In Conversation with Jasper Mutimer. An interview with one of Melbourne’s most respected and requested fashion designers who built his own brand @mutimer.co from the ground up. We recently sat down and spoke to @jasperjmutimer about his newest collection, the creative process and what the future looks like.
So your brand is very brilliantly curated. Instagram is great, TikTok is great, and every video for every collection is fantastic. How long did it take you to create something like this that has such a clear vision that everyone can see?
I started the brand late 2019, early 2020, but I was kind of working on it very loosely in 2018 and then throughout 2019 especially. I'd say that it's taken a few years to get to this point- not only from a vision standpoint, but also just from a money thing. I used a production company for that latest video [The Life of Ivan Emory], and I would never have been able to do something like that in the past. That’s not only from hiring a venue or paying people kind of thing, but just using someone that has the skills that could execute what I wanted. It's taken a while just to build that up. I would say that the ideas have always been there, but it's just from a monetary perspective.
How do you get the ideas for all your themes and collections? I love all of them- especially Everything I Touch Turns to Mould. I love that name.
They're all very random. I mean, it's such a bullsh*t answer, but they all just randomly come at a certain point. I'd say the seeds of them will always be there, and then I'll go watch a movie and then it’ll come together. Maybe I'll watch Taxi Driver or Apocalypse Now. I might like military style clothes from that film, for example the Vietnam era, and then I’ll think that I can do a theme based on someone coming back or a collection based on someone’s life post-Vietnam War. I say that because that's an upcoming collection. They often come from movies or pop culture, and then it’s a matter of drawing out the clothes from that.
That's really cool. What sort of media or movies and books do you consume to get these ideas? Do you have any in particular?
It’s probably mainly from movies. I guess I'm a very visual guy. Some people can picture stuff in their brain as soon as they’re faced with a word, but I can't picture it. I'm much more a visual guy with that sort of thing, so I like to consume a lot of movies. I guess from wanting to consume good stuff, it has naturally led me to being a bit of a film snob.
That's interesting you say that though. I was talking to Jackson Cowden and he said the same thing about not being able to imagine those things in his head. But some people are like that, I think that's a very interesting trait to have.
I always thought it was a negative that I couldn't do that, but as I've slowly started doing the brand and progressing, it's almost in a weird way become a positive. But I didn't know Jackson said that too.
Do you think it's something that people just learn or something that they already have?
When I learned that people could picture things at about 17 [year old,] I got really depressed about it. I can kind of see it, but I don't get a mental image. I got really depressed about it, and when I looked it up, it's just something that you have or you don't have, right?
Well, I want to ask you about the message of the brand as well. When I did a bit of research, I went to your site and on the ‘about’ page it says: ‘Mutimer is a postmodern take on contemporary fashion, societal landscape’ and ‘absurd realism is at the forefront of that message.’ I guess you see a lot of the time people have this message they start out with, but over time as the brand gets bigger, they sort of stray away from that initial concept to please people or try and get the biggest audience that they can. Whereas with your work, everything in all the collections look very cohesive and they all look like they've been made by you. What sort of things do you try to do with different garments so you can stay true to that meaning?
I'd say the meaning sounds very pompous and a bit wanker-y to be quite honest, but I like postmodern art- it takes itself seriously, but also not seriously at all, which is what the brand is like. Obviously, I take it very seriously. It's my job, and I want the clothes to be good. But at the end of the day, they’re just clothes and this doesn't really matter. This isn't going to change the world. That's the whole postmodern side of it.
I'd say that does represent itself in the clothes, and even in the marketing. It's just me talking because, at the end of the day, we're not some big behemoth that has ten marketing staff that are running through the copy, and we don't have a meeting to discuss what's going to be the caption of the Instagram post. It's just me. I try and ensure that the marketing copy is very down to Earth, and serious whilst being unserious.
Will you ever think about trying to get other people on board to help you, or would you just want to have a hand in everything still?
I think I need to get better at not having a hand in everything. I have my girlfriend working with me- she packs all the orders. I do all the outsourcing, bookkeeping, sh*t like that. I mean I started the brand myself, and obviously when you start something small it's all yourself and it's made me a bit of a control freak with it all. But I do want to get better at not being like that and stepping away at times.
I've learned from working with other people on the videos that you have to find people who have a similar outlook on creative things the way you do. Sometimes it's hard to describe the intangibles and the feeling of something, but if someone doesn't get it, they don't get it. That's why I've been lucky enough to work with Dyl [Garden State Journal] on a lot of videos; in that I can describe something to him, and he goes, ‘yeah, I get that. I get why you want to go with that.’ Whereas there are times I have worked with other people and then they don't get it. That led me to being a bit more of a control freak. I'm just trying to find people who have a similar outlook, which is hard.
100%. Let's go back to what you said when you started out. I saw a different interview that you did that you sent a lot of cold emails to brands for a bit of advice, and not many people replied. Did anyone actually end up replying? Or was it more of a trial-and-error process where you had to go and learn all these things yourself?
