The Omaha Fashion Week team sat down with Thakoon Panichgul - virtually, of course - to discuss Nebraska roots, fashion design, and pushing boundaries with creativity. Hear more from the New York-based fashion designer and ask him your own questions at Omaha Fashion Week’s Beyond the Runway Discussion: Homecoming: A Conversation with Thakoon.
What is your history with Nebraska?
I am originally from Thailand. I moved to the United States when I was 11. We moved to Bellevue, Nebraska. I have family in the military so that was the reasoning for Omaha, Nebraska because of Offutt Air Force Base. I started the 5th Grade in the Bellevue Public School system and I stayed until the graduated high school at Bellevue West. That was in 1988 I believe and then left for college in 1993.
Did anything in Nebraska steer you toward your future in fashion design?
Prior to going to Nebraska, we grew up in Bangkok. It’s really big and metropolitan, with a lot of excitement and energy. My brother and I were running around the city ourselves, so we came from that kind of environment to something really quiet in Bellevue. At the time on Cornhusker Road, there was nothing but cornfields. Now, it’s a bit more developed but at the time it was pretty quiet. I discovered newsstands and bookstores at the mall. On the weekends, I would make my mom take us to the mall and I would spend hours at the bookstore going through first books, obviously, then, magazines. That’s when I discovered fashion magazines because at Westroads Mall they had quite a bit of international magazines. That was when I started to discover fashion.
What other steps led you to become a fashion designer?
When we were in Nebraska, my mom worked as a seamstress at Pendleton, which is an American clothing company. At the time, they had a big manufacturing facility right at the edge of Bellevue and South Omaha. I remember fondly that it was something that she did. I grew up around a family that’s pretty crafty. Obviously, my mother knew how to sew and my grandmother did as well. My grandmother taught me how to hand-sew and crochet and whatnot. Those were the things that informed me about fashion. While my mom was working as a seamstress, it was just a job for her. It wasn’t a career and I don’t think that she ever pushed me into fashion.
There was always something in my head that wanted to do fashion. I think it was, again, discovering the magazines and discovering the beautiful fashion stories in them and imagining being away from the Nebraska winter into something a bit more exciting. It was that sensibility that led me. It was a reaction against the mundane, winter scene. Escapism was a big part of it.
A lot of people are feeling that way right now, working from home for over a year. How can we channel our imagination and use that idea of escapism for our creativity?
There’s more time than ever, that’s the beauty of it. There’s more time than ever to be able to deep-dive into research and creation. What you have to work against, though, is that in this age of information that’s easily accessible via your phone. There’s social media and those noises from everywhere that distract you. You’re dealing with two forces that you have to balance out and make sure that the creative process wins over the distraction.
Having the time at home should give you more time to research into creative visions. It certainly has for me. Talking into dreaming, too, and the idea that maybe we used to travel a bit; I did. Now, I haven’t got on a plane in over a year, where I used to be on a plane every two weeks. It makes you appreciate what you had, in terms of escapism, the actual active act of traveling. For me, it’s channeling that need and desire in the head and seeing into that future and creating into that future.
What do you miss from the Midwest?
I miss the slower pace. Nebraska was, looking back, a great place to grow up because everything was really, really slow in a good way. A lot of the people there, especially in Omaha, were open-minded, sensible people. I miss going back there, especially in the summertime when the weather’s quite beautiful, walking around and having a slower pace of life.
What is one of the biggest challenges you have experienced in your career?
From a creative and an artist perspective, the challenge is that fashion, ultimately, is still commerce. We oftentimes talk about fashion being an art. It is but it has a purpose, which is that it has to be bought and worn by people. Ultimately, it is a commercial endeavor. The challenge is that you have a creative point of view and integrity in your artistic designs but they get pushed aside for commerciality. So, how do you balance the two while wanting to grow the brand and the collection a little bit more?
What decisions do you make to combat that challenge?
