Interview conducted on April 25, 2020
On a personal level, I have been inspired by Crowley for many years and wanted to do this interview to show how impactful he has been in my life so when he agreed to give me an opportunity to pick his brain I was excited. Through the spectacle of his social media presence I have seen the impact he has had on the music industry, and it was my goal to discover how he reached that position, working with brands like Coach and Under Armour; magazines including GQ, Schön, NR, & Vanity Fair, and going beyond dressing celebrated music artists Goldlink, Justine Skye, and Future.
Ryan Lowe: Let’s start with how and when you first became influenced by fashion. Can you remember a definitive moment when you realized you were into it?
Lucas Crowley: My mom tells me when I was four, there was a Superman cape that I was particularly fond of. I believe I wore that for 2 years. Ever since the beginning, I was interested in expressing myself through some sort of wear, whether it be a Superman cape or to where I'm at now, representing a single brand or designer.
I began to view fashion as a form of expression specifically when I was around 7. The Backstreet boys and Eminem were a big influence on me, watching their music videos, how they dressed, and how it was a part of their essence and who they are as artists. I recognized that their costumes were orchestrated to be specific and comparative with one another. I saw there were different ways to express myself as a man through clothing.
RL: Was it common to be into fashion where you’re from?
LC: Yes, a lot of my friends were very wardrobe conscious.
RL: Were there specific mentors or idols that introduced you to fashion?
LC: My uncle and my grandfather were extremely fashionable. My grandfather was a tailor. At one point my grandfather was the biggest fur manufacturer in Florida. I would visit my grandparents during the summer down in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida; my grandmother would take me to the flea market where I would purchase clothing and jewellery.
RL: Was there a specific moment when you realized you wanted to, or could, work in fashion as a career? What were your steps following that point that started you on the path to where you are today?
LC: I had a daughter in ‘09 (at age 20) and was looking for something to … for lack of a better phrase “make me a millionaire” to provide for my daughter. At the time my friend group, the DC hip-hop scene, was still very underground, but very popular. There were open-mics that people would go to every night of the week, & you’d see everybody there.
My friend from the underground scene at the time was gaining buzz locally and I started screen printing t-shirts for him.
Through mutual friends, I kept meeting “the right people”, in business and graphic design, and I eventually formed a workwear centric brand, which was called KITSCH ’14 when I was like 23 or 24 years old.
KITSCH was showcased at NYFW. It mostly sold online but had a few stockists in DC. We almost sold our clothing in Atrium in NYC but there was a buyer change and we weren’t able to make it happen. Old fashion heads will remember Atrium.
We ended up having three collections with KITSCH, each one was very costume based. When I was 13-18 I was a thespian, and once I was able to make a brand and make designs, I looked at it from a costume design standpoint. I would pick a movie and base it off that. I forgot the first film for the first collection but it was workwear oriented. Unfortunately, shortly after, Kanye showed one of the Yeezy Seasons. One of our best selling items was a ripped up sweater that we imitated from Yeezy szn & mass produced them, selling them for $80.
After the third & final collection, KITSCH collapsed. Our personal goals in life & with the brand became different. Because of the fall-out with them, I was really just over fashion.
RL: That had to have been demoralising, to lose enthusiasm for an important passion. You managed to carry on, or side-step into styling. Who was your first client, and how did you get it? How did you feel about it at the time?
LC: Around 2015, before KITSCH fell out, I styled a model named London Zhiloh & on set that day was Goldlink, who was dating the photographer at the time, and I had no idea who he was.
My “business conscious” partner was into his genre of music. That's what they were listening to, Toro y Moi & Kaytranada, so he recognized it was Goldlink. When we left, he said ‘that was Goldlink’, I said ‘who the fuck is Goldlink?’
He responds with ‘He has a sold out show at the 9:30 Club next week, I told him that we’ll bring him clothing.’ A week later we go to 9:30 Club, and he’s doing his sold out show, and I give him the clothing & he wears the clothing, and ya know we kind of just hit it off. He took my number and then we didn't see each other for another year.
Goldlink and his best friend were very enamoured with me because my style was so unique, and he would text me questions. I think there was an idea in his head that he would need someone like me someday, but it wasn’t time yet. 2016 came and I was successful on my own terms, with not a lot of fashion success. At some point Goldlink texted me, and said ‘I want you to come to the studio & listen to my new album.’
RL: So that was a big moment, now you were getting somewhere.