I messaged and emailed a lot of brands, and the only person who actually did message back was Garth from Butter Goods, and he runs pretty much the biggest or the most successful Australian streetwear brand. He has responded to my messages for years. It's very nice of Garth and I didn't expect a response, but most advice you get from people isn't a guide. It's more general stuff, so a lot of it has been trial and error and just learning by mistakes or by being told what to do by manufacturers.
So what has been your favourite drop so far?
The favourite drop is always probably the latest! I mean, we work 8-9 months out on a collection so it means that by the time something releases, I've seen that product for close to a year. At that point I'm almost sick of it. But if I had to pick a favourite one, I’d say it's either the latest one or Here Comes the Cowboy, and that's just comes down to being able to do the videos and things like that.
I'm planning five collections in advance. It's more about the nature of making clothes and getting them sampled, which just means that you have to work that far out in advance in order to release consistently.
Do you never get mixed up when you have that many going at the same time? If you've got five at the same time and they're all different, how do you have in mind that you’ll have clothes that look like this for one collection, but make it different enough to not look like a different one you’re working on?
It is hard. Sometimes they are very distinctly different, for example if you're designing a cowboy themed collection and then the collection of Ivan Emory, they're very different which makes it a bit easier. I work in blocks with the collections, so I’ll be doing one and then the next one, and so on and so forth. I guess it just relates back to having the theme and then really thinking about what fits into that.
Let's talk a bit about your new collection, The Life of Ivan Emory. I looked up Ivan Emory because I thought he was a real person, but instead, I got the page that was when the casting process was happening for the video. It was talking about how Ivan Emory is about individual who's experiencing existentialism and isolation. I know with a lot of your other collections, like Here Comes the Cowboy, or even the Vietnam War one you were talking about, not many people can relate to that. In the future, will you try release more collections that relate to the everyday human experience?
Yeah, I think so. I guess in an ideal world, if I could do whatever I wanted, the idea of being someone who makes movies or writes books is cool. I guess the collections are a way to do that without actually having to do any of the heavy lifting and the hard part of writing them. The Life of Ivan Emory collection is inspired by a book I read called The Death of Ivan Ilyich, by Leo Tolstoy. This doesn't spoil anything in the book, but he is close to dying and he gets very existential about his life and what he's done. I probably read that at a not-so-great time in my life, which was fair few years ago, but that book has really stayed with me. It's bizarre to think about it because the book was published in the late 1800s, and an author could write something that you can relate to 150 years later.
I guess that was the long-winded way of answering, but to go back to the question in short, yes. The human experience is very interesting to me and what I enjoy most about movies, and that's why I like Apocalypse Now so much.
I know that you love a good lookbook. What is so special about it to you? Is it a matter of the design that inspires you, or how the book is curated?
Sometimes you see brands and their lookbooks are- even though I still think it's cool- just plain concrete flooring and a white backdrop with good photography, and that always looks good. The whole point of starting the brand for me was as a creative outlet while I was doing a very rigid degree in commerce. It’s the same with the videos, in that they were a creative outlet that was something else besides the clothes. Honestly, I think the whole point of the lookbooks are to make something that looks very cool that still relates to the collection and allows you into this world that is realistic. For example, sometimes you just know when you see an outfit and you picture in your head where you're going to wear it, or where it would look cool. What inspires them is always the theme of the collection and trying to draw back to that.
I saw you did a podcast interview, about stealing like an artist. I don't know if you've read the book by Austin Cleone, but some people will say it's plagiarism, but obviously you see it in a different light. So what more can you say about ‘steal like an artist?’
I have read the book- obviously it is very clickbait-y, but my personal pet peeve is when designers and creatives refuse to admit that the medium they operate in is influenced by others when they are interviewed. It doesn't happen so much in other disciplines like architecture, but fashion/design people refuse to admit that they like other brands and that other brands inspire them. It really annoys me because it's just a lie. I think it's cool when you have five or six brands that you like and you almost merge them to create something new. Even with the latest video that we did for The Life of Ivan Emory, there's obviously movie inspirations in the camera work, with dolly zooms and stuff like that. There are so many movies someone is having an existential crisis and a white void, and it'd be dumb to say I wasn't inspired by any of them.
Obviously it becomes a different thing when you only have one inspiration, because that's just copying. I like the term in the sense that you take four or five inspirations that are different, and if you merge them, it's going to be its own thing.
When I spoke with Jackson, he was talking about how in a lot of design the small brands get eaten up by the big brands, so the small brands have to work years ahead in order to survive. So as someone who has very vivid and unique ideas like you, how do you achieve that?
