The Designer Come Up Is No Cake Walk

It’s the artist’s responsibility to recontextualize the mundane, to pave the path towards a horizon of an alternative perspective. This responsibility comes with risk and the attempt at persuading others to see things your way. You can gabble back and forth of the profane merit that Dash Snow’s provocation had on New York’s hedonistic art scene. You can stare for hours, at a Dan Witz image, attempting to decipher the inexplicable innuendos only to find yourself engulfed in a black hole of meaning that carries no weight. Yet, there is something to say about a woman's touch that occupies a pocket of meaning and empathy that is both overwhelming and intimidating, but unmatched.

Designers Sydney Wekstein, the creator behind World Of My Own NYC, Grace Wang, designer behind Grace Gui, and Claire Kremyar, restaurant connoisseur and textile designer, characterize the tumult of New York City’s creative scene all while encapsulating the grace that comes with simply existing as a woman. I had the pleasure of sitting down with each young artist, to speak, woman-to-woman, about what the journey has done, damaged, healed, and blossomed in their lives as a designer and as a woman.

Sydney Wekstein, World Of My Own

“The ultimate creative direction is making your own town—no cars, only horses, bikes, and scooters. Every Friday is mandated live-music and elderflower margarita night.” Says Sydney Wekstein, 21, the creator behind World Of My Own NYC (WOMO), a sustainable fashion brand based in New York City. She’s apt to imaging worlds within worlds, made evident by our discussions of an imaginary town, where sovereignty falls in between the folds of all things ingenious. World Of My Own has expanded to encompass meaning beyond dreamy visuals and carefully-crafted garments. “New York City is such an influence for me and fashion is what you can do with your community," she says. "Not just making a shirt because you want to make a shirt. What are you saying with it?"

Wekstein is a trailblazer in an industry unkind to the offbeat, opening the door to sincere inclusivity and social responsibility. "We are taught that there isn’t enough room for everyone, but there is," she says, eyes wide and eager. “I don’t think that a lot of people in fashion know there is more going on in the world politically, economically and socially." Taking a leap of faith, as a young, female entrepreneur in New York, comes with the obvious obstacles: inevitable burnout, dodging the abysmal “sellout” archetype, and finding a way to pay everyone and yourself at the end of it all. Wekstein describes a different hurdle-the kind our dominating forces of fashion (the white, straight male) get the privilege of overlooking, “People sexualize my brand because a nipple or skin is showing. In reality we are all naked under our clothes, men will follow the page just to see that and turn it into something gross.”

Sexual degradation knows no boundaries, seeping into every facet of culture, particularly spaces designated for women. That’s why Wekstein keeps her WOMO circle tight. "At our zine launch party at Heaven Can Wait, we had female DJs. Most of WOMO consist of girls under 25-years-old.” Call it a stringent preference but for women, it’s a survival tactic. It’s a necessary extra step for female empaths like Wekstein. "The only way I know how to operate is through vulnerability," she says. Her latest collection, Heart Exposé was conceived under the prospects of accepting love and opening the heart. I ask Sydney, amidst all WOMO has gone through, what is truly at stake for her? She answer’s like a dreamer, “It’s my dreams that are at stake, I’ve always wanted to create something bigger than myself that benefits others and me."

GRACE WANG, Grace Gui

The term “male gaze” has evolved, metamorphosed into a terminology with a clichéd association. It’s safe to say the social standings between men and women has arrived at a “point of no return.” The conception of male presence, male influence, and the man himself has become the ultimate subordinate construct in a woman’s life, a mere afterthought. Knitwear designer Grace Wang, founder of Grace Gui, a sustainable knitwear brand based in Brooklyn, holds these doctrines near and dear.

“I had a lot of mainly female influences and support systems in my life," she says. Wang creates garments using fibers sourced from local farmers, her home-raised silkworms, and dyes derived from minerals and plants. A narrative that serves as a testament to her Chinese-American heritage and allegiance to environmentally cautious practices, is meticulously woven into each garment; adorned with tender florals, abstract detailing, and subversive cutouts.

Each knit is rich with an anecdotal connotation. “I’ve built a brand for myself, had some success but there is a scientific and social aspect to it,” she says. “There's the social media and the expectation to have a moral ethos to your brand beyond the visuals you create."

After taking the leap and dropping out of pre-law to pursue fashion, Wang decided she needed to be intentional in her pursuits. She discusses the difficulty she faced deciding to pursue a career in the arts, a field that socially and economically keeps the majority at distance. Retaining relevancy in the field is a cumbersome task. But will there ever exist a time in which art can be for everyone? “There should be room for societal leniency towards those who want to create and just create," Wang says. "On the other hand, there are artists who just can’t or don’t stick it out. Consistency is key." Alas returns that vexing term “male gaze." For female artists, it is a phenomenon we may find ourselves lost in, “I could see how a lot of women tend to struggle in New York, especially the ones who tend to design more for the male gaze," Grace says. She suggests, “Value the mind over everything else."

Claire Kremyar

“Do you want cheese? I got us cheese,” Claire Kremyar, 21, textile designer and restaurant enthusiast, asked me. Naturally, she brought us a snack for the occasion. She’s stippling away, madly, at a sketch. A sea of stars and constellations, a commissioned project for a lower east side apartment ceiling. Kremyar takes interior spaces and elevates them, embellishing every mural and every wallpaper with love. After stumbling into a job at a local Greenwich village goldmine for the downtown restaurant dweller, Babs, Claire fell in love with the culture. When Babs was eventually taken over by Parcelle Wines, she was commissioned at a mere 20-years-old to design the space. “It was intimidating. Ultimately I knew the space was important to me because it was the serving job that changed my life,” she says.

128 motifs span across 200 inches of wall, each motif paying homage to a person in Kremyar’s life. Hand drawn with impeccable detail, you will find a little camera, a swan, a strawberry, and a newspaper. Just across the way, you can find two life size murals, depicting the young artist's two best friends, re-imaged as purposefully posed flower fairies.

Kremyar recalls the daunting odyssey of navigating her first commissioned project, “When I was creating art that I was being commission for, I struggled with the fear of judgement from the person I was creating for, from the public, the press,” she says. “Being a young women and learning how to conduct business and negotiate a deal with people so much older and experienced than you.” Creatives tend to shy away from that scary word, business, and it’s echoing agitation. It’s a real life hindrance on creative flow, but a necessary evil, “I don’t even have a bachelor's degree and here I am negotiating a commission fee and designing an entire space on my own for the first time ever," Kremyar says. It’s ironically petrifying, with a glorious outcome.