LC: Shortly after Goldlink took me aside; he was like ‘Look man, I need somebody to help me creatively with fashion and help me understand who I am as an image. As a man in the music industry, what to show people. So just come fuck with me.’ Ever since then we were attached at the hip; together every day during 2017; did the Coachella tour 2018, and we built it from there. It’s literally Myshallah, God willed it. It just fell in my lap & I love Goldlink for really just giving me the opportunity for me to show, ya know what I didn’t even know was necessarily a thing that I was good at.
RL: But you had always had this talent in styling?
LC: Before him, I styled London; I had styled other rappers but I was styling them in my brand, to get my brand out there. It wasn't until I got the opportunity to style a music video for Chris Jane that I got to do my first pull. I pulled a bunch of stuff from ZARA & styled all the extras, must’ve been like an extra 30 or 40 people and that's when I kinda realized, this is fun. I had an assistant that day, I got paid, ya know I had to fill out like a W-9 and a 10-99 and that’s when I was like; I could do this.
Also, I work with a stylist Ade Samuels. Shoutout Ade, she has helped me tremendously for the past 6 months. I knew how to do everything before working for her, I thought, but the connection I’ve made and the understanding of how to be a boss. It's such a blessing to be able to just watch her work, and have her take notion from me. She's gonna make sure that I’m trying my hardest. First day of any gig with Ade is usually tough but the next day once you start seeing the confirmation from brands coming in, and I see how she pushed me, and I see the rack once everything is delivered; and I’m like alright, bring on the next one… and the next one comes and you’re like; fuck I don't ever wanna do this again… ya know when you’re a big deal, some of these gigs, you got 24 hours to get 3 racks together, and you're trying to get stuff from London, you’re trying to get stuff from Paris.
RL: How do you make that work?
LC: You just fucking press, the rhetoric, the language in your email, your email etiquette is your strongest sword as a stylist 100%, and that is just something I’ve always been good at. And if you don't get that email, you make that call. The big brands, like Lanvin, they'll deny you. But you have Instagram, so you have to find these brands and they’ll be willing to overnight anything. And with the big names, you're working with celebrities, you got their FedEx number. “Send me your clothing, it's gonna be on the Grammys carpet, the cover of Essence magazine, it’s available, I know your best look is somewhere, on someone better. Tell me what looks you have left. How about you tell me what’s available.”
RL: So by this point, you’re juggling several jobs at the same time. What is it like to balance multiple clients and manage multiple artists’ styling needs at one time?
LC: I was balancing six clients, doing 12 or 13 different gigs in the next two weeks. I was also on vacation. That was a very busy, but exciting time for me. I balanced it by keeping things in a notebook. I don’t keep shit in my phone. I can not stress that enough. I understand ‘notes’ on your phone. However things really click for me when I just write them down on a piece of paper and I can really see everything at one time at my desk, with my iPad, with my list of email contacts.
RL: That’s good to hear, I personally take plenty of notes on fashion in a notebook.
LC: I only went to college for a semester, and I didn’t do well, but what I did do well in was my organization. I love binders, I love taking notes, I love all of that type of stuff. I'm not in school but I got notes full of shit from Youtube videos that I learned from. Talking to stylists, recording conversations with stylists, I’m recording this conversation right now to take notes later; Ade really stresses being meticulous and organized and you know, I’ve got my schedule for every next day. And I know how to explain clearly when I send this out to assistants, when pickups are involved in other cities, when I send my list it has the place, the showroom, the time, description of what they're picking up, photos of what they're picking up, the phone number for contact, the address for the contact, the route to take that’s easiest in a city like LA takes 2 hours to get a mile, making sure that everything is ready before you take that next step.
RL: Basically, you’re on the ball, to say the very least.
LC: I take in all the information and spew it to my assistant or take it down on a piece of paper and the next morning when I wake up it’s for me to dissect… it's just organization, that's the short sentence. Having a good contact list, and a good assistant, Zack De Melo in my case right now.
RL: I relate big time to taking notes on certain subjects that interest me whether it be for my education or not. If it intrigues me, I am going to learn about it. Artists are probably fighting to get you as their stylist now, what is the process like to get started? Is it like a relationship; do you both have to vibe with each other?
LC: Unfortunately I don't really know, I don’t really consider myself in the industry. I went to FIT for a month. The situation just wasn’t right for me, I don’t know how to draw and my living situation wasn’t good. I didn’t work for a magazine, I only worked retail, as a visual merchandiser at Macy’s.
