Meet the Designers Behind Your New Favourite Brand: OWWY
OWWY – it’s the latest brand to hit shelves at Glue Store and inject fun and vibrancy into our wardrobes. Now, meet the design team behind the brand. We sat down with designer, Blake Simpson and Head of Design, Cyia Levadetes to talk about the eye-catching clothes of Once We Were Young.
GLUE: Thank you guys for chatting with us today. To begin with, could you give us a brief overview of the brand and what it’s all about?
CYIA: OWWY was born from a digital dream. It’s a design-led fashion brand with clothing and accessories that ooze fun, bold, optimistic, and lively aesthetic. It’s vibrant and bold, and features exclusive prints on fashion-forward silhouettes to pare back with shapes that have a sporty edge. So it's a collision of sports and fashion together. OWWY features garments that use organic fabrics in hopes to send a message that following fashion trends doesn't need to be harmful to the future of our planet. So when we think of OWWY we think that it's bright, colourful, and vibrant with really cool, innovative shapes.
BLAKE: Like fresh pieces that are eye-catching.
CYIA: Yeah, they're not overly complicated but they are specifically designed.
BLAKE: And they all have details on them that really set the foundations for the brand.
GLUE: I definitely got that vibe when I was looking at the range which is full of really nice sort of sleek shapes but also with really nice graphic elements.
BLAKE: Thasnks, using sleek shapes that we know people will love and changing them up a bit by putting them in bright colours and giving them fun graphics and whatnot, we hope everyone will see something they like.
CYIA: Yeah there’s a broader offering I think. It's that vibrancy that is the attraction, the quirky vibrancy. I wouldn't really call it too quirky maybe that’s not the right word…
BLAKE: I mean for the future though, yeah, like this is just the introduction to it. It’s like OWWY’s way of saying, “hi, nice to meet you.” And then the conversation will keep on going as we go further.
GLUE: That's so exciting. I think as you’re saying, the vibrancy and the quirkiness really encourages people to experiment more with their own fashion and that'll be cool to see how people style it themselves with their existing pieces. So I wanted to ask you guys what significance the brand name holds for you?
BLAKE: OWWY stands for Once We Were Young but we've shortened it to OWWY and I think that even just the word “OWWY” is a is an exciting word – You’re like, what does that mean, what is it? And I think “Once We Were Young” resonates especially with me because I feel like I've always been someone that has gone towards the brighter colours and gone towards being experimental with fashion. So I think that's why the brand really resonates with my personality and is exciting.
CYIA: I think it's a really catchy name. And the origins, “Once We Were Young” is almost nostalgic but then juxtaposition of product that's so vibrant and colourfull.
GLUE: It's a cute name as well, it's fun to say. The aesthetic of this collection reminds me a lot of Lizzie Maguire and the current Y2K revival. Does OWWY take any inspiration from that era and if so, how do you keep it fresh and ensure that it’s not just a rehash of something that’s already out there?
BLAKE: I don't know if we really looked towards the Y2K trend. I think we more so tried to look into the future and think about what [the OWWY girl] will be wearing in the future. But I think the Y2K aspect might also come from that. That time really resonated with me. Some things like the floral print and stuff was just an artistic choice. There was no specific intention to make it Y2K, but I think that's just my sort of footprint that I leave anyway, if that makes sense.
CYIA: So no real focus on that era.
BLAKE: No. Yeah, but I think that I can definitely see the connection and I feel like that may be a good thing for the customers because the Y2K revival is such a big thing at the moment.
GLUE: OWWY seems to really encapsulate a bit of a mishmash of everything which is perfect because people are always looking to be a bit more unique and include something a bit different in their wardrobe. I think that's going to be really exciting for customers to see as well.
BLAKE: Yeah, and I think there's something for anyone. Like, we've got things that are a bit more out-there and then we've got things that are a bit more toned back that you can use a styling piece. I think everything works together, like you can get multiple outfits out of everything that we're dropping in the first range.
GLUE: Amazing. OWWY seems to encapsulate something inherently summery. How do you differentiate collections seasonally given that OWWY is so bright and colourful by definition?
BLAKE: This range is August/September going into summer so that's why we wanted to start with a bang. But I think you'll see as the ranges evolve that there will be different aspects of different colours that people will work with. And I think it’s nice to have one of those brands that is colourful all year round because I find it so hard sometimes if I want something coloured in store and it's the middle of winter and it's not there. So I think that we will be that place where people can see that there's like, a coloured jean in June.
CYIA: And it's all about the shade of colour, you know, how bright or how just a bit off you go. But it's still colourful, so in winter it does get toned down to a degree but it's still bright to degree as well. So that's part of the design process I guess in any brand from summer to winter.
BLAKE: I think it comes down to the shapes as well. Like the winter shapes, if they're in a bright colour it's still winter shape at the end of the day. It will still keep you warm.
GLUE: Absolutely. In this collection there are some nice fabrications as well. So as designers how have you utilised fabric to create a feel or vibe in this collection?
BLAKE: So for example we've got our knit story in this first range which is the blue dress, the midi blue dress and the top. That was an exclusive print that we created and I think that in itself is a good indication of the brand as a whole and all the colours that we have used.
CYIA: It is part of the design process. It kind of starts with that print because that was what inspired the whole collection and evolves as you design it from there.
GLUE: Do you have any pieces in particular that are your favourite from this collection?
BLAKE: I've already ordered the hoodie in grey, and I also ordered the cargo pants in white and then I bought my partner the green shorts.
CYIA: I mean Blake designs the collection, but I feel for me the cargos. I like the t-shirts as well with the OWWY branding. I'm really into those. And obviously the dresses - I am a bit more of a dress person - so the knitted dresses, they’re my faves.
