Bethann Hardison: What was your upbringing in Brooklyn like?
Andre Walker: I was actually born in London and both of my parents are Caribbean and were very creative. I think those elements definitely allowed me to be creative as a kid. My upbringing in Brooklyn was interesting to say the least. My mom was insanely ambitious and a very hard worker. Growing up, my version of a pacifier was W Magazine. While other kids would play outside, I was flipping through the pages of magazines. In fact, by the time I was 13, I was hoarding all of my mom’s subscriptions to magazines like Architectural Digest, W Magazine, and Elle.
BH: W Magazine was your pacifier? That’s quite a chic pacifier I must say [Laughs]. Do you remember your first designs as a child?
AW: My first design as a child that I can recall was when I was four or five years old. I remember drawing my mom’s platform shoes. My mom performed at these cabaret shows across Europe when I was younger. So, she would bring back these glamorous ensembles from her shows. I was obsessed with it all, from the shoes to the garments. I think that’s how I fell in love with oxblood leather, and I was maybe only six years old at this point.
BH: Wow oxblood, I haven’t heard someone use that term in a while. What six-year-olds do you know that are fascinated by oxblood leather?
AW: (Laughs) I know…right. But I remember just being fascinated by the rich color and the texture. I think my appreciation for fabric was born in that very moment.
BH: Once you realized you had this amazing talent, did a switch go off for you? Did you immediately know you wanted to be a designer afterwards?
AW: I was always sketching clothes from the magazines, putting tracing paper on top of images and doing my best to enlarge small photos by hand. I would even write the names of the designers next to the images. After mastering that, I eventually started making my own versions and sketches and putting my name on them. So, it wasn’t really a question of wanting to become a designer…I was a designer, it was something that was [innate].
BH: What was it like when you told your family and your friends in Brooklyn that you wanted to be a designer? Was everyone supportive?
AW: No, not at all. My mom didn’t want me to go to, to fashion school because she was worried about [the stigma surrounding] queer people at time. When I came to America, I went to public school for maybe three weeks and then I was taken out and put in a Catholic school. [While attending public school] I wore these dapper gray, flannel, suits. And of course, all the kids were wearing [vibrant] colors, the hallways looked like a circus. So, I was immediately a target of ridicule.
BH: Who would you say were some of your fashion influences?
AW: I think most of my influences were from European designers like Claude Montana, Thierry Mugler, Anne Marie Beretta and Jean-Claude DeLuca. But then there were the cool New York designers that I would discover in magazines like After Dark, like Larry Legaspi.
BH: I can definitely see those influences. You started so young, you were a teenager when you designed your first collection and put on a fashion show. What was the experience like making that first collection?
AW: For me, it was just about kind of expressing myself and responding to images I’d seen in magazines. At the time I was simultaneously selling t-shirts outside my mom’s beauty salon as well. That very first collection was just about having fun, I guess you could say.
BH: What was the inspiration for the collection?
AW: The inspiration for those initial collections were my surroundings and the things that I was seeing. You know, like, punk, new romantics, and Studio 54. Or I guess I should say not being able to go to Studio 54 but also being a part of that scene by living vicariously through W Magazine.
BH: How would you describe the energy in the room when you showed for the first time? What was the reaction like?
AW: During that period, fashion shows were kind of like a form of entertainment and held in clubs. Not like on the Seventh Avenue level, but on the downtown level, a fashion show was a form of entertainment, a get-together, it was really a way of bringing people together. A lot of the shows during this era, a sense of community filled the room. I understood that really early on and for me it was like “Oh, wow. I can actually get people who I found interesting and people together and have them wear my clothes on a runway.” The idea to show a collection back then was very different from today. It was never associated with business; it was always for creative expression. Personally speaking, showing a collection was my way of coming out of my shell. It was a place for envisioning and materializing what you wanted to see.
BH: So your career really began to blossom in the ‘80s, what was that period of time like for you?
AW: I mean, I would say awareness of my work from the outside took off around that time. I wouldn’t really call it a career just yet. I guess I was so protected by my youth and ignorance that it was easy to be unaware of what the business actually entailed. When someone knows you’re 17 years old they’re not gonna make huge demands on you professionally.
BH: So in that frame of thinking, what was it like for you being a designer of color during that time?
AW: Well, that’s the whole thing. It’s so interesting that you mentioned this because I grew up also reading Ebony Magazine along with W Magazine, and the perception one might have just from looking at the outside—was that fashion was a place like this utopian place. I always regarded fashion as this playground where everyone could be involved. Just like my Catholic school, you know, a diverse group—Chinese, Black, white, Hispanic, and Indian…just different multicultural groups coming together. And that was my experience in school too. So I didn’t have that narrative in my mind when I was working at all and I guess it was a blessing because I already didn’t know…really know how to make clothes. I was untrained. So if I’d had that in my mind that I was a black person and that I wasn’t supposed to be here, or that I wasn’t allowed to do something, then I don’t know where I would have been.
BH: Wow, that’s powerful.
AW: So I don’t think that ever dawned on me when I was starting out. I was hanging out with like Black people, white people, Jewish people, Chinese people. I wasn’t aware of those kinds of things, you know, like racism—outside of somebody calling me “Blackie” or the N word. I grew up in a largely Caribbean, Italian, Irish neighborhood, where there’s always the possibility for racism. But it really didn’t color my ability to create, or anything surrounding my creative endeavors. For me creation and designing was nonpolitical or discriminatory.
BH: I think that just speaks to how special you are. Moving on from your personal design experiences, I know that you spent some time designing for Willi Smith’s WilliWear. What was it like working for the brand of this man who did such amazing work and paved the way for many designers of color?
AW: Oh yes, I did some design work for WilliWear. I actually met Willi Smith through Kim Hastreiter. Willi was living in her building and I was running around with Kim when I was 17 years old thanks to an introduction by Bill Cunningham in 1982. I worked with the company (WilliWear) and Laurie Mallet but that was after Willi had died, unfortunately. So we never got to really hang out and we never got to bond. When I worked for WilliWear, I was still a baby. Kim invited me to meet Laurie, and our first project together was designing clothing from furniture fabric for a company called all-steel. That was my introduction to working with Laurie and I guess that led to me designing for WilliWear. A year later I was asked to design the women’s collection for WilliWear—which I did in total naiveté and just spontaneous beauty, you know? I was just so happy to have my first job ever, like an official job.
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