Fashion is evolving. Today, high-maintenance looks are giving way to the rise of athleisure and streetwear, even Uggs seem to be making a comeback. But even the most relaxed runway looks still take a backseat to the loungewear designed by Thaddeus O’Neil. The designer-surfer-photographer-model-writer has taken over the menswear scene in the last few years, earning himself a permanent spot on the industry’s short list in the process. He’s been nominated for the International Woolmark Prize, was a finalist in last year’s CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund and just launched his womenswear line last season to great success. He’s even big in Japan. To say he’s making a mark in the world of fashion would be an understatement.
Growing up on the beaches of the East Coast, O’Neil was introduced to fashion early when neighbor and family friend Bruce Weber took his family’s portraits when he was a child. Over the years Weber showed him the ropes of the industry, encouraging him to work both behind and in front of the camera. “Starting the line was kind of just a natural outgrowth of working in fashion for probably a decade, first as a model, then as a photographer’s assistant, “O’Neil explained to JustLuxe. “Then, sort of informally, the five years leading up to starting the brand I was just designing random pieces, and the next thing I knew I had sort of a closet full of things that I’d done.” With encouragement from family and friends, he launched his first capsule collection in 2013.
Within two years he had caught the attention of the industry, becoming a finalist in the 2015 CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund. At the personal bidding of Anna Wintour, he started a womenswear collection during the competition, expanding his brand practically overnight at the editor’s request. “I would have liked to have had more time, but when Anna Wintour asks you point blank on video camera about seeing a women’s collection in three weeks, and that’s the first you’ve heard of it, you kind of swallow,” he laughed. “I think our first real women’s collection, really in my mind, was this past fall/winter. Actually I should say it still feels like sketching to me in a way, so it’s still sketching out ideationally, conceptually, what that woman is like in a more specific way.” Within weeks he had created an entire womenswear collection and presented at NYFW.
O’Neil doesn’t draw a distinction between men’s and womenswear, and maintains that even with two separate collections, in his mind he’s designing for one customer. “Women bought my clothes from the beginning so I never made it a point to address that—there it was,” he explained. “When I make my dresses and my bikinis I have a woman in mind, that’s who I’m making them for … but in regards to every other silhouette it suits the nature of my brand and my silhouette and my fabrics, that it is, and always has been, for both men and women.” Looking back on the Fund he notes that the pressure he was under actually allowed him to create a womenswear collection organically. “We were restricted because we just had to use our menswear fabrics,” he explained. “Going forward I thought, ‘actually that’s perfect because that’s the way it should be anyway, that’s what I want.’ So that restriction actually ended up informing the way I’ve gone forward with women’s.”
The inspiration for his first womenswear collection may have come from a last minute request by Wintour, but for most of his pieces, nature is his muse. His SS16 runway show was one of his most notable—entitled Children of the Night, the runway was filled with vampire surfers, a seemingly strange theme for a summer collection. “I was actually surfing in Costa Rica and the sun was going down, and I’m looking around and there are women and men surfing, and it’s just beautiful, that golden hour light. Then I just started laughing because I started imagining this scene, this scenario, where … they welcome these tourist surfers out in the water and they’re all friendly, but then the sun goes down and they devour us!” he laughed. “It’s funny because I was just sitting there and I was just imagining this and … laughing out loud, and I remember at one point looking up and people looking at me. It was a funny moment. But I knew right then and there that this was going to be sort of a theme.”
O’Neil studied philosophy and geology in college before completing his Masters in Aesthetics. He was a fashion model and a photographer under his mentor Bruce Webber. He could have chosen any number of fashion careers, but he saw design as a way to combine all his passions into one creative pursuit. “In my mind fashion becomes a platform to really engage in all these other mediums that I really enjoy working in. Be it still images or film or storytelling—fashion is, at the end of the day, very primal storytelling with the writing element and pictures, etc. It’s a storytelling medium that’s sort of all-encompassing for all these other story telling mediums,” he noted. With artistic shows, short films and a number of colorful campaigns, O’Neil utilizes all these other artistic aspects within the brand, allowing it to feel less like an emerging brand and more like an established house. “What drove me to this is that I don’t have to specify—I don’t have to be just be a photographer, I don’t have to just be a filmmaker, I can play in all these arenas. I’m very much at ease with a certain level—and I want a certain level of—rawness, and some people might call that amateurism, but I don’t mind that. To me that’s what keeps it real."
Despite having a line that allows him to have his hand in different pots, he doesn’t lose sight of the final goal: designing a collection that both he, and the customer, are happy with. His inspiration and sartorial interpretations need to be appreciated and understood for his brand to thrive. “[Interpretation] is really up to the audience. Hopefully, the answer to me at the end of the day is … how does it make you feel? If it’s just utter confusion that’s not good, but if there’s something there that is gnawing at you, but in a positive way, then I think it’s working. If it’s absolute and utter chaos and confusion then it’s not working.” He strives to make sure that all the different artistic aspects of his design converge into a concise story, one that both industry and consumers can enjoy. “Making clothes is only one aspect of fashion. That’s sort of the easy part. It’s the communicating a story in an intelligent, cohesive, but not boring way. If you’re going to show people something, you want to show them something they’ve never seen before otherwise you’re wasting your time.”
For O’Neil, maintaining his focus and voice is essential for both commercial and personal success. “If you’re just doing your thing and you’re doing your voice then by that very nature it’s going to be something singular and specific and real,” he said. “Actually Bruce Webber—this has always been a touchstone piece of advice for me—one of the best things he ever said was ‘keep it you.’ That’s one very simple rule, and if you’re doing that then that’s the best advice there is.” His own identity is constantly shifting as he grows as a designer, but he works to ensure that his “constantly evolving self” is being reflected in each of his collections. “I always find my balance in nature and doing the things that make you feel good as an artist and as a person. I surf and I go for long walks and I keep reading philosophy and poetry and just really try to [do] those things that kind of define you.”
In the last three years the Thaddeus O’Neil brand has gone from zero to 60, and O’Neil is feeling the whiplash of his success. “It’s been a whirlwind. And again, surfing here is a perfect metaphor, honestly it just feels like you’re on this wave and you’re just riding it. To be honest you don’t have that much time to stop and reflect on it at all and sort of pat yourself on the back,” he told us. “It’s been super exciting and obviously I feel really thankful and grateful.” In the coming years he plans on growing his label, but what really excites him is the commercial evolutions within the industry: specifically how direct-to-consumer retail will change the market. “Obviously I still want to work with key wholesale partners, but it’s just a fact, it’s an economic fact, especially for emerging designers, in terms of scaling. In order to scale we really need to generate better margins and create more revenue, and the only way to do that is direct-to-consumer,” he explained. “The interesting part of that idea and trend is how to do it in an interesting way that’s kind of really true to your brand, and that’s what’s fun. I think every brand can find their own way ... and come up with their own interesting way to do that.” When asked what his plans were for innovating the retail space, he laughed. “That’s for me to know and everyone to [wait and] see.”
