Interview, Teil 2: Stefan Siegel und Pholoso Selebogo (NOT JUST A LABEL)

Der zweite Teil des Interviews (1. Teil ist hier) mit NOT JUST A LABEL Gründer Stefan Siegel und Pholoso Selebogo gibt es nach dem Klick.

Wie ist das mit Lady Gaga zustande gekommen?

[Pholoso ist wieder dazugekommen, deswegen geht es in Englisch weiter.]

Stefan: Lady Gaga’s Stylist is Nicola Formichetti [Blog] from Dazed Magazine and he lives in East London. Knowing all the East London NJAL designers he used their pieces for his shoots. At some point we realized that everything Lady Gaga was wearing came from our website and there was not much interaction from our side. In Andi’s case [Andreas Eberharter, AND_i], he has all the stuff showcased in L.A. and it was included in the video shoots…
Well, I think there is an upcoming trend, people are sick of using and buying big brands and they want something new and unique. Today’s luxury means that you can buy things that nobody else has and this is what we represent.

It’s more personal…

Stefan: Yes, this is what we experience when we do the scouting trips together. We’ve been to Paris and I’ve just came back from Moscow. There’s so much excitement in finding young designers.
[to Pholoso] I don´t know who were the highlights in Paris?

Pholoso: Yuima… [Yuima Nakazato]

Stefan: Yes, Yuima just created a dress for Fergie from the Black Eyed Peas and this was a press request that came through NOT JUST A LABEL. They gave him a huge budget.

Pholoso: And now one dress is the collection for this season. It’s just one outfit. And the shoes, and the jewellry is really incredible. He used stuff like bone and made this video about it.

What do you think about the future of NOT JUST A LABEL?

Pholoso: I see it getting more involved with the designers and let’s see what works out. We will be consulting more and of course the direct contact between the designer and the customer… that’s quite something special. The customer can say ‘I want this shorter can you do that?’ and that’s already happening.
This is really luxury. You buy something for a price and you get it done for you.

Stefan: I think there’s a huge trend in the fashion industry right now, everybody wants to work with young fashion designers, but there are just a few projects out there that are supporting young designers without asking money from them.
I don’t know if you’ve been to Paris yet, but there are these so called trade shows where you have to pay between 3000 and 6000 Euro to be part of it… for one weekend…
It’s quite fancy to work with young designers, but nobody wants to share the risk and this is it where we’re different. We accepted an enormous risk for one year, we did not charge anything and you won’t believe how many people like our bank manager asked us ‘Why don’t you charge the designers? They are all making profit and become successful because of NJAL and you don’t charge them.’

Pholoso: We’re out there for them. And they have a certain trust in us.

Stefan: Exactly, this is the success of the website. Everyone is part of it. We have designers on our website and they’re almost like PR agents in each country. One designer in Barcelona just send me a press release today saying ‘Stefan, I want to support NOT JUST A LABEL further, we are planning an exhibition for all NJAL designers in Barcelona’. They all want to do things together. If we would charge we would have a huge business problem.
The same problem that trade shows or projects which charge money from emerging designers have: they have to accept who pays, quality is not relevant. We have the best young designers in the world and we just have to be the best service out there.

Pholoso: Just cut the middle man. That’s just unnecessary. They don’t work for the designers who are stuck there [trade shows] in one room with a lot of other ones and are basically invisible.

Thanks for the interview!

foto/credit: Fergie: (C) Atlanta Philipps Arena (www.philipsarena.com)