Nan tohch + carl dixon
Aka: seeker x retriever mission: genderless clothing
When you think about it, clothing doesn’t have a gender. A dress is just a long piece of fabric. Pants keep your legs warm. So, why do we insist that some items are only for women, and others just for men? For Thai-australian label Seeker x Retriever, clothes are just clothes. If you like it, you can buy it – irrespective of your gender identity.
The brand’s creative directors and founders, Nan Tohch and Carl Dixon, both grew up feeling frustrated at their countries’ rigid ideas of who could wear what. “In Thailand, I felt boxed into being the stereotypical girl in super-feminine dresses, skirts and full make-up,” Nan explains. Male dress codes were similarly restrictive in Carl’s hometown of Newcastle, New South Wales. “Ten years ago, you could be walking down the street in skinny pants and a guy hanging out of his car would yell, ‘Are you wearing your sister’s jeans?’”
Seeker x Retriever began its life as a vintage market stall. Bothered by the rise of fast fashion, Nan and Carl, with the help of their nowhead designer Park Jong, decided to start their own slow-fashion alternative. The label officially launched in 2016, establishing a repertoire of versatile, limited-edition pieces – soft, boxy shirts, straight-leg pants, and dresses that leave room for a big lunch – all made from cottons hand-woven in Northern Thailand.
Making everything unisex was more a reflection of Nan and Carl’s personal styles than an explicit attempt to challenge fashion norms. It’s business savvy, too. After all, why shut out a potential customer base by deeming your threads suitable for a certain gender only? “We both really love vintage shopping,” Carl explains. “Part of the thrill is finding a piece and having no idea what it may be, what size it is, or how it’s meant to be worn. We want to have that same flexibility with Seeker clothes.”
The challenge, of course, is cutting shapes that work on a wide range of bodies. It was a trial-and-error process at first. “We invited a lot of our friends with different body shapes to try things on until we could find a neutral sizing system that would suit,” Nan says. Their efforts paid off, gaining them an artistically inclined set of young and older fans alike. Nan remembers one lady in her 60s who pre-ordered a number of their pieces. “That’s part of our purpose,” Nan says. “To have a line that fits everyone. It’s why we offer custom orders now, too.”
While we’re not quite living in a gender-free utopia where men are buying up Seeker x Retriever dresses in droves (Nan would love to see more men in dresses in general), the boundaries are shifting. Remember when it was a big deal for guys to wear pink? That’s definitely not the case anymore – at least, not for the loyal Seeker x Retriever customers who turn to the label’s pink-hued shirts with gusto.
All things considered, Nan and Carl aren’t thinking too hard about the gender-neutral aspect of their label these days. They prefer to let the clothes speak for themselves and leave the rest up to the wearer. Instead, the duo is super-passionate about highlighting artisan-made textiles, having forged a relationship with a group of weavers in Lampang, Thailand, where Nan’s late mother grew up. Nan and Carl are candid about where they see themselves in the industry. “We’re reducing production to just once a year now,” Nan says. “I don’t think the world needs another fashion label, but we’re here if you want something unique.”