Aza Ziegler
⤏ IN CONVERSATION WITH RACHEL KINNARD
⤏ PHOTOS BY DUSTIN STAFFORD | MODELED BY BROOKE MERO AND JONATHAN PRESCOTT | STYLING BY LINDSEY HARTMAN
⤏ ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED MARCH 2018
After six years of life in New York City, 26-year-old Aza Ziegler has returned to her West Coast roots to run her knitwear line, Calle Del Mar. We met in her Echo Park studio to talk about how relationships are the backbone of her business and why she doesn’t consider herself a fashion designer.
RACHEL: You grew up in Northern California, went to undergrad in New York City, and moved to Los Angeles recently. What prompted your move back West?
AZA: After I graduated Pratt Institute I was still living in New York, but I started to do a lot more production in Los Angeles. I was producing weird specialty things that I couldn’t seem to get done at the price I needed to get them done in NYC. I started moving all my production to LA, because I was getting really sick of the winter and I really missed my family. Once I moved here, I felt like it fit better for my brand and maybe the lifestyle that I wanted to lead. I’m a California kid. I loved New York so much for the energy, but the weather and the outdoors is much more suited to how I feel grounded.
R: What about the fashion industry would you want to change? Do you even still consider yourself part of the fashion industry?
A: That’s a good question. When I first started my line, all I wanted was to create collections and be in stores. My first season, which was my thesis collection, I got purchased by a few stores, and it gave me a little cash to make another collection, which I made again by myself, and sold. And I got a few more stores the second season, and overseas stores. It just became so overwhelming to me. I just had this weird motivation where I was like, “I just need to do this, and I need to do it now. I’m running out of energy.” Looking back, I really wish I didn’t do that. I don’t necessarily regret it. I think I learned so much from doing it that way, but I wish I took a pause. But I think I was so afraid of losing that energy, you know?
I took a season where I didn’t put anything out, and at first I felt really weird about it, and then I kind of was like, “I need to do this in a way that works for me.” I took a step back and was like, “What about this do I like? What about this works for me? What doesn’t work for me?” That’s when I shifted my view and started to think of myself more as a lifestyle brand, and thought about it less about what stores I was in, and who was carrying me, and who was seeing me, and more like, who was wearing me, and what I was selling. And making sure that customer experience was really good. When people ask me what I do I’m like, “I have a small line, and I do this.” You know? I don’t think that I like to be defined by the industry necessarily.
R: So you don’t say, “I’m a fashion designer”?
A: No, I usually say, “I have a small knitwear line.” I feel weird being like, “I’m a fashion designer.” I think part of moving to LA was trying to create what that meant to me. I feel like I really value quality of life, and self care, and I really want to do something that gives me freedom, and not necessarily something that’s so stressful, you know? And so being able to release on my own calendar...has really been a more positive change for me.
R: What does ethical or sustainable clothing production mean to you?
A: I feel strongly about producing in the US for a lot of reasons. It’s more manageable and I’m able to really see how [my clothes] are being produced. The same [garment worker exploitation] that happens overseas, also happens in the US. There are factories that don’t give [their workers] toilet paper, or don’t give them breaks. I actually worked with a factory in LA that I really started to not like their environment, and felt like it wasn’t right for my brand. If I was producing overseas, I wouldn’t be able to see that, necessarily.
Now I’m doing mostly all knitwear and I have this one woman who runs my knitwear production, and she has a few knitters and sewers. She is amazing, and I feel really strongly about working with her. I really like that she’s a woman, and I feel like I have this really amazing relationship with her, and everybody that works with her.
“I didn’t learn the way the rest of the kids did . . .”
R: I don’t think most people realize how important relationships are in the fashion industry. It’s such a relationship-driven business.
A: Yeah. Susan, the woman who runs my production, called me this morning. Every time I speak to her, I talk to her for like 45 minutes. I talk to her on the phone, and she’ll tell me about her daughter. I think of her as a friend, definitely. And so I really cherish that relationship with her, and I think that people don’t talk about that a lot. That relationship is really what’s holding your business together.
