 | | Penelope Gazin. Photo: Paul Sevlas | | |
A multi-hyphenate that puts all other multi-hyphenates to shame, Penelope Gazin is hard to pin down. She’s in a two-piece band, Slut Island. She performs with the L.A. City Municipal Dance Squad. She co-founded the e-commerce site Witchsy. She is the creator of Fashion Brand Company, a clothing line that, in name alone, pokes fun at the self-seriousness of the fashion world. Regardless of the project, Gazin’s output is outlandishly hilarious, pushing the limits of whatever medium the project may be in. When one thinks of “funny clothing,” graphic tees that invoke puns and find their home in suburban shopping malls may come to mind, but what the clothing Fashion Brand Company has to offer is light-years ahead. Gazin’s garments are all playful, like the Three-Headed Polo or the Virgin Gown, but somehow always manage to be wearable; few of her pieces function solely as gags. Gazin’s brand has attracted plenty of fans from the comedy world who wear her work, like Heidi Gardner, Patti Harrison, Ziwe Fumudoh, Milana Vayntrub, and Jameela Jamil. We talked with Gazin about treading new ground as an equally humorous and stylish fashion line, uncomfortable interactions with manufacturers, and lizards. Even when I try to place FBC within other artist-run brands, your approach to designing your garments still seems so individual. How do you come up with ideas for new pieces?
One of the main ways I get ideas is, I think about what clothing garments I would want to own but don’t exist. I’m really into being like, Oh, wow, I would love something that looks like this, but I don’t know anyone who’s selling it, so I’m going to make it. For the polo-collar idea, I thought of that as I was falling asleep. I got up in the middle of the night and started drawing and designing it. Sometimes I think of ideas like that, and I worry that someone has done them before, and I’ll even try to do research to make sure that Moschino didn’t do it in the ’80s or something. Do you see FBC as a comedy project?
It kind of is! I feel like everything I do is funny in some capacity because I really like to laugh and be goofy, and that’s what makes me happy. There’s not much I could do that would be completely serious without having a little tongue-in-cheek. I don’t know of any fashion companies that are making cool wearable clothes but are also making fun of themselves. What were your expectations when you started FBC? It seems like it would be very niche, but now there are a ton of people wearing it, like when Jameela Jamil wore the Virgin Gown.
I definitely have some pieces that are not that wearable that I don’t expect to be seeing around that much, but I also like to design simple, basic, very wearable pieces that are more accessible to people who don’t necessarily dress weird. I myself dress kind of plain, and I like very practical clothes. I’m coming out with a lot of clothes that are very practical that are specifically geared toward woodworking in the clothes. [Laughs.] I’m also making an insanely expensive gown that has cutouts on the boobs and the vagina. It was so hard to explain to my manufacturer. They kept being like, “No, you don’t [want that] … I don’t think you understand, the breasts will be showing.” I was like, “I know; that’s what I want.” I had a dress I was giving away and I had to actually cut holes in the dress in the areas I wanted to show them and be like, “This is what I want.” I even sent a video, and I’m putting my hand through the hole so it’s very clear to them that it’s an open hole. Working with a couple of manufacturers early on, they’d give me design notes. They’d be like, “We don’t think you should do that; that’s very weird and customers will not like this.” Now I’ve finally found someone who’s so used to it. I give her any idea, and she’s like, “Okay, cool. I’ll do it.” Do you censor yourself in any way when you’re making new garments to try to ensure the pieces will be marketable?
I don’t think I censor myself. I like to dress a little wacky, but I definitely have clothes that I consider, like, good to go to an art opening in. It’s like an appropriate place to wear a wacky outfit that’s like, “Look at me!” I will say sometimes I don’t wear my own clothes because you will get too many compliments. Literally all of my friends say that! They’ll say, “I went out and literally 20 people asked me about this shirt.” When I wear my own stuff I get a ton of compliments, and I never say I designed it ‘cause I get a little shy. I don’t always want attention, I just want to go run errands, so I specifically won’t wear FBC. Do you have any big ideas for products that you’d love to see but that you can’t make right now?
I want to be doing more runway weird avant-garde gowns that I know no one will actually buy, but that I just want to design for myself. Last night I designed this gown with the front skirt all ruched up, and it’s got these fake hands that are holding the skirt up. It would be really easy to make because you just stuff a pair of gloves with cotton and then you’ve got these weird little hands with fingernails.  | | Photo: Raul Gonzo | | |
Do you see an ideal customer for the brand?
Yeah, I definitely do. I get a thrill when I see really cool women, or guys, wearing my clothes. I had a couple 18-year-old models promote me, so I got this huge influx of superhot young girls following FBC. They message me, “Hey, if you send me free clothes I’ll promote for you,” but I don’t send them free clothes, even though it would probably be good business. I don’t mind if they buy my clothes, but that’s not my ideal customer. If a really cool comedian is like, “I love your clothes,” I’ll honestly give them some clothes for free occasionally. I get so excited when women I think are super funny, or really cool, or smart, or doing really cool things, buy my clothes. That is so validating to me. The tagline for FBC is “The first fashion line exclusively for lizards,” and this is accompanied by listings on the website for lizard clothing that match the pieces for humans. What’s the reception been like for this?
It all started ‘cause I had a joke in the beginning that Fashion Brand Company was a clothing company specifically for lizards, and that the human models were just wearing specialty samples, but that the actual clothes you’d receive would be lizard size. My goal was to confuse people. I got comments like, “What? Why would you photograph it on humans?” I did a post where I was like, “Okay, I’m getting a lot of angry emails; I feel like I couldn’t be any more clear that these are lizard clothes.” All these people were like, “You’re so stupid, why would you do this?” Which is exactly what I love; I love fucking with people that way. I’m probably going to have a lizard runway show at one point instead of a human runway show. Actually, you know what? That’s my goal: to have an all-lizard model runway show. I don’t know if it’s even possible to have lizards walk in a straight line, so it’s going to be really problematic. Do you plan on doing more things that are also just performance?
Yeah, I just posted about these linen bowling shirts that I’m making that have “Daddy” embroidered on them. I’m also doing a batch of shirts that say “Mommy” and “Baby.” I’m also making my first kids’ garment and it’s going to be a little shirt that says “Daddy.” I want to photograph real families of all different kinds — you know, a family with two moms and a kid, and have the moms wear shirts that say “Baby,” and the kid wears a “Daddy” shirt. It’s a little bit of a political statement, and I’m not trying to be too political and too deep, but I guess I’m indirectly saying, “Oh, familial labels are so arbitrary now. Anyone can be daddy, and anyone can be mommy, and anyone can be baby. None of it really matters!” Subscribe for $5 and get unlimited digital access to Vulture, New York, Intelligencer, the Cut, and Grub Street. | |