We didn't used to work nine months ahead for collections because I started this all with my own money, and it's always been my own money. It meant that I used to do a collection, sell it, get the money, fund the next collection. You don't need to work two to three months out on sampling and stuff. It means the good thing now about working so far ahead is that I can't really be trend focused. Let's say today I see a trend that I like- this is very TikTok trend, but let’s say I wanted to make Timberland boots, but my own version. If I went through that process of making our own version of the Timberlands that would probably release in a year, and people would be saying, ‘cool dude. That was a trend a year ago.’ So the good thing now about working close to a year in advance is that it forces me not to do something that's trend focused because it might be over by the time I’ve done it, or even if it's not over there would have been twenty other brands that have done it- like jorts for example, which we've never made. I just can't be reactive in designing. It will just lead to making stuff that's already been made and other people have done by the time it goes up. Working a year in advance, it means that we are doing stuff that we're trying not to see in other brands. If I designed something now that I saw today on Instagram, it'll only release in 10 months and then the whole trend will be gone.
So do you try and block out all these things around you?
No. Someone actually put it to me very well. She works in wholesale retailing, and she said, ‘know what every other brand does and be across it, so you don't do the same thing.’ I always hear people say they block out everything in order to do their own thing, but creating stuff in general, it always has context and references. Unless you were put in a white box with nothing around you from when you were born, you're always going to be influenced by something. People saying, ‘yeah, I don't look at Instagram or whatever,’ it sounds noble, but at the end of the day, you might just be making the same stuff as everyone else.
That's true. What for you is the mark of a good fashion designer?
Probably someone who can look at everything, see everything, and know a lot of references and pop culture. Someone who is able to take whatever they're into and be able to make something that they enjoy and is relatively unique.
Yeah, that's interesting as well in itself because all the people that I talk to that do fashion, they talk a lot about pop culture. Is that something that's always in your head when you're designing things?
I guess in the sense that I like movies, and I like architecture, and I like art. Like I said, I'm a very visual person and with clothes, especially when you're trying to sell them, they can't be too avant-garde or weird. They also have to be wearable. I feel like with clothes and such, they have such context around them. If you're walking down the street, you're not judging everyone, but you're perceiving everyone and then forming an opinion in your head. Even if you don't like fashion, it shows by the clothes that you wear. You can tell what type of person they are just from that. I think they always have a context around them, like when you see an art piece and think that it’s really weird or ‘out there’ because they almost don't have to have context or wearability.
What do you think about all those big brands that make the most outlandish outfits? What do you think about all those unwearable things?
It's hard because some of it's cool as art, but obviously some of it is just runway and it's only ever going to be runway unless you're really rich and want to order it off them. But I don't know. Sometimes you can tell some of it is just a ploy to be shared on Instagram, which I think is lame.
Wrapping up here now, but what is the goal for the whole brand? Would you like to have your own store or something down the line, or what does the future look like? As someone that wants to also implement your personality into the brand at the same time, sometimes having a store doesn’t necessarily mean that philosophy translates over. So what is your goal for the future?
I think the goal is to primarily still be a business-to-consumer brand. It just allows us to control what we make and how it's perceived and how people buy it. Sometimes I find the issue with retail and wholesaling is that when you're selling it through someone else, you don't have control over how it's perceived or sh*t like that. Eventually, and this is big picture stuff, but I’d like to have a store in Melbourne, and even a store in London for example- stores in and around cultural hubs. I don’t want to only sell the brand out of there, but maybe other things that I like and want people to see or have.
Will you try to be very hands on at that store, and try to oversee day-to-day operation?
Probably not day-to-day, but I'd like to be in there just because one of the things I enjoy about doing the pop-ups is talking to people. You don't get those things as an online store. I think the best part about going to a store sometimes is talking to the people and they sort you out. Sometimes you’ll go into a store and you don't feel comfortable being in there because the staff are weird and off-putting. But I just want it to be friendly and for people to even just come down to the store and have a chat, whether that be with me or in the people that were hired.
We've got a playlist of all of our guest songs that they pick. Give us any songs you have listened to in the past week or some of your favourites of all time, and we'll add them into the playlist.
Forrest Gump by Frank Ocean. I’ll say Better Man by Pearl Jam, and then Bonehead’s Bank Holiday by Oasis. Beast of Burden by The Rolling Stones, and then one more, I’ll give wash my sins away by berlioz.
My last question for you today: do you have any words of wisdom, people to shout out or things to promote?
Words of wisdom. I'd say if you want to start a brand, don't expect it to blow up. I think two years in, I had 9,000-10,000 followers. I think it's almost a bad thing if you do blow up very early because you haven't been able to define a vision or an aesthetic because at the start you should be throwing sh*t at the wall and seeing what sticks effectively. So yeah, I'd say don't expect it to blow up and don't expect to make money from it for the first few years.
People to shout out. I mean, you've interviewed a lot of them like Simon and Dyl and Jackson. Who else? OneHouse, who I did the latest video with. All the boys there: Ben, Fin, Cam and Max. They're all great at what they do, and you should interview them as well.
Things to promote; the latest collection is out on April the 13th. I'm not sure when this is dropping but check out the Instagram which is @mutimer.co. I've been trying to get just the normal ‘mutimer’ on Instagram, but I haven't been able to get it yet!
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