Dream Wired
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Celebrity
  • DramaAlert
  • Gossip
  • Movie
  • TV
  • Music
  • Comics
  • Shop
  • Home
  • Celebrity
  • DramaAlert
  • Gossip
  • Movie
  • TV
  • Music
  • Comics
  • Shop
No Result
View All Result
Dream Wired
No Result
View All Result
Home Celebrity

Willy Chavarria Reflects On His Journey To A Becoming A Cult-Followed Brand – Essence

rmtsa by rmtsa
April 9, 2025
in Celebrity
0
Willy Chavarria Reflects On His Journey To A Becoming A Cult-Followed Brand – Essence
74
SHARES
1.2k
VIEWS
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter


You might also like

Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor To Pen Sister Rosetta Tharpe Biopic

Kandi Burruss Reveals Her Aunt Bertha Is Battling Alzheimer’s

Soul II Seoul  – Essence

Getty Images

After an inspiring conversation days ago with Refinery29’s fashion director Irina Grechko at SCADstyle 2025, designer Willy Chavarria shared even more insights with ESSENCE behind the scenes. Born and raised in small-town Fresno, California, Chaviarria’s child-like wonder never went away, even now in his 50s. Right before the conversation, the designer’s fashion film was shown to the audience, invoking a spirit of artistry.

Tucked away after a swarm of students asked him tons of questions on his career to better their own, Chavarria, a CFDA Award-winning designer, reflected on his childhood, which is where his love of fashion was born. He felt a connection to style rather than capital F fashion. “I didn’t grow up around fashion, like the business part of it, or like the glamor of it that we see in magazines and on social media today,” he shared.

What did evoke his inventiveness were the people around him in his small town. He grew fascinated with the way people dressed to express their identities, who they were affiliated with, femininity and masculinity. People are still what energizes him. “I’m way more inspired walking around on the street in New York City on a Wednesday afternoon than I am at any fashion show,” he said.

Courtesy of SCAD

The business of fashion was later revealed to him while working for Joe Boxer in the shipping department in the 1990s while enrolled at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco. At Joe Boxer, he says he learned the background of what it takes to build a brand, make something, and sell it. That’s how he decided he would make a living working in fashion. Next, he interned at Nick Graham, which led to a design role. He then moved on to learning from household names like Calvin Klein and Ralph Lauren. Chavarria cut his teeth at Raph Lauren; he began at the company in 1999 he stayed for five years. The designer worked at Calvin Klein from 2001 to 2024 as the company’s senior vice president for design. At the former, he learned the philosophy of reaching as many people as possible through design, calling it a “massive company that has its legs rooted all over the world.”

Having a vision and being able to spread it throughout the world without it getting splintered or misconstrued was an impressive feat that Chavarria wanted to accomplish. At Ralph Lauren, he learned technical skills such as working with certain fabrics to mastering the art of tailoring was a given. His time at Ralph Lauren bleeds into the exquisite construction of the pieces Chavarria designs presently. For him, tailoring should have its own identity. “When you see it [tailoring], you know who made it. I try to make it just enough so that it’s cool but still wearable by a lot of people.” Chavarria was also a design director at American Eagle Outfitters after leaving Ralph Lauren. He went on to launch his namesake line in Fall 2015.

Marrying his roots with his talent for tailoring is a natural gift for Chavarria. Authenticity has never been an issue for him as he always felt conviction about the brand he wanted to carry out into the industry. He’s built more certainty in the brand identity by bringing in more people who share the same ideology of uplifting stifled voices. Translating this philosophy to the market in ways that can grow his business is what he and many designers like him find difficult. 

He comes from a family who were involved in not just politics, but civil rights. In 2020, when the Black Lives Matter movement grew within the difficulties of COVID-19, that’s the shift he noticed the most in the fashion industry.

“Black Lives Matter shook things up and forced people to open doors that were closed for so long. I’m a huge proponent of DEI and that was brilliant for even people like me, who took advantage of that. Since then, we’ve seen a lot of those doors closing, unfortunately, but I think that there was a moment in there that catapulted a lot of us within the industry and gave us opportunity,” he reflected. 

This past season, Paris Fashion Week embodied that sentiment further as Chavarria’s eponymous label made a runway debut in the fashion capital of France. The show’s emotional connection to religion, having been in a Cathedral, pieces nodding to queerness, equality, and blue-collar workers speaks to the wider conversation of designers of color being part of the global fashion industry. As Chavarria said, doors have remained closed on designers of color. 