That’s why I work for Ade… when I’d hit up other stylists, they wouldn’t understand. They would say “Bro you’re already at where we want to be, you have a full-time celebrity, what do you mean?” What they don’t understand is, I need this on my resume.
Your resume has to look right, in order for you to get the gigs. You need the publications under your belt. All the people I’ve styled are through personal relationships, word of mouth, and individuals. It's never a manager hitting me up, it's my relationship with the celebrity. I think a lot of the time, these stylists aren’t dealing with the celebrity. Their agents are dealing with the celebrities' management.
RL: You’re the guy for celebrity styling right now, and it’s a big way to contribute to culture as it is happening. Do you think you want to contribute in other ways? Maybe even perhaps beyond styling? You have a visual language that goes beyond clothes and a creative style that could be applied in many different mediums.
LC: Fashion is a pivotal tool within the music industry’s creative process. I believe that me & Goldlink are continuing a history of fashion directors and musicians building these lifelong relationships and shaping the music culture. I believe that was started before us by people like Madonna and her stylist/creative director Arianne Phillips, Kylie Minogue and her stylist/creative director William Baker, and Lady Gaga and her stylist/creative director Franc Fernández.
I don’t look at Goldlink like some rapper I’m going to put some number (n)ine on… this is an icon, this is a moment to become an icon. Who is to say we aren’t Kylie Minogue and William Baker or Madonna and Arianne Phillips? If you look at the Igor tour and look at Kylie's first tour, the concentration and the effort is no different. With Stage design, which he has given me the chance to do, we have the opportunity to put on a show. And that’s what people need to do, is put on a show, not run back and forth.
Goldlinks aesthetic was vampires and I thought it would be cool for a sun to rise throughout the whole show and at the end of the show, the sun has risen and he has to leave because he's a vampire. So we had a big moon. One of the things in style that is really important to me & others is a silhouette & I thought it would be very cool to make him just a silhouette on stage. We created an impactful moment where you were stepping into a void of sorts. As a fan, you’re stepping into a moment that is very trance-like. The screen behind him is one gradient color, that changes over time, night to day. It was abstract, and thoughtful. Making it so that when we put the clothing on him, it was very silhouette based.
One thing I kept saying to the guys while we were on tour. “Look at the kids' phones in the crowds that are recording, every single screen looks the same.” Not only are the kids in the crowd seeing something striking but if it's minimalistic enough and meticulously dictated enough, every picture they put on the internet is gonna look equally as striking. And we absolutely achieved that goal. Even the shittiest iPhone pictures you research on IG or Google are striking because of the huge bright moon, & the bright screen behind him showing his silhouette. I’m very proud of that entire experience. We carried it on to his headlining tour. Instead of a horizontal screen, we did a 30 feet vertical screen.
I expect to put my eggs in a lot of different baskets when it comes to styling. Whether it be working for a magazine, a brand, an editorial, runway, visual merchandising, art direction, or stage design. Anything of that sort, I’m happy to try it, ya know? Because of what I’ve experienced in my life when I try something new, I do it well, if not very well. All the new things I’ve done is only because someone has asked me to. So if anybody is reading this and they want me to do something for them, that I haven’t done before - the only thing I can tell them is that I will do it well and that I'd be happy to.
RL: Now, your name is closely connected on social media to Walter Van Beirendonck. How would you describe your relationship to the brand Wild&Lethal, the designer and his work, and how did this all begin?
LC: My Introduction to ‘Wild&Lethal’, the brand, was in 2012. I was at my house here in Maryland and my best friend Lil’ Dream was watching a fashion documentary and it mentioned Wild and Lethal Trash, for the ‘Avatar’ collection, a moment where the models were wearing a resemblance of a whoopie cushion on their heads so they couldn’t see. They were told to walk a certain amount of steps and turn around.. But before they could make it to the end of the runway, they would fall off. Critics say it would be a way to represent AIDS cutting the life short of the people that were affected by it, and I thought that was fucking insane. At the time I was looking for a new direction of what I wanted to do, so I changed my Instagram name to “@wildandlethal”.
I began online shopping but people weren’t really collecting and there weren't archives. There were occasional individuals who would sell their personal pieces but that was harder to come by. I certainly wasn't buying the new Walter van Bierendonck mainline until 2 years ago. It was too mature and definitely too expensive.
RL: I think we all relate to not being able to afford the style of clothing we want to wear...