R: What are some major lessons you’ve learned from running your own business?
A: I think the biggest thing that I have learned is to be open to whatever. My advice is, “Whatever you visualize something as, will probably end up being something totally different.” And that’s not necessarily a bad thing, but I think that you put something out in the world, and it really takes its own organic path. And not being so attached to that, and really learning to go with things, and how they evolve.
R: That’s great advice! Anyone who’s doing anything creative, you have to be able to take feedback, and change things. You can’t be too precious with your work.
A: I feel like I’m like, “Okay, this is 80% perfect. I have to take a step back.” Very rarely will I be like, “This thing has to be 100% for me to do this.” Because I’ll waste so much time [trying to reach perfection].
R: Do you ever feel like you’re taken less seriously as a business owner, because you’re a young woman?
“Uniqueness comes in handy later, you know? Uniqueness is what everybody else wants when you’re older.”
A: I’ve always looked young, so I’m sort of used to it. I think it’s forced me to have to carry myself and prepare more for things. I had a meeting with this group of women and they wanted to do a collaborative shirt. And they kept saying to me, “Oh, but we can work something out, because you’re a really young designer, and you’re new, and we’ll promote you.” And I felt like they kept repeating that, and I felt so frustrated by it, because I felt like, “I don’t need this project in the sense of like, I’m not going to do this for free. I can’t do this for free for you.” I need to cover my part of things. They kind of kept using my age, and I felt really negative about it. In that circumstance, I took control in a different way. It took a lot for me to regroup, and focus on [what I needed].
R: If you could go back to when you were in junior high, what advice would you give yourself?
A: For me, school was so challenging. In junior high, I was in a private school that really didn’t fit my learning type. I went there because they had all these artistic programs. There was theater, music, and art, and I got to take all of them. But I didn’t learn the way the rest of the kids did, and I felt like I was outcasted for learning differently. And I feel like it really made me always feel really outcasted. It drags down your self-confidence. The advice I would give somebody is that uniqueness comes in handy later, you know? Uniqueness is what everybody else wants when you’re older.
R: What is a non-clothing item that you want to design?
A: I used to play violin and I really wanted to be a country star. I just wanted to be a Dixie Chick more than anything! My god-brother had this really cool electric violin and I borrowed it for a little while. I started learning how you could convert your instruments from acoustic to electric. I wanted to buy an old violin, convert it to an electric, and paint it really crazy. I think it was going to be kind of ridiculous. It was gonna have bright flowers all over it, or stars or something. Maybe one day I’ll design my crazy country outfit to go with my violin!
⤏ BUY THE PRINT EDITION OF JR HI THE MAGAZINE | ISSUE 001 HERE.
⤏ RACHEL KINNARD (SHE/HER) IS A DESIGNER AND PRODUCER LIVING IN LOS ANGELES. HER EXPERTISE IN FASHION TAKES HER INTO COLLABORATION WITH FILMMAKERS, PHOTOGRAPHERS, TECHNOLOGISTS, AND ACTIVISTS. RACHEL IS A LECTURER IN THE FINE ARTS DEPARTMENT AT CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY LOS ANGELES WHERE SHE TEACHES FASHION HISTORY AND RESEARCH METHODS. SHE IS ALSO A LECTURER FOR THE CENTER FOR CREATIVE AND CULTURE INDUSTRIES AT CHAPMAN UNIVERSITY, WHERE SHE TEACHES FASHION STUDIES. RACHEL HOLDS AN MA IN FASHION STUDIES AND BFA IN FASHION DESIGN FROM PARSONS SCHOOL OF DESIGN. BORN AND RAISED IN ATLANTA, SHE LIVED IN NEW YORK CITY FOR TWELVE YEARS WHERE SHE GAINED CRUCIAL EXPERIENCE IN THE FASHION INDUSTRY IN A RANGE OF ROLES.