F  L  A  U  N  T

 Photographed by Chris Maghsodi This past Sunday on a late afternoon, I traveled up into the hills of Silverlake to meet with Chelsea Mak at her canyon-based studio home, where classic punk is playing in the background surrounding giant picasso lithographs across the lving room. I wanted to formally sit down physically in the middle of her creative space to understand her 3rd collection’s short-film further more, preimered at the East-LA venue Zebulon. “Lost Spirit” the tile of the short, inspired by collaborating with muscian Paul Dally, a Joan Didion book, as well as how the modern woman should be dressed today. From the moment I met Chelsea, she had her personal brand summed up in a phrase, capturing the energy of the line’s aesthetic as a whole. “Norma Kamali skips cotillion and goes to a punk show - then has to get up and have dim sum with her god father in her 80s power suit.” Giving someone interested in the line an idea, without even having to try on her take on a classic oversized navy blazer. A clear standout piece from the SS20 collection, later resulting in me stealing one for myself after we wrapped up our discussion.  Photographed by Chris Maghsodi Right as the short-film “Lost Spirit” starts to play, Us the viewers see see a young female (Anna Gray) holding behind her shoulder recently dry-cleaned clothing garments.  Can you tell us about her representation as a character in the film and the meaning behind her role? Later we see the clothing descendending in the classic Southern-California swimming pool, can you also go into greater depth what that portrays in the film’s story as well? CM: This film is based on a song, as well as the song being based on the mood of this collection.  When I spoke to Paul Dally about writing this song, I told him that this film is about a muse who’s searching for love through spirituality, the surrenders and seaks self discovery by the end.  Back to those questions, it’s such an emotional song. Everything is so heavy in meaning with spirituality, love, and self discovery, that I think things like the female character holding the dry cleaning, then descending the articles of clothing into the pool, is a metaphor to make every day things become less serious to us.  It’s also funny to me and I hope to the viewers, obviously because who would throw really expensive pieces into a pool. I don't want to say that’s her expressing surrender but it’s her letting go.    Photographed by Chris Maghsodi CM: In my past two collections I drew a lot of references to paris and london just because the old world aesthetic is a really strong thread in my brand, tying so much to european culture and aesthetics.  I wanted this collection to be super rooted back to LA. So all the new pieces in the collection are named after streets in Hancock Park, drawing some inspiration from the community that lives there. Later translating this sense of iconic LA culture into the third collection. Taking inspiration from the long skirts to the collars from the men’s shirts, not directly transpiring those designs but taking design cues.  Photographed by Chris Maghsodi CM: The collection is a sense of a spiritual journey I’ve been on myself.  Working for Scott Sternebrg with band of outsiders for a long time, he has been such a big influence on me as well as being one of my biggest mentors. I was supposed to be the design director at Entireworld, his new company, and for whatever reason I just could not do it. I just needed to start my own brand.  It really messed me up going back, thinking I had this great job opportunity, making me evaluate why I was even doing this. When I left Entireworld, Scott said to me, “Play It as it lays.” The phrase is taken from the title of a famous Joan Didion book. The whole book is about a depressed girl who takes a very long drive out to Las Vegas or something.  While I was designing this line in Shanghai, I let my stream of consciousness go into writing what this film was going to be about. She’s so sad about her loneliness that she has to take a drive just to feel anything else, like feeling a seat under herself. It’s funny when I talked to Paul Dally back in May, I almost felt like I sent him the pages from the diary.  He really understood my sentiment and created the song which I didn't edit at all, because I thought it was really beautiful. We had some crazy work energy, just like with Scott Sternberg of Entireworld, I know exactly how these guys were feeling while approaching a project. Everything is so commercial now, clothes have no soul in a sense. Producing these clothes with a deeper meaning to me is creating art for the purpose of feeling and connection, being equally as important.  CM: Which brings to another point in how I am running my business, I could join a showroom, distributing product to a bunch of stores, but I am interested in this pre-internet “tuper-ware party” concept. Where you build a community, creating a connection with women who are really into the brand. Like Juliet for instance, is an up and coming actress and because of her life and lifestyle, she really truly loves the clothes. All the other woman wearing the clothes Friday night at the short-film showing at Zebulon, are truly dynamic woman that care about creation. These girls are actresses, chefs, one girl even does oof books at MOCA.  