24HOURS JASON WU
The Boss designer shares his day.
When I’m in Germany for Hugo Boss, I stay at this hotel in the town of Metzingen, where the headquarters is. I’m not the best morning person. I set the alarms on my Jason Wu phone and my Hugo Boss phone, and generally use each snooze button three times. They’re all synchronised, just in case one doesn’t work. I use the alarm that sounds like a fire truck. It has a sense of urgency: Get up! Get up! 7.45AM I get up and take a shower. I like Kiehl’s products because there isn’t any smell, and I use the facial exfoliator from Caudalíe. I’m really fast getting ready. I have no hair, so I don’t have to style anything. As a designer, deciding what to wear is the last thing you want to think about; my uniform is a jacket, a T-shirt, jeans, and trainers. I have a bunch of Hugo Boss blazers, tons of tees from A.P.C. and Margiela, and then basic Levi’s and Converse, or I have Boss trainers in three colours. I’ve been wearing white Converse for 10 years – they can’t get old. I have, like, 10 pairs. When they’re dirty I throw them away. I can’t pull off dirty Converse; there isn’t a tinge of grunge in me. Then I have a cup of coffee, black, and start my day. I’m not a breakfast eater. I feel like some people are religious about it, but I like lunch. 8.30AM In the great German tradition, my day is planned to the minute. When I get to the office, I check my iPad and mentally prepare. It’s kind of a marathon starting then. I catch up with my German assistant, who’s Japanese, then make the rounds of the office and catch up with the team. I’m notorious for going through people’s desks to see what new things they’re working on. I love the creative process, so when I see a nice swatch on somebody’s desk I grab it. I’m one of the first ones to get there so I can see what everyone’s working on. I hate clutter, so I’m really good with a German assistant. Some people are really great at chaos, but I’m not. I can’t stand it when there are unread messages on the phone – it’s like this OCD thing I’ve developed. The Boss campus looks like the set of Gattaca. It’s perfectly manicured, all of these modernised glass buildings situated in the middle of the town, which is pretty suburban – a lot of green. The contrast was kind of what initially drew me to Boss, that juxtaposition between architecture and nature. Most days I spend time in three different buildings: D15, D12, and D19. It’s very sci-fi. I’m in what they call the technical development centre a lot, which is the German version of the atelier. My office is in D12 – on my floor is design, brand management, and merchandising – and then D19 is communications, marketing, and the art department. I kind of migrate through different buildings to do different things. 1PM I don’t usually take a lunch break, so the campus cafeteria delivers my “Jason lunch”. You know how in Europe, especially Germany, a sandwich is either, like, a piece of cheese or a piece of ham but not both? I got them to do a special one with prosciutto, cheese, and lettuce on a sunflower-seed roll. They now sell it – we’re starting a trend. In the afternoon we do anything from
approving campaigns to retouching