Brand and authenticity to the brand is the most important thing that you can put out there for yourself because if the brand doesn’t exist, then you don’t exist, and the stores can't buy anything. It doesn’t do anyone any good to not be brand-focused. Oftentimes, when you put something out there you have one retailer here and one retailer there and they’re asking for two completely different things. You can’t be everything to everybody. You just have to be one thing to the brand. To me, that’s the biggest focus, putting your head down and focusing on what you see the brand to be. As long as you stay true to that, then you’re staying true to your authentic self.
What is one of the funniest stories you have witnessed in the fashion industry?
The funniest stories? There’s been a lot. It’s funny now, but it was really stressful then. Fashion always takes itself so seriously that you don’t realize how funny it actually is. One time, we were doing a collection where we were developing a lot of pieces in France with a place that was specializing in feathers. We were getting it shipped for the runway. We still hadn’t received it and we were supposed to get it the day before the runway show, which is really late already. It came, but we didn’t realize that with feathers, you need a Fish and Wildlife Certificate. It’s considered wildlife even if it’s on a garment. I remember sending one of my assistants to the airport, I think it was JFK, and trying to wrangle to get these pieces for the show. I remember her saying, “No. You don’t understand. We have a fashion show tomorrow.” Trying to explain that there’s a fashion show and it’s so important that you need this now to somebody at FedEx that doesn’t really care about that, to me, is pretty humorous.
Did it work out?
Yeah. We got it literally four hours before the show. It was one of the dresses that was closing the show so it was super important. It had to make it.
Have you made any significant changes to your design style during the pandemic?
We have quite a bit. Traditionally, we have a studio that we go to. I have a team and we all develop and play together. We look at fabrics and sketches together, even though everyone now designs on a computer. We look at print outs and I over-sketch. I look at everything tactilely and on the form. It’s impossible to do that now because everyone is working from home, so we have to rely on communication tools and being very specific on Zoom meetings. It’s figuring out a way to communicate that’s not face-to-face. It’s communicating more into what you see directly on the screen in a sketch form. In terms of materials, it’s all different because we can’t all touch the same material. The step of development is taking a little longer because somebody finds a fabric, they send it to me, and I send it to somebody else. It’s continuously getting sent everywhere, which adds a lot of time to the development cycle. Then, it gets into time management, whereas before in the studio, you could make things happen very quickly. Now, what used to take a couple of days is taking a couple of weeks because of the sending out. So, time management comes into play a lot now.
Would you consider the pandemic a challenge or an opportunity?
I think it’s both. I do think that growth happens when there are challenges, which create opportunity. As a designer, it’s not just about the beauty of clothes and what you’re dreaming about for the future, it's also about problem-solving. As the pandemic has proven, comfort will be key to future designs in fashion now that everyone is home and comfortable and not dressing up as much. When you have that kind of comfort, you don’t want to give it up. Once things go back to normal, we will have dress-up days. For the most part, you’re not going to give up comfort again now that you’ve had it and you know that you can have it while you’re working.
How do you push boundaries with your creativity during this time?
I think it’s an interesting time because fashion has been upended. There isn’t a system anymore. When I was growing up in the fashion system, there was a way to climb the industry, if you get in front of Vogue and Anna Wintour and Barney’s. There were things that you definitely could do and if you were good, they would pay attention. That’s how you could build your brand. There was a vertical way of looking at that before; that no longer exists. Now, everything is flat and there are many pockets of successes that can happen. To push boundaries, you have to recognize that the field is open with opportunities. Anything is up for grabs as long as you know who you are and what your voice is. If you know you’re this kind of designer, crank it up 10 more times and project it out there. That’s the way to capitalize; that’s the volume that you need to get attention. Once that attention is gotten, you trickle it down to where you can build your brand a little less vocally.
Hear more from Thakoon Panichgul during Omaha Fashion Week’s Beyond the Runway Conversation. Attend the virtual discussion, Homecoming: A Conversation with Thakoon. Reserve your FREE spot before the event fills up!
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