Old School vs. New School: How Much Has Changed for Designers?
Fashion’s long-standing emphasis on European designers has kept Latinx creators out of the spotlight, but there’s a shift under way, according to Maria Cornejo.
Latinx designers have had manifold influences on fashion over the years, with some of the most renowned designers — Oscar de la Renta, Carolina Herrera, Narciso Rodriguez and Maria Cornejo — helping to pave the way for up-and-coming designers looking to showcase their own creativity on the runway.
In some ways, the industry's longstanding emphasis on European designers has kept Latinx creators out of the spotlight, but there's a shift underway, according to Maria Cornejo.
“Before there was just the usuals, Oscar de la Renta, Carolina and of course Narciso [Rodriguez] who I love, but now there seems to be a whole new wave of designers coming out of Latin America,” she told WWD. “When I was a child, everything was looking to Europe and looking to the States. I feel like as Latin countries take more pride in their own designers, then they would get noticed everywhere else.”
Latinx designers work across a wide range of boundaries — cultural differences, language barriers and geographical constraints. These challenging juxtapositions and complexities often result in new perspectives to solving design problems. And despite the sluggishness to adapt Latinx designers into the current fashion industry in the U.S., the community is expected to wield increased influence in the coming years.
In looking at what has changed for
Latinx designers over the years, WWD spoke to Cornejo, an established and sustainable fashion trailblazer and designer of Zero + Maria Cornejo, and emerging designer Bárbara Sánchez-Kane of the binary defying brand Sánchez-Kane. Each offered unique views on the industry through a Latinx lens, as they tackled issues spanning the current racial climate, discrimination based on their ethnicities, and the opportunities for Latinx designers in the future of fashion.
Maria Cornejo was born in Chile and went to England as a political refugee in 1975. She studied fashion there before moving to Paris in 1988. Over the years, she worked in Japan, China and Italy, and ultimately moved to New York City in 1996 at age 35. Two years later, Cornejo started Zero + Maria Cornejo on Mott Street.
WWD: What made you choose a career in fashion design and how did the journey begin for you?
Maria Cornejo: I chose to do fashion, when I first arrived in England I was 12 years old, I couldn't speak English, I felt like I was drowning. You know you can't speak the language, but visually I felt much more confident in doing things in art. My art teacher kept encouraging me to go into the arts, whereas my chemistry teacher kept encouraging me to go to chemistry. So I have a very mathematical mind, which I didn't realize at the time. I wasn't confident enough because my English wasn't good enough. But as I got older I realized that I ended up using math every day, calculation and the way I cut things is in the way of geometry. It's interesting how I ended up in fashion because when I was a child my grandmother and mother, they all made their clothes and I was taught to knit by my grandmother when I was seven on giant construction nails because, in those days there were no children's knitting needles. I knitted my dolls, made them outfits like a typical kid who loves fashion. I didn't realize it could be a career, I just thought it was something that I always just did, and then as I got older I realized that's what I wanted to do.
WWD: Was there a key person who helped get you your first opportunity/ took a chance on you in the industry? M.C.: For me, I worked from the age of 15 in fashion stores in Manchester, and there was this amazing lady called Maureen Doherty, who used to run the stores called: Elle, Issey Miyake and Fiorucci. And so I was like a Saturday girl, she always encouraged me, with my mad outfits and she used to say to me, “I don't care, go for a walk if you're bored, but you know just be interested in things,” and she was really amazing and she's still going, she's got her own collection called “Egg” in London.
She does really well and she was one of the first people to introduce Margiela into England and things like that, she's just really an interesting person because she's very creative and at the same time she had the eye, she had a great eye, and I think she saw that in me.
WWD: Not all designers are afforded the same opportunities. What have been some milestone moments for your brand and for you as a designer? M.C.: I think for me a milestone was when I graduated from college. Joseph Ettedgui, who owns all the Joseph stores and this other store “Whistles,” bought my college collection, which was incredible, when I was 21. When I was 23, with my boyfriend at the time, John Richmond, we launched 20 of our stores in Japan, Richmond Cornejo, which is pretty amazing for a 23-year-old to have 20 own stores. We designed them, did everything in them, and I was shuffling between Tokyo and Milan all the time, and London. Winning the Cooper Hewitt design awards in
2006, in 2019 winning the Fashion Group International's sustainability award, and the CFDA Lexus Award years ago — all these things have been big milestones. Amazing things happening, like Michelle Obama wearing the clothes, and all these incredible women who support the brand.
WWD: Do you find your Latinx heritage influences your thought process when creating a collection? M.C.: Yes, I definitely think it informs certain collections. Like one collection could be more colorful, and I think my Latin roots and my sense of joy and color come from South America. And fun, Latins are quite fun, we don't take ourselves too seriously. Even though people think I'm very serious, I'm not. I grew up all over the place and to me what I take away from being Latin is the heart, the color, the soul, things that are really important right now.
WWD: What are your thoughts on the current climate regarding race in the U.S. and how it impacts the Hispanic/ Latinx community?
M.C.: That's a big question, my gosh! For me, I've always been a foreigner, one of the reasons I love New York...it's such a mixed-race city, and it's so diverse and dynamic because of that. You hear Spanish, you hear the bodegas, you hear the people, the music and everything. Whereas, when I lived in Europe, I was very exotic, I was the only Latin in art school in London, so coming here I felt like home, but yeah there's a lot of inequalities with women, people [of color]. I was saying to someone the other day, I am not only [a person of color], I am Hispanic, and I'm a woman and I'm also older, so there's so many disparities — financial and socio-economical. As immigrants we work harder than anybody else to make things work. Nothing was given to us. ►