MCQ’S GROW UP: KEVIN EMERSON
To Kevin Emerson, garments are just like canvases. Painting everything by hand, the pieces he creates are one-off walking chef-d’oeuvres. Without giving too much thought whether it’ll make sense or not, there’s a lot going on in his artwork: it can feature just about anything, from variations of smileys and natural objects as well as extraterrestrial encounters, the protagonists of Dante’s Inferno, goblins, and those sorts of fantastical characters. The colours he picks to paint with aren’t necessarily always matching very well, and yet they do. Really, there seems to be no limits to Emerson’s imagination.
Just recently, Kevin’s been part of the creative team behind MCQ’s latest icon GROW UP. We caught up with him to talk about the collection and the trajectory of his career and artwork.
Kevin, tell us a little bit about your background. How did you get into fashion, and what attracted you to the design and production sides of the industry?
I got into this business purely out of interest. When I was younger I worked in retail and I’ve sort of always had an eye for what looked good not only on me, but on others. I’ve always been drawn to clothing, especially the things I don’t wear personally. There are things, many things I wouldn’t wear personally that I still have a keen eye for, and so I’ve always felt like I could chip in in other people’s wardrobes. So, after working in retail for a while, I wanted to be on the other side where things get made and have my input on it. That’s when I started working at the screenprinting studio LQQK in New York City, which was a good entrance point I think to see how the logistics of making a collection of tees worked themselves out.
What did you do at LQQK Studio?
LQQK’s a creative consulting studio that prints stuff for other brands, artists, and creatives, and they also have their own range of merge and independent projects going. It’s pretty tight-knit. And so, as much as I first started helping with the production flow, eventually I got to make prints myself. Now I’m working with my hands and hardly ever do prints, but it was great to see this side of the industry and it was overall an inspiring energy circle I feel lucky to have been involved in.
Have you always been into drawing and painting?
From as far back as I can remember I’ve always been into drawing and painting, yes. I just find it to be an interactive medium through which I can share bigger ideas. Sometimes I’ll do something on a piece of clothing and realise it would actually look better on a canvas, and vice versa.
Would you be able to describe your aesthetic?
In one word, it would be reflective. It’s reflective of what’s on my mind, the things I grew up enjoying and things I now enjoy doing. I may be referring to someone else’s lyrics from a song. It’s also about what makes me happy and what makes me less happy, and, if the latter, I try to regard it through a different, more positive lens. Sometimes it’s reflective of things I’m curious about, or things I find appealing and mysterious. I like the ambiguity of certain things. I like folk art, too. A lot of the folky stuff that I grew up not particularly appreciating, that I thought was crap, now intrigues me a lot.
What were the first things you’ve made and released?
I’ve been doing stuff with Matt Roberge, who’s behind Vintage Sponsor, and who’s from Massuchusetts, just like me. The clothes he carries at his shop are culturally significant to the early 90s skateboarding, streetwear and snowboarding scenes, similar to stuff you’d see in an old CCS catalogue. Anyway, we both moved to New York and became friends, and ever since he’s been putting aside discoloured or imperfect strange white things for me to dye for like five years now, and over that time it’s really helped me learn a lot about material compositions and textile treatment through trial and error.
But the first somehow large-scale project I’ve made was for Peter Sutherland’s brand CNY. We wanted to tie-dye 100 unique one-off tees but couldn’t find anyone to produce them, so I just offered to do it. They ended up coming out pretty good and they all sold. From there, we made another round, and then some other people asked me to dye stuff for them, and it hasn’t really stopped since.
Is there a reason why you haven’t started a brand and instead decided to remain independent to favour taking commission projects?
There are many reasons it might have been a smarter move for me to start my own brand, but I feel like doing too much of a certain thing could so easily lead to creative exhaustion. See, I’ve worked so many jobs in my life, like every possible job, and I still work part-time, actually, but to have this freedom to take on projects when I can and want, and having these blocks of time dedicated to them keeps me going creatively speaking. I suppose it’s my way to keep a balance and an interest in the things I’m doing. This gives me the chance to work on personal, more experimental projects. It’s much more fun this way… I get to hang out with different people and participate in projects I actually feel so grateful to have been able to work on. I appreciate so many things past what I personally would wear, and just to be able to link minds with somebody and work on an idea and have it become a real thing is really exciting to me, and something I don’t take for granted at all.
How do these projects come to you?
It really depends. It either happens organically through word of mouth or randomly. I might bump into someone who’ll say they were thinking of me for some project. It may start with an email or a DM I received, too. Every now and again I’ll be the one hitting people up, even if I don’t know them. And sometimes I’ll be left on read, or straight up get a no. There’s no shame in that I think. That’s how a lot of collaborations happen, by being fans of one another’s work.
Can you tell us more about your MCQ’s latest icon GROW UP and how have you contributed to it?
We’ve referenced an old denim jacket that I used as a drop cloth and to clean my brushes on, which I ended up doodling on and selling. I haven’t done the same with MCQ, but I was inspired by that for the colourways of the one-off jackets I’ve hand-painted. The material composition we ended up choosing was Mirum, a plant-based leather made with rice, and none of the jackets were painted the same colour, or had the same stuff on them. I’d work on a different one everyday, in a different mood with different music.
What were the painted graphic patterns giving?
A lot of it had to do with my surroundings at the time of painting them. While I started the project in LA, halfway through I moved to my mate Joe Garvey’s art studio in upstate NY in the woods where I stayed for a few months. There I was able to let go and zone out, and I got very moved by the environs. Hence in the imagery there are references to nature, the colour palettes are washy, a bit distorted. I was trying to create several unique little universes.
How was it working with MCQ?
They gave me a lot of freedom and let me do me. I kept checking in with them, making sure they were cool with everything, and they were like, “Do your thing.”
