Total Look

It’s 3pm on a sunny Friday afternoon. “I’m here to see Telfar,” I tell the building supervisor at Telfar Clemens’s enormous multi-building headquarters in Ridgewood, Queens. Without asking any questions, he guides me through the newly renovated former warehouse, where in a back corner an overhead light illuminates around 20 racks of clothes and bags. Over the years I have watched Telfar’s steady evolution from a DJ with an experimental T-shirt line to one of the most recognised designers in America. This year marks the 20th anniversary of his fashion brand, Telfar. The company moved into this new location over a year ago. I’ve come to delve into his new Summer collections, and specifically to ask him to dress me in what he thinks I should wear when it’s hot. The part of the building where he and the brand’s fashion director, Avena Gallagher, are working looks as though a design team is squatting in an abandoned tech start-up.

Telfar greets me with a hug. He’s topless, wearing smart glasses and flowing, voluminous white trousers made of T-shirt fabric. Visually they live somewhere between a raver jean and the bottom half of a ballgown. I can’t help but notice a red thong peeking out above his waistband. Avena is cosy in an oversized jumper and casual knitted trousers: an all-red uniform except for a black headwrap.

The first thing that stands out in their studio is a series of glammed-up versions of iconic New York plastic bags, the kind you’d receive from a corner deli, liquor store or Chinatown dollar store. A key element of Telfar’s practice is bringing conceptual shifts to banal items, transforming the familiar into the surreal. This new collection expands on his breakthrough design, the Telfar Shopping Bag, famously modelled after the shopping bags at Bloomingdale’s.

Telfar’s lack of shirt is due to the fact that I’m catching him between outfit changes. The duo is in the middle of doing the exact thing I came to do: try on new looks. The opening of his first store last year (in Manhattan, on Broadway just below Canal) means merchandising has taken centre stage. With over 350 new pieces, it’s a complex puzzle: which items belong together? On what dates should they be released? “Can I start recording?” I ask. “Of course. I’ve been recording you since you walked in,” Telfar says, acknowledging his smart glasses; he’s been engaged in a long-term life-documentation experiment for the last few years.

“So what should I wear this spring?” I ask him. Telfar scans the racks and comes back with a handful of clothes for me, declaring, “It’s a new denim world! I want to see you in a skinny jean!” For the last three years, he says, the studio has been researching the history of denim, from Sergio Valente to Wrangler. Enthusiastically, he demonstrates that their hunt for the perfect stretch and shade of blue has ended in success. He slips on a pair of jeans that look like tights. As he pulls them over his legs, they perfectly conform to the contours of his body. He crosses his legs, slips his hand into his back pocket and bends over. It’s Brooke Shields’s famous Calvin Klein Jeans pose. He looks back at me and smiles, clearly delighted by the stretch capacity of his new creation.

Avena tosses me a stretch denim catsuit. “There is no way this is going to work with my body type,” I think as I put on the flashy piece. But once I get it over my shoulders and zip up the front, I’m stunned. It enhances my physique like a superhero’s uniform. It’s simultaneously familiar and new, retro and futuristic, urban and rural, flamboyantly gay and macho.

I ask them how they feel about releasing the fruits of so much under-the-radar productivity. “We’re excited about all of this!” says Avena. “Our store is a newborn. It’s the start of a new residency. We’re excited to host people. We’re excited for a new unisex Americana.” Telfar chimes in: “All this new stuff is going to start coming into the world in really cute ways. I’m excited about being able to do splits in these new jeans. It’s gonna be a hot American summer.”

As we chat, Telfar notices me admiring my new look in the mirror. The sexy, ’70s-inspired onesie is making me feel like a futuristic country-western star. “You look soooooooooooo good!” he exclaims. “You need to take this out on the town tonight and see what you get into!”