LC: It was big in Japan, so when I went to Tokyo that's where I got the bulk of my initial collection. As I remember it, I got 50 pieces for $500, every piece was no more than $10… nowadays these pieces are going for $400 a t-shirt”
RL: Holy shit!
LC: That’s kinda where it started. On May 18th, 2018 I started the fan page on IG, I started posting, and for whatever reason, I started DM’ing Walter asking for info on pieces, authenticity...
RL: Thank god for social media, chopping it up with Walter in the DM’s.
LC: And then for S/S ‘19 he invited me to the show. Goldlink was going to the shows anyways so I hitched a ride with GoldLink. Luckily, for the past four fashion weeks, I’ve been blessed to be able to have my trip paid for. So I met him and he took a liking to me, and his assistant Coen, and his husband Dirk, they are just good guys. He calls me ‘the Walter Wikipedia’. There are things that I know that he doesn't know, and obviously vice versa. But for example, I was talking to him about ‘Aesthetic Terrorist’, the brand. He was saying something, and I said, ‘Well no the brand didn't start til ‘02’. He responded with, “That's why you're the Walter Wikipedia.”
My identity with the brand is really personable to me. Everyone has their own opinion of who I am and what the brand is and what we are together. When I first started collecting [his brand] and wearing it ONLY… it gave me a sense of safety and comfort, to be able to feel like I had an individuality. I've only stepped into other designers because Walter doesn't make a lot of comfort wear. I'm really into brands right now like ‘Yohji’, a lot of the Japanese guys, because they make really nice wool garments. I'm still pivoted towards Walter knits/sweaters, I got like 10 or 11 Walter sweaters over the past month. Right now I’m wearing a Walter sweater, Walter pants but Margiela arm warmers..There was a time when I was strictly wearing Walter. With Walter, I love the flashy colors. I was traveling all around the world, I wanted people to look at me and talk to me so I could make these connections & find new clients. And in that way, it really, really helped me develop where I am now with my success… because people would say what are you wearing and my answer was never ‘Gucci.’ It's just part of my story, like the Backstreet Boys and my grandfather in the sense of style. It's just all pieces of the puzzle with where I am now, with my personal style, and with my success as a celebrity stylist.
RL: Do you have a considerable collection now?
LC: Last time I counted, I had over 400 pieces. I have been trading out the less inspiring pieces. Especially since the outbreak, I don’t wanna spend any money. Sent out two Walt pieces for a gorgeous Comme des Garçons dress: Down to 200-300. Really trying to make my collection more concise. So when I’m browsing, every piece has an impactful design.
RL: Any favorite pieces?
100%, my entire watch collection as a whole, I have 25-26 Walter watches. The oldest piece I own is from spring/summer ‘92 - first time you see the Walter tag. I have a one-of-one Puk Puk, Wild&Lethal’s mascot, antenna balaclava from the early ‘90s; I’ve got the shark sneakers from, I believe, s/s ‘94.
RL: Where do you keep it all?
LC: I have a five-bedroom house, one of the rooms is my closet. It's just all in there. I’m not like a crazy collector with them all in separate bags.
RL: Do you loan out any pieces?
LC: I have a full look that’s in a museum that’s in Switzerland. I’ve given some pieces to a museum in LA that’s collecting a lot of Walter but I don’t loan my clothing to individuals like that.”
RL: What are some other fashion brands you’re interested in, that others should check out?
LC: I’m very obsessed with Belgian fashion. Any of the Antwerp Six. Walter's husband, Dirk van Saene, makes incredible knits/dresses. Lately, I'm more into obscure Japanese guys that I've learned about this month, for example, Nozomi Ishiguro. On another level, I have some friends who are designers. One from London, Eastwood Danso. I also believe Demna is very talented
RL: Do you spend a lot of your time researching fashion designers/collections?
LC: Only when I’m given a task to find something my client wants, that's when I research and find these brands. Honestly, my day isn’t focused around fashion. My day is focused around my religion, studying my space, and being with my loved ones. I’m not one of these kids in discord groups that knows everything, about everything. Fashion is not necessarily of my interest. Style is of my interest. It isn't until a client says I want to look like this, that I go and find that. Like right now, Goldlink & I are working on a new aesthetic for his future brand, the silhouette is next level.
RL: Any brands you think are interesting and deserve a shoutout?
LC: N Hoolywood, Undercover, TakahirotheSoloist, Heliot Emil, Willy Chavarria, Jeremy Scott & Moschino.
RL: Any last words for creative and stylists in hard times right now?
LC: Good luck.