people started to connect with my work. I had to have trust in myself that I had good taste, and knew what to do. I think musicians have to do this also. The music is going to be better if it’s genuine. 

What are some lyrics to live by?

“The sky is the limit” – Lil Wayne

[Photo by Sarah Pardini]

Your work is pretty raw, and captures the spirit and often sound of the subjects. Is that a goal you set, or something that comes naturally? 

Definitely a goal of mine. I like to capture things pretty gnarrrrr and real. 

How have you built a creative community in LA? How would you describe it?

Yes! I am so lucky to have an amazing community of like-minded creatives. The talent (musician, actor, actress) is just one piece of the puzzle. Working with makeup, hair, and styling always changes everything. I am very, very lucky I get to work with some of LA’s best. 

[Photo by Sarah Pardini]

As a photographer, what draws you to the music scene and the artists you shoot and spend time around? 

I go to so many shows. For a while, I was going to a different show every night. I think that in addition to shooting portraits naturally, I will shoot a lot of musicians! 

What do you think draws the artists you shoot to you? You’ve mentioned social media being a powerful tool in getting jobs and building relationships. What does your platform say about you? 

I think my work is a good balance of professional and something your best friend would capture. That with the hyper-saturated color makes me stand out from other artists. 

The name “Twelve” holds a lot of meaning to Haley Peacock. She was born on the 12th, her half birthday is 12/12, the house she grew up in was number 12, and she lived at number 12 again when studying abroad in Rome, the city where she began to seriously consider starting a jewelry company. So when it came time to name her jewelry company, it felt a bit like a no-brainer. 

“I see it as this number that connects me to everything,” Peacock says.

Read more: How Anna Sui created some of music’s most iconic looks

The 25-year-old designer who studied at the School of Visual Arts founded Twelve started in 2018 while she was studying abroad in Rome. Prior to that, she had taken a few fashion-related classes in school, but her jewelry-making was often limited to any free time she had and the occasional school assignment. In Rome every Sunday, the street outside Peacock’s apartment hosted a flea market where she could comb through giant bins of charms, necklace clasps, and more. She’d buy a handful for one euro each and start creating pieces for herself and her friends using a pair of nail clippers as pliers. 

Five years later, Peacock’s ditched the nail clippers and graduated from scouring flea market bins to sourcing sculptors like her friend Korbyn Carleton to recreate her designs — although, she’ll still occasionally scour for the unique vintage pendant. These days, Twelve has moved from a glimmer of an idea in a Roman apartment to a successful online jewelry company selling rings, earrings, and necklaces that exude a post-apocalyptic-meets-ethereal-Gothic aura that relies on somewhat brutalist bone and teeth imagery. It boasts a substantial customer base that includes Halsey, Caroline Polachek, and Olivia Rodrigo.

[Photo by John Novotny]

Peacock long aspired to be an artist and in high school would loosely joke about becoming a jewelry designer — and though she doesn’t consider herself an especially religious person, she does believe divine intervention, or at least fate, played a role in the genesis of Twelve. 

While Peacock was raised Catholic, she describes her relationship with the religion as something that never quite fit. Her soul wasn’t stirred by the texts, teachings, and psalms like the rest of her family, but what did move it was the sweeping grandiosity of the churches, the iconography, the art, and the eerie Gothicism characteristic of Catholicism. 

“It touched me in a weird way that I was confused about because I didn’t really identify with the religion itself that much,” Peacock says. “I think that always sort of fascinated me.”

That fascination confused and sometimes frustrated her. She knew Catholicism wasn’t something she outright related to, but she felt compelled to explore it more. As Peacock grew up, she began looking into other avenues of spirituality — becoming increasingly intrigued by occultism. Over time, her relationship with religion overall developed into something totally personal to her. 

Like many other Gen Zers, it’s something she’s come to define and practice on her own terms. It’s informed by a combination of spiritual practices and unique encounters, and it offers her a guide in life, especially when it comes to Twelve. Starting a business can prove an intimidating endeavor, but Peacock has found ample confirmation in her pursuits through various “surreal experiences” and coincidences — like when she was listening to Maggie Rogers while walking in the woods when she was staying at her parent’s house during the 2020 quarantine, only to receive a DM from the artist not too long after.

[Photo by John Novotny]

“I went through so much of my life frustrated that I didn’t know what my purpose was — knowing that I had so much I could contribute as an artist, but not knowing how to do that,” Peacock says. “Once I found my purpose, and it clicked in this way that I really couldn’t describe, [it has] further connected me to a force outside of myself. Outside of what I can really even comprehend […] I feel like some force has got my back.”

That personal relationship with spirituality is something Peacock strives to capture in her designs and the marketing for Twelve. Though she states her inspirations for the company come from a variety of sources, many of the pieces aim to capture some of the elements of Catholicism, occultism, and other forms of worship that have inspired and resonated with her — crosses appear frequently in her collections, a timeless nod to Christianity, as well as bones and teeth from occultism.

Peacock likens what she wants to accomplish with her jewelry to the work of revered British fashion designer, Vivienne Westwood. Westwood was the reason Peacock started loving fashion in the first place, and her approach is something Peacock seeks to emulate in her own work.

“The way that she flawlessly intertwined her personal beliefs into what she made and who she was as a person is the goal and all I want to do,” Peacock says.

And it was important to Peacock that jewelry be the vehicle for that. To some, jewelry might feel like an afterthought, but Peacock sees it as so much more. She started wearing lots of rings in high school after people would make fun of her large hands and she wanted to hide them, while earrings were used to distract people from her face. 

“I found so much comfort in [wearing jewelry] and that allowed me to feel a bit safer,” Peacock says. “That gave me the confidence to be stronger and really fall into this.”

[Photo by John Novotny]

But more than her own personal connection with it, Peacock believes jewelry as a whole is “criminally misinterpreted” and seen as a luxury good that’s unattainable to many. Peacock, on the other hand, views jewelry as almost sacred. Unlike an article of clothing, Peacock points out that you can wear a piece of jewelry every day, passing it down from generation to generation. Whether it’s rosary beads or a family ring, to Peacock, jewelry is timeless — both figuratively and literally. 

“Jewelry has been worn and has been sacred since the beginning of times,” Peacock says. “[It] is just so much more than just a material possession and it can have so many different meanings.”

In a way, she hopes her own pieces hold a similar significance for people. That maybe, in wearing them, others might also start down the path of figuring out their place in the world and their own relationship with spirituality that she had. 

“The first step to [finding your spirituality is] I really think you have to start with finding yourself. I think the easiest way to experiment with who you really are is freedom of expression,” Peacock says. “Creating statement pieces is my goal because it’s as simple as wearing a white T-shirt and jeans — but if you have a statement necklace on, it transforms the outfit.” 

And it’s just that little ounce of something distinct like a tooth necklace or a ring made using a lock that Peacock hopes could snowball into a greater discovery for someone.