“The old guard is not moving past an outdated ideology. When we see brands like mine or Wales Bonner, LaQuan Smith or Telfar killing it, I see people taking note. I see us creating new paths and streams of new talent. In so many, many aspects, we lead the way,” he said proudly. 

Geoffrey Van Der Hassellt/AFP via Getty Images

The Paris debut was emotional for the designer as it fell during a transitional time with the second term of Donald Trump’s presidency. Chavarria was witnessing levels of hate within the political system and seeing it affect the people around him. Entitled “Tarantula,” the romantic, haunting, and spiritual show was born as a direct response. 

“We put our hearts into the design, the story, and the way we touch people with our work. Being able to communicate our feelings about the American perspective as Americans of multiple ethnicities and sexualities felt so right. The world sees us in a poor light right now. It was moving to share our perspective on beauty, love, and inclusivity,” he revealed. 

He said his brand is one of inclusion, an imperative message of dignity for all people. He utilizes his heritage throughout his design practice, but he shared that his greater philosophy is to touch all people—even those who may have different beliefs. 

Although he may already have quite the cult following throughout New York and clearly in other parts of the world like Savannah, Georgia, Chavarria’s growth is continuous. He hopes to design at a European house one day and to scale his business large enough to eventually step away and venture into other passions such as film and music. He sees the two as a connector of people. Even as a child watching films like Carrie or The Exorcist at much too young an age, it was the theatrics that captivated him, not just the clothes. 



Source link

Tags: BrandChavarriaCultFollowedEssenceJourneyReflectsWilly
Share30Tweet19
rmtsa

rmtsa

Recommended For You

Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor To Pen Sister Rosetta Tharpe Biopic

by rmtsa
May 25, 2025
0
Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor To Pen Sister Rosetta Tharpe Biopic

Source: Dia Dipasupil Live Nation Productions has announced a powerful new project honoring one of music’s greatest unsung pioneers: Sister Rosetta Tharpe, the “Godmother of Rock and Roll.” ...

Read more

Kandi Burruss Reveals Her Aunt Bertha Is Battling Alzheimer’s

by rmtsa
May 25, 2025
0
Kandi Burruss Reveals Her Aunt Bertha Is Battling Alzheimer’s

Kandi Burruss is opening up about a deeply personal struggle that’s been affecting her family. Source: @Kandi/Instagram In a candid Amazon Live stream, Kandi shared that her beloved...

Read more

Soul II Seoul  – Essence

by rmtsa
May 25, 2025
0
Soul II Seoul  – Essence

King enjoys the gardens outside of the Amorepacific R&I Center in Seoul, Korea. This story is found in our May/June 2025 issue. Subscribe to the magazine here. They...

Read more

Alysia Montaño Wants Better Maternity Protection For Athletes

by rmtsa
May 24, 2025
0
Alysia Montaño Wants Better Maternity Protection For Athletes

Source: Houston Chronicle/Hearst Newspapers / Getty Olympic runner Alysia Montaño wants to make sure female athletes never have to deal with the complicated barriers that come with choosing...

Read more

Megan Thee Stallion Drops Evidence That Convicted Tory Lanez

by rmtsa
May 24, 2025
0
Megan Thee Stallion Drops Evidence That Convicted Tory Lanez

The Tory Lanez fan club grew from artists facing similar charges and allegations to miscellaneous MAGA politicians jumping on the bandwagon. However, Megan Thee Stallion’s attorneys released receipts...

Read more
Next Post
Why Crosby, Stills and Nash Wanted to Reshoot Their Iconic Cover

Why Crosby, Stills and Nash Wanted to Reshoot Their Iconic Cover

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Browse by Category

  • Celebrity
  • Comics
  • DramaAlert
  • Gossip
  • Movie
  • Music
  • TV
  • Uncategorized

CATEGORIES

  • Celebrity
  • Comics
  • DramaAlert
  • Gossip
  • Movie
  • Music
  • TV
  • Uncategorized
No Result
View All Result

Recent News

  • ‘I Have 30 Days To Leave The Country’
  • The Librarians: The Next Chapter – Season 1
  • FIRST STEPS Gets a New Clip and TV Spot — GeekTyrant

Copyright © 2023 DramaWired.
DramaWired is a content aggregator and not responsible for the content of external sites.

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Celebrity
  • DramaAlert
  • Gossip
  • Movie
  • TV
  • Music
  • Comics
  • Shop

Copyright © 2023 DramaWired.
DramaWired is a content aggregator and not responsible for the content of external sites.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In