In honor of the 15th anniversary season of Omaha Fashion Week, we decided to sit down with the two designers who have been involved since day one. From warehouse raves in the 90’s, to underground fashion shows in the early 2000’s, and Omaha Fashion Week’s 15-year evolution. Designers, Buf Reynolds and Dan Richters now sit on the Omaha Fashion Week panel, inspiring the next generation of designers.
How did you get into clothing design?
Buf: The first thing I can remember that was fashion related was being in kindergarten. My teacher had a tiny tv on her desk that she would watch when all the kids were napping. I was up one day, not napping and I walked over to see some sort of fashion show. I didn’t know what it was, but I thought, oh that’s neat.
My mom also made our clothes when we were little, and all her sewing stuff sat in this one little area. Then when we grew up, she was too busy to be sitting in front of a sewing machine anymore. In high school, I finally thought, “let me see if it can use that”. We decided to make my homecoming dress for sophomore year, and she did most of the work…let’s be honest, she did it all, I just watched. After that, I just started playing with the sewing machine.
Over time, she showed me how to do all the proper things, as far as she knew how. She didn't design things, she just followed patterns and sewed them. And for a long time, I was like patterns? Gross. I don't know how to use those, so I never did.
Dan: I've been interested in fashion for a very long time. I was always interested in books, movies, reading, and sci-fi fantasy worlds. I started seeing fashion by people like Mugler and McQueen and it totally captured my imagination. I had these Star Wars action figures; they were doll size, like Luke and Han Solo and I remember making armor for them out of Play-doh and clay.
I would do a lot of drawings too, obviously all my characters had to have interesting outfits and they were mostly fantasy warriors and stuff. So those are my earliest fashion memories. As I got more into art, painting, sculpture, drawing and everything else, I found that fashion is kind of a focal point for all of that. So that's how I got started thinking about varying textures and interesting things that I liked and being inspired by those designers.
It's interesting that you say you didn’t like using patterns. I feel like today, people are starting their design journeys with upcycling without patterns. Do you have any advice for young designers in regards to patterns?
Buf: Upcycling is a really great way to learn how a garment comes together. If you're deconstructing something, you're also learning how it was constructed. Once you take apart a sleeve and you see the shape, its mind blowing! Before you think, it's just a tube. Once you see the inside, you realize there's so much more thought put into the movement of fabric, how it's going to function, where fabric is going to bunch and you end up learning how to sew it from there.
That being said, it’s really important to start reading. Get old patterns, they cost a dime at the thrift store, and just start reading the directions. Learn how a piece comes together, start knowing the terms like what the grain of the fabric is, what a salvage is, what a knit is, and all of those things. Looking back, they would have been super valuable in the beginning instead of just learning trial by fire.
What does your design process look like and how has it changed over time?
Dan: It is interesting to think about it changing over time, because it's been such a long process. When I started designing, I was constantly thinking “Oh my gosh, can my models even sit down in these?” Now it's a given that they're functional too. I think about, if its comfortable and how will this make the wearer feel. That's been a journey to understand, while still having in mind what I want artistically and getting there. Every collection I do something new and there's a new set of challenges. It’s like solving engineering problems.
I like when you can tell the life of the piece is coming from the wearer and the dress isn't wearing them. I want the dress to move with the body, not the other way around. That's how I developed my materials and processes and how I discovered working with silicon, mesh, and other stretchy materials. Even the things I want to look hard and unmoving, like spikes and plates, they're all made so that they look hard, but are actually rubbery, stretchy, and have a lot to give to them.
On top of that, I’m interested in the contrast of colors and textures. The nice thing about silicone is that it's a liquid that turns solid. I could look at this table and think, “I love that geometric pattern on this table. That could be a fabric for my dress.” I would essentially use this table as a mold, put a thin layer of silicone on top of that, put on a mesh backing, peel that up, and there you go. Then I discovered that I could make my own prints by actually drawing and painting them. My most recent thing is painting the dress on the form itself with a very thin silicon and that's pretty amazing because it cuts out some steps.
AUGUST 2010 UNDER THE JONES ST. BRIDGE, PHOTO BY ALAN HOLTMEIER
What did the early days of fashion in Omaha look like, pre-Omaha Fashion Week?
Buf: I didn't really hear about any fashion shows happening and I was still hanging out in my tiny apartment on 10th St. making things for myself. - Everything starts on 10th St. I swear. –
There was a small group of artists, hippies, weird, great, fun humans to hang around with that did different creative things like parties and shows. We started thinking we should do a fashion show, and began envisioning what that would look like. There's a place on 10th St. that was a big, empty space that nobody was using. We figured, if we clear out some space, we could totally do a fashion show here. We spent the following two weeks that we should have been working on finishing all our garments, just clearing out the space.
I don't even remember how many looks I did in that first show. It was just random; a lot of DIY. At that time, you did everything yourself. That was the very first show that we did. We had over 350 people show up, which was a lot for the first time for anything. We only had two weeks of really being able to advertise and talk about it. It was a lot of word of mouth and we went around passing out flyers. We ended up doing a ton of shows in that space and doing weird parties and stuff. We would just use it for whatever we could.
We also did what we called, guerilla fashion shows. We had gotten a drum line from a high school to lead models through the streets downtown, starting in the Old Market at my shop and down Howard Street, then down 11th, and ending at Nomad.
We did a traveling fashion show where we got a charter bus and piled in a bunch of models wearing our clothes, and we went to different bars. We’d go into a bar, the models marched through, and then got right back on the bus to go to the next one. We ended at Nico, which is this old club, and then partied there the rest of the night.
It was a weird time where you did whatever you wanted and you didn't have anybody there standing over you to say, “You can't do this. You can't do that. These are the rules. This is what we do.”
