Gerlan Marcel Makes Midwestern Mall Culture Sexy

Even if her dangling rhinestone earrings didn’t spell it out, Gerlan Marcel is a boss. Since 2009, the fashion designer behind Gerlan Jeans has been blowing minds with her collections that feature loud prints and a fuck-off attitude. When I met Gerlan at her design studio in Brooklyn last month, her shiny earrings were resting against her long braided blond pigtails, topped with a white skull cap and an inside-out Gerlan Jeans baseball cap.

Gerlan was born in London, but her family relocated to Ohio, which is also where I am from. She attended boarding school in Glastonbury and art school in London, which explains why her style far surpasses that of anyone I ever met during my time growing up in the Buckeye State. Her collections reflect her affinity for Midwestern mall culture, reconceptualizing an aesthetic that is reminiscent of the things I bought at Hot Topic during my edgy high school phase—only she has the ability to make a dress covered in slime actually look sexy. While studying fabric printing at Central St. Martins in the UK, Gerlan interned with fashion oddball Jeremy Scott and later worked with Patricia Field, two designers who undoubtedly helped put Gerlan on the path to push the boundaries of traditional fashion with her own brand.

Gerlan's colorful all-over prints draw on early 90s imagery with designs inspired by Goosebumps, girl power, and Minnie Mouse. She has collaborated with brands like Disney, Joyrich, and, most recently, Puma. Divas like Beyoncé, Kelly Rowland, and Rita Ora have all been seen rocking the designer’s trademark pieces. With the recent release of her Puma Disc Blaze collaboration and the upcoming drop of her fall/winter 2014 collection, I decided to chat with the designer. We talked about her love of malls, going on tour with the Grateful Dead, and the politics of fashion, while photographer Brayden Olson took a few pics around her showroom.

VICE: What was it like growing up in two different countries?
Gerlan Jeans: My mother is from Liverpool and my dad is from Brooklyn, but we relocated to Ohio. I went to boarding school in the UK, so I had the best of both worlds. During those formative years, I had stuff like Top of the Pops and American culture. That melding of worlds definitely influences my aesthetic.

How long were you in Ohio?
I pretty much grew up there. I attended high school in the US, but I had come from a British boarding school, so it was a little bit of a culture shock. I was used to a totally different world, where you stand up when the teacher walks into the room and you call them sir. I have a whole collection inspired by that transition between tween and teen, a very important and exciting time period for me. Watching style develop stays with you as you get older.

You had to wear a uniform during boarding school. How was that?
Yes, I totally wore a uniform. I remember I’d do anything I could to make it cooler. I was obsessed with shoe clips. You had to wear Doc Martens, which seems cool now, but it wasn’t at the time because it was my school shoe. I would get all these shoe clips with bows or diamonds and clip them on my shoes. That was my specialty. On the weekends we could wear our own clothes. I vividly remember coming back to the states and getting my play clothes there because they didn’t have that stuff in the UK. It was special. My parents would take me to T.J.Maxx and the sale rack at United Colors of Benetton. I lived for picking out those weekend looks.

You often talk about your love for Midwestern mall culture. What did you like so much about it?
I was never one of those kids who knew how to say Givenchy or had ads of Calvin Klein on my wall. Going to the mall was the most exciting thing ever. Looking back on it, each store was its own hyper-realized world. There was a store called Ups and Downs and it was my one-stop shop to get everything worn in the Madonna Like a Virgin album. It felt like I was entering a different universe when I went into one of those stores, and this was in Ohio, not Paris or London. That is how I grew up building my own style and loving clothes. I think that visceral experience stayed with me. That is part of something that has disappeared from High Street since the advent of fast fashion. You find it obviously with niche and expensive ready-to-wear brands, but the original mission of Gerlan Jeans was to bring that back to High Street. Obviously my price point is not there, which comes with mass-market distribution and that level of manufacturing ability, but that is the ultimate goal.

You mentioned that you weren’t always into high-end fashion, so when did you realize you wanted to be a designer?
I don’t have any real memories of that being something I wanted to do. I started out in a very traditional sense: painting and drawing. Then I realized I really liked working with fiber materials. I started printing and designing surfaces, but I didn’t really know what to do with them. It felt too flat to print something and cover a couch in it. It needed to be worn and transformed through the personality of somebody. This happened in tandem to graduating high school and going on tour with the Grateful Dead for three years.

