**Juliann: Hi, guys. It's Juliann. I'm with Kim. Some of you may know her as designer of Kim Shui, but I know her as my friend.**
Kim Shui: I'm here in LA. I came in from New York.
**Being a designer, do you feel like when you're designing or when you're an artist in general, can that be political, do you feel like?**
I think for sure. I mean, I think when, especially if you're a designer and you're a creative, you can send a message to other people, and that is part of it as well.
**What's your message?**
Well, mine is basically just designing from a woman's perspective for women and just incorporating all sorts of models that are super different from each other and having them come together through the clothing.
**It's interesting you say that because I actually have a client who loves your stuff and that's what she said. She's like, "She just understands a woman's body." You know? Because I do feel like when men are designing for women, it's what the man wants a woman to look like as opposed to how a woman herself would want to dress.**
For sure. I mean, I think it's also being sexy in a way that's maybe a little bit more quirky and eccentric.
**Being a designer, obviously I feel like in the past couple of years we've realized the impact of fashion on the environment**.
Yeah, everything has an impact. So, you want to make sure that you kind of pay attention to that. But one thing for sure that I've always paid attention to who makes the clothing.
I'm very hands on with everything, so every single garment that is made, basically I know who made it and how are their working conditions, et cetera, et cetera. So, that's something too that I'm always aware of. I'm always looking out. I'm very hands on in that aspect.
**That's amazing. I do feel like, yeah, when there is a discussion about the impact of fashion, a lot of it is focused on the climate, which is obviously important, but also there's not as much talk about the conditions that the clothes are made in.**
Yeah, for sure. We don't produce in such grand quantities. But if you're looking at Forever 21, Fashion Nova, you're like, "How are those quantities made? And I hope these people are working certain hours up to a certain point."
**Literally, why was your tee shirt three dollars?**
Exactly, and then some people, they mention, "Why is this garment expensive?" But it's like, really if you look at the cost of the fabric, if you look at the cost of the person working for it, that is kind of all part of that combination. A tee shirt costing three dollars is kind of like how did it become three dollars? It's pretty scary.
**I feel like that can also come back to our country and come back to the politics in our country, where it's like in certain States in this country, we still don't have a living wage. You know? It's like eight dollars.**
Yeah. I grew up in this small neighborhood in Rome called EUR, and we were the only family of Asian descent.
**Then you've lived in London, Paris, New York. It must've been really interesting growing up in Europe and then moving to the United States. How was that for you?… The shock.**
I mean, at the very beginning, I think it was, just because the first place I landed in America was North Carolina. And I had a visit to the school, I was just like, "Oh..." went down the list, and I was like, "Looks like a good school," and then just kind of showed up and that was my first American vibe. It was totally different. So, for me, New York and North Carolina are completely different as well, because there's so much diversity in New York and you're kind of celebrated for being different. Coming into America, just seeing my peers, especially now too, people who are still having to deal with student debt is insane. Like you work so hard to get into like a really good school and then you're working like how many years after just to pay that off?
**It's really wild, because I come from Canada and I had a little bit of student debt, what I thought was a lot of student debt, which was literally like $4,000.**
Yeah. Yeah, but still, it's crazy.
**I actually moved to New York as well. This is when I realized what student debt looks like in this country because all of my peers who had graduated had 50 to $100,000 of debt, which made my $4,000 of debt look like nothing.**
Right. Or it's like family's feel like they can't send their kids to school because of that. That's kind of also crazy because how can you get ahead in life if you don't have those, if you don't have access to that?
**Also, if they can't afford to go to school and aren't going to school, then they're getting lower paying jobs, and as opposed to if you had an education, you could get a higher paying job, spend more money on the economy. It doesn't make any sense to me. I just don't necessarily think education should be for profit. You know? It's very strange. But we definitely have some candidates in this election who are... maybe one candidate, not naming names, who is down for free public college. Let's talk about healthcare.**
Yes. I think everyone should be able to have high end healthcare. Everyone shouldn't be prevented from having this.
**I didn't understand when I moved here that just for a doctor's checkup, I would have to pay, I think in New York it was like $600**. **I was just like, "I'm an intern. I can't pay that amount of money." And then you don't end up getting up, and if something were wrong-**
Exactly, you could have prevented it.
**Exactly. But then it gets worse and worse, which means you will end up having to pay more. Or just honestly in the worst case you'll die.**
Yeah, which is crazy. I think another difference for me is prescription medicine. Where sometimes even the smallest thing like a face cream or something that's prescription, I have to go back to Italy to get it. It's the same product, but it's like $3,000 in America for the small tube and it's like 10 Euro in Italy or something.
**So, we have an election coming up. Any thoughts on the election?**
Well, I think those things that we mentioned are pretty important and just for people to get out there and vote.
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Talent: Kim Shui
Creator/Host: Juliann McCandless
Director/Producer: Danielle Oexmann
Cinematographer: Quinton Dominguez
Editing: Sofia Kerpan and Quinton Dominguez
Digital Editor: BJ Panda Bear
Design: Sandro Grison
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