These are dynamic women that truly care about creation, further representing what the brand is supposed to give off.    Photographed by Chris Maghsodi Instantly as the films begin to play, you see iconic symbols of LA represented.  Such as flat/wide neighborhood streets with the vintage mercedes, to the descending garments in the southern-california swimming pool, ending with the palm trees standing in front of the glowing moon (my personal favorite scene).  How important is it for you, for these iconic characteristics of LA to be represented? CM: I just really wanted this collection to be grounded in LA.  I wanted it to be known to be obvious that Chelsea Mak is an Los Angeles based brand.  The scene of the lead female driving into the moonlight is representative of surrender, letting go, and learning acceptance.  I wanted this feeling of it being as if this film took place all in one day, being a really long day in LA. The short really takes you through all the emotions of the main character being super melancholy and reflective in the beginning.  Almost giving up in life until the part where she is driving off, last minute switching gears.  Photographed by Chris Maghsodi What went into finding the perfect sound to back the film with Paul Dally, original composer of ‘Lost Spirit’? CM: I discovered Paul Dally through Reverberation Radio, you know they have their website, where the post the little mixtapes? Yes, I appreciate how easy of a listen they are to go through. CM: So I discovered Paul through one of the mixtapes, listening to this song being like what is this, this is so great.  While I was making the mood board for this collection, his album “New American” was on repeat over and over. His voice and mood had so much to do with inspiring this third collection, that I just reached out to him on Instagram and asked if he would be interested in writing something, which he was.  It’s funny because I gave him a gist of what I was feeling and what the real mood of it was about and he wrote back with a bunch of interview style questions. Like what interests do you draw from the hisadic jew culture, why LA, what does this thing on your mood board represent? It took me a couple of days to answer all of his questions.  The moment I pressed sent to respond to his questions via email, I went back to my inbox already to have received an email from Paul saying, “Here I had sometime this morning, I wrote you a song.” He never even had to read my answers, due to the fact that we were on the same page with collaborative feelings. Something so special when it comes to a collaborative process.    Photographed by Chris Maghsodi What components separate this third collection ‘Lost Spirit’ from the previous two, and what are you trying to express with this collection that you think you didn’t touch on the past two? CM: This collection is a more fleshed out in terms of suits and materials you can wear on an everyday basis.  I love the 80's power suits for women. It came down to developing a collection that would be more wearable on a daily basis.  I see that it’s very important to my friends and women around me that it has to be something that they can throw on and tackle all their shit for the day.  A phrase I use for my brand is “Casual Formal.” People should dress really dressy but execute it in a casual manner. It’s a backlash to athleisure. In LA especially, everyone’s so used to being so casual and laid back.  So much of the brand is pretty and feminent, but the overall attitude of the execution is really punk rock, pairing sneakers with the garments or throwing a dirty jean jacket over. The attitude is so much more important than the clothing.  It’s bringing the power woman back into the picture.   Photographed by Chris Maghsodi Why should the modern woman or admirer of the brand Chelsea Mak buy this third collection “Lost Spirit?”  How is it representing woman today and defining their self-expression? CM: I think I really address this space that is missing from the market.  You can get “sexy-clothes” anywhere. There’s so much sexy out there. The main components are the subtleness which is obvious, but a heavy outlook on tastefulness.  I feel like women who wear my clothes are in on this secret, having good taste but never flaunting it, having no reason to. The fits are really flattering, being flattering and hip at the same time.  I love doing a plunging neckline in a really elegant way, to show to be sexy, yeah you might want to show the human body, not by being tacky. I want to invite women to embrace being cultured and smart, as well as most importantly, aware.  I want to work on solidifying this community and work on the whole “tuper-ware” party setting I was talking about earlier. Really go back to an ancient way of shopping where you get women together in a room, feeding off each other’s energy.  Everytime I have friends of the brand over my place, they are always like, “I need six pieces!” The house becomes it’s own world created by the brand.