What was touring with the Grateful Dead like?
It was a serious West-to-East-Coast tour. To make money I started to sell clothes. Every two weeks we would get a hotel room. I had my sewing machine, so I would just buzz, buzz, buzz, but I didn’t know anything. I call them boob curtains, but what I would make was a strip of fabric that went around your boobs that I would pleat, literally like a curtain piece, to the bottom. My mother went to a Liberty of London sale in the 70s, and she bought all of this beautiful fabric. Somehow I inherited it and I ended up making half of these Grateful Dead lot dresses out of vintage fabrics. That is ridiculous looking back on it, but some people were very lucky.

Is Grateful Dead still on your playlist?
They are still on my list. I have never done a Grateful Dead collection, but that imagery is always a part of every collection. So this season we definitely pay homage to that world.

So going on tour introduced you to your love for fashion design.
I think that was something that made me realize this was really something that I wanted to do.  When I decided that, then it was about learning it as a technical skill. That is where St. Martins came into play. I didn’t go to St. Martins knowing what it was. I had no idea that it was this seminal fashion program. I just felt that with a British passport, I should be in the UK. It felt like more of an art form there, unlike New York, where it feels like more of a trade.

Do you think studying in London helped you develop your aesthetic?
It wasn’t just London; it was St. Martins—specifically Natalie Gibson. She actually just got an MBE from the queen, which is a Member of the British Empire for her contribution to textiles. It goes to show how much the UK government supports the arts. The time I spent there—I cannot say enough incredible things about it. I did a studio-based course where we were printing everything and designed a full collection ourselves. It was really about making fully original work. There was no store bought fabric made into something. You didn’t have to sell any of the clothes, so if you wanted to put 15 sleeves on something and you couldn’t use any of them, so fucking be it. Eventually you are going to have buyers, so it’s that one time period where you can do whatever the hell you want.

Is there a certain era you like to channel with your prints?
I think that a lot of your aesthetics are built at an early age. I was coming of age, during the late 80s early 90s. I am a very nostalgic person, so that is a reference point for me, but it’s not about picking an era and recreating it. I am not here to repeat the past; I am here to present the future. I love what the language and iconic graphic imagery of that time period evokes.

You have a lot of feminist themes in your collections, are you doing something political?
Weirdly enough for the Gerl Power show, I had already designed those pieces before any of the Pussy Riot movement happened. The whole point of that collection was to show that there are many types of girl power. You can be wearing a slut babe dress and be outside Marquee, but if you own it, than there are unbelievable amounts of power and femininity in that statement. I don’t think hardcore about the political aspects of it, but I think fashion is part of the political landscape, every kind of creative pursuit is. The whole concept of Gerlan Jeans is inclusivity. Every season is about celebrating differences and individuality. Fashion design is pretty male-dominated in a lot of ways, so I feel empowered as a woman to be making clothes for women.

What can you tell me about the upcoming collection?
The collection is called Sweet Dreamz: A Psychedelic Slumber Party That's Too Kawaii to Live! It’s like Kawaii on acid, pretty much. It starts as a cozy slumber-party print, which is the “Fuck you, hibiscus” on a polar fleece. I am taking a classic puffer coat and totally revolutionizing it and turning it into indoor looks. There are tiered skirts and puffed backpacks and scarves. As part of the Kawaii cuteness, is the debut of the Gerlémons. We are introducing 25 new Gerlémons this season, so you have to collect and trade them all. We are working on an actual video game, and they will soon be available as emojis that you can download.

Is there anything else you are working on?
Solange is now art directing for Puma’s Girls of Blaze Disc collection, so I am collaborating with her on that. That has been incredibly exciting. Also, the Philadelphia Museum of Art is opening a seminal Patrick Kelly exhibition at the end of April with over 2,500 pieces. The curator of the museum reached out to me and said, “I know you are incredibly influenced by him; we would love to include you in the exhibition to show his influence in design and culture today.” So I am going to have a show there as part of the Patrick Kelly exhibit. His exhibit will be called Patrick Kelly: Runway of Love, and mine will be called Gerlan Jeans Loves Patrick Kelly. It is about 16 to 17 archival pieces from the past 10 seasons of Gerlan Jeans.

@EricaEuse

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