Inspiration

“ I am inspired on some level by everything around me. I think my greatest inspiration is just my own imagination. Since I was a boy, I have always noticed clothes and what they represented. How they symbolize the inner-beauty and personality of the wearer and that they convey how the wearer sees themselves. Clothes have the power to project a definite image, whatever that might be, regardless of what that person’s reality is. I think that is an amazing quality that I keep in mind with every sketch. Fashion and imagination allows you to be anyone you want.”

“Externally though, I’d have to say I am most inspired by anything vintage. I have an old soul and I think it express itself in my work. Particularly, I love old music, old movies, and vintage fashion. I like listening to soul and pop music form the 60’s to the 90’s and jazz from 30’s- 60’s. I have sketched for hours at a time to Nancy Wilson and Nat Cole or Stan Getz and Antonio Carlos Jobim or the Supremes and Earth, Wind, and Fire.”

“ I like to watch older, classic movies, especially those movies that are a part of what I call the ‘Style Film’ genre. Those films that may not be focused on fashion, but have a high aesthetic content that adds to the overall impact of the story. Movies like Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Pink Panther, The Women, Mahogany, Philadelphia Story, Valley of the Dolls, Gilda, Two for the Road, Bonjour Tristesse and Boom. I would have to say Hitchcock’s To Catch A Thief with Grace Kelly and Cary Grant is the epitome of this genre and never ceases to thrill and inspire me.”

“More than anything vintage fashion has given me my eye. I can spend all day flipping through old issues of Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar from the 30s-90s because they give the clothes a sense of time and place. I love all the great past designers, especially Cristobal Balenciaga, to whom I feel the most connected and whose silhouettes, cuts, and fabrications are constantly stimulating my mind. There’s also Hubert de Givenchy, Chistian Dior, Charles James, Mainbocher, Jacques Fath, Yves St. Laurent, Coco Chanel, and Alix Gres that stand out foremost in my mind’s eye as consistent points of reference.”

“As much as music, movies, and fashion books/magazines inspire me, I find that when I am designing I am always thinking about real people, especially great women of style. Truman Capote referred to them as ‘Swans’, but pretty much they are women who have adopted a higher aesthetic code for their lives and have become beacons of style to the world. Women like Babe Paley, Gloria Guinness, Lee Radziwill, Pauline de Rothschild, Bunny Mellon, Deeda Blair, Diana Vreeland, Slim Keith, Marella Agnelli, C.Z. Guest, Coco Chanel, the Duchess of Windsor, Carolina Herrera, Josephine Premice, and Audrey Hepburn who in there own individual way have made an indelible mark on the worlds of fashion, beauty, décor, entertaining, and fine living. The men too who exhibited and achieved new heights of chic like Oscar de la Renta, Reinaldo Herrerra, Bill Blass, Andre Talley, Philippe de Rothschild, John Paul Getty, and Gianni Agnelli are inspirations in my professional and personal life. In addition to these famous men and women are everyday people that I know like my family members, friends, former teachers, and church members that have directly and emphatically emblazoned a certain sense of style and decorum in my mind. Most notably is my beloved grandmother Willie Mae Goodman whose unassailable taste impacted me beyond measure.”

~Charles Brown, President and Head Designer