Dan: The shows I'd heard about were fancy things that nobody really knew about. The engine behind those were the agencies. They would put on shows mainly for their models’ experience and for their clients.
As far as pure designer fashion, it was mainly run by the designers. I did see quite a few fashion shows during rock concerts, in little, tiny auditoriums where they would have a show while the concert was going on.
There were two shows I saw that were “guerilla fashion” where the designer would get all their models and it was more like a flash mob, where everybody showed up with flashlights and you would light up the models as they walked by. I also organized a few small shows at the Medusa Project, the Magic Theater, and different galleries.
Fashion is entertainment; it's like bringing a gallery show on its feet. Everybody, no matter who you are or whatever background, everybody can agree that they like to see beautiful things.
What was the first Omaha Fashion Week show like?
Buf: At first, we didn’t really know what to expect. “Am I just going to show up with clothes? How do we get models?” It was a very weird sort of experience because it hadn't been done before to this scale. As we got closer, they were like, “Hey, we're going to do a photo shoot tomorrow, what do you have?” It all started to come together.
We had maybe 10 designers that we'd work with throughout the first three years of doing underground fashion shows. Suddenly, there were more people and I didn't know them all. Then, you start learning about what everybody does and it was really inspiring, getting to see the weird, intricate, and wild ideas that everybody had.
When you walked out on the runway and see everything, you're like looking around, like, “Oh my God, literally thousands of people are watching right now.” There were people lining the runway, they were standing on the top of the parking structures, hanging out of apartment windows, standing up on the 10th St. Bridge and just screaming.
Buf’s First Collection during Omaha Fashion Week 2008, PHOTO BY CHRIS MACHIAN
Dan: Oh my gosh, it was great. I was there from early afternoon all the way until putting the chairs away. It was incredible. It's one of those things where I don't think you could ever replicate that time because there were no fashion shows like that. It was just mayhem.
For that first show, I just had two pieces with this story of a weird kind of emissary from another dimension. I did it in collaboration with another designer friend of mine because I didn't really do any sewing or anything, so she sewed the dress that went underneath all my crazy things.
My first piece was definitely inspired by Mugler. I made it out of cut up compact discs and arranged them like fish scales on a stretch mesh shirt. I wanted it to be self-lit, so I had battery-powered lights inside shining on different parts of the outfit and the model. I even had laser pointers shooting out into the sky. One of my models had a fake sword that she held by the blade, while the other walked out holding two glowing orbs of light. I was all about theatrics back then.
Elaboration of Dan Richter’s original 2008 CD dress for Omaha Fashion Week 2009 collection. PHOTO BY SHANNON BINGHAM
How did the start of Omaha Fashion Week change your perspective on the opportunities and community building within the arts scene in Omaha?
Buf: We went from 12 designers that first year to probably 30 the second year, and then by the third year, I think they got something like 90 applications. Suddenly, it felt like we could really do this. There's a massive artist community in Omaha. How come there can't be a massive fashion community, too?
We started to realize that we can really do a lot with this; we can grow. We might be able to actually turn this into a job and make money doing this. People are interested; people want to see it and they want to participate in it. I started becoming very protective of the people in the community. There was no room to tear each other down. We don't have the ability to sit there and badmouth anybody; we should be trying to build each other up. It’s not like the spotlight is going to shine on just one person, it puts everybody in the limelight.
Omaha Fashion Week created an infrastructure. Instead of taking everything you’ve ever made and putting it on the runway, you start to think more logistically. It really took me from just being a girl who sews and makes clothes to like making me feel like a real fashion designer.
Dan: It totally makes you think, “This is something that's really happening. This is something I can do.” I think the recurring theme back then was everyone trying to validate each other. Everybody knew it was cool but you didn't know if you could ever be part of it. We realized that it’s actually giving other designers opportunities when you're creating opportunities for yourself.
I remember a producer from LA saw my work on Instagram and reached out to me about doing a show out there. I think it was 2013, and that’s when they first started giving people prizes at Omaha Fashion Week. That season I won about $1,000 and I put that money right into the participation fee for a show in LA and that's how I got involved in that scene. It was directly from them seeing my work on the Omaha Fashion Week Runway.
This year’s theme was heavily inspired by 1990’s raves. What was the rave scene like in Omaha?
Dan: That was another time that you can't recreate. I feel very fortunate to have been there at that time. The first rave I went to was a proper warehouse rave; it was super dirty and there were people dressed in Saran wrap. Being there and feeling that kind of energy is almost chaotic. I was always a mere music purist. You know what I mean? I wasn’t into drugs or anything. I had so many friends who were, but for me, music was my drug.
Back then, these parties would go till 8 in the morning if they weren't busted, especially ones that I would travel for in Wisconsin and Chicago, the big ones. Even the outdoor ones where we would camp for the weekend were just 24 hours of music.
That was something that put so much into me. I wanted to contribute back and I started making music because of that, too. What I really loved was being part of the actual creation of the environment. I did huge spray paintings and these big cutouts figures on huge pieces of laminated wood, and I would decorate the DJ spaces. I ended up doing a bunch of clubs, too, and not just for the raves that were in barns or warehouses downtown.
What did it mean to you as a young artist to have rave culture and the opportunity to create with so much freedom?
Dan: It was so driven by music for me. I love the music so much and my paintings and everything I do are a response to that. They are all informed by the same things in the form of fashion, fantasy, and sci-fi.
I'm doing this to add to the experience for everyone else, which is a very important aspect of fashion, too. When I feel like I’m contributing, that’s what it’s all about. I'm being inspired by the whole scene to create, and then, I turn it into inspiration for others. It's a cycle.
Interview executed, transcribed, and edited by Sami Hartong.