Interview with Designer Raquel Allegra

L.A. based designer Raquel Allegra was in NYC last spring and presented her F/W 09 collection at Ludlow on the Lower East Side. Her unique one-of-a-kind pieces are delicate and edgy at the same time. I interviewed her at the time but decided to wait until now to post it...when you'll all want to go and get your own Raquel Allegra original. You can find her clothes at Assembly or Curve downtown or online at shopflick. And of course, check out her own site.

KATYA: So when I look at your work you seem more art based than fashion based. Do you agree with that? Or maybe you don’t even like thinking in those terms?
RAQUEL: I don’t mind you saying that actually. I feel as though I almost put myself in the “anti-fashion” category…I’m a bit anti-fashion because I feel that it loses site of things that are special and so I think I just create things I love to create. I don’t do it for fashions sake, I do it for the sake of creating…and people love to wear them. So it’s a perfect little marriage!

KATYA: So do you think you’ll stay in this same sort of vein, of deconstructing and see how far you can take that?
RAQUEL: Well it keeps changing for me. The more I do it, the more I understand it. And the more I play with it the more it changes. So I see that it has a future, that there are a lot of things I can do with it. But I see expanding it to different mediums. Doing it with cashmere…

KATYA: Cashmere would be amazing!
RAQUEL: Right, and different jerseys. And a ready to wear line that is cut and sewn is coming. It’s right around the corner. This, what you’ve seen is a capsule collection because it is recycled, it comes from a very specific place, and we’re running out. So we’re going to channel the concept into a cut and sew. We’ll add to it, we’ll keep doing the deconstruction but probably in a few different ways…who knows? I’m open to anything!

KATYA: What inspires you?
RAQUEL: Honestly, because each t-shirt that I work with is so different I get inspiration from the t-shirts themselves. But this gets to my process. My process is playing. I feel like the heart of what I do comes from a very playful spirit and so I play: I play dress up, I experiment…I love removing and putting back…I think it’s authentically playing by myself which takes me into being creative.

KATYA: So it’s like you’re a little girl in your bedroom but you get to do it for your job!
RAQUEL: Totally! About a year ago I woke up really early, I wanted to enter this design competition, and I was in my bed and I was designing the last piece I wanted to make in my bed. And I got up and I cut my pattern out and I had my Beatles record on and I went to my sewing machine and I was shivering because I was in my nightie and I was cold but I didn’t want to stop being creative and it shot me into this moment remembering when I was seven; I used to wake up, and I’d be cold, and I’d be alone because my parents would still be sleeping and I would put my Beatles record on (it was always the Beatles) and in this very authentic way I found myself back to where I began. So I’m never not having fun. Even as hard as we work it’s still fun for me it’s still play and I get to meet incredible people and they inspire me and it’s like a give and take. Constantly.
So that’s the creative process. It’s very organic, what I do.