Lisa Bühler on Clothes as Community
⤏LISA SAYS GAH’S LISA BÜHLER ON COMMUNITY, DESIGNING FUN CLOTHES, AND CYCLICAL FASHION
⤏ IN CONVERSATION WITH CIANA ALESSI
⤏ PHOTOGRAPHY BY SAY SPEZZANO AT THE LISA SAYS GAH RETAIL SHOP IN LOS ANGELES
The woman behind everyone’s favorite pasta-shaped earrings and print-laden pants is Lisa Bühler — the eponymous “one who says Gah!” Lisa and her team at Lisa Says Gah have created a brand that centers community and uplifts small artists while incidentally becoming the defining aesthetic for an entire era. I spoke with Lisa about how LSG has the coolest customers, the importance of community, and her favorite pasta shapes (what can I say, I’m Italian!).
CIANA ALESSI: I know we're only a few months in, but what is your top highlight for this year so far?
LISA BÜHLER: I feel like I'm still in planning mode. The spring season is the big season for Lisa Says Gah. With really strong prints, I feel like we're kind of just anticipating spring. We've had so much rain. It’s been such a different winter for us Californians. I'm just looking forward to spring.
My birthday was February 28; that should always be celebrated! I went out with friends, spent some time up in Mendocino, and it snowed up there. It doesn't normally snow so that was a fun highlight. I have two small kids and we had fun playing in the snow together. I guess just experiencing a different type of winter for California has been a fun highlight. Now I'm down in LA with the team. I try to [come] down once a month at least. That's always rejuvenating and energizing for me to be here in person.
CA: Totally. How many people do you have on the team right now?
LB: We’re 15.
CA: Would you say that you are pretty close?
LB: Yeah, we still have some people remote [from] the pandemic. We opened an office in LA in 2020 so the bulk of my team was always in San Francisco. Then [we] opened the office and then opened the store, [and] moved our warehouse down [to LA]. Everything's kind of been pushed down to LA. We do have some people remote, but I would say like 90% of the team now is LA-based.
CA: Cool, that’s awesome. I guess we'll get right into Lisa says Gah world. I read in a previous interview that you define Lisa says Gah as anti fast fashion and pro community. Obviously at Junior High we’re all about community. How would you define the word community or what does that look like for you?
LB: I think down to the basics of community, what it means is being neighborly, helping each other out, really being there to support people and lift each other up. I think [community] can just make life so much more rewarding. Transforming that idea into a shop is supporting other like-minded designers. Our team is small. We work really creatively and hard together being non-VC (venture capital) backed. We definitely have a different dynamic in that way. Community is the foundation of the brand LSG and how we work internally, how we work with brands, and how we communicate on a peer-to-peer level with our customers.
“I think down to the basics of community, what it means is being neighborly, helping each other out, really being there to support people and lift each other up. I think [community] can just make life so much more rewarding.”
CA: I know that LSG does a lot of collaborations with other brands. Is that something that you always hoped for initially or did it just work out that way throughout your journey?
LB: We really had a lot of collabs last year. We've worked with local artists to do prints [and] we've done exclusives. But I would say in the last couple of years, it's been a bigger part of the business. We worked with Arq — they’re up in Oregon and they’re smaller scale, but it's been fun to work with businesses of different sizes. We did a collaboration with Great Jones, it was fun tapping into a category that we don't specialize in but can have our stamp on. [The collaborations] kind of come naturally in keeping the customer excited and interested in different product launches.
CA: In line of talking about the customer, obviously in the social media world and generally just reporting on the brand, the Lisa Says Gah girly has been very much a staple of the last few years. How would you define your customer?
LB: I think our customer base really cares about having a creative, one-of-a-kind look. Something that feels kind-of thrifted and unique, [has] a sustainable element, and definitely from a small business, but reaches lots of different types of people. Our age ranges from Gen Z to Millennials. People usually just out of school, or starting a career and dressing for themselves. I love our customers. They're so fun and kind. Our brand is really welcoming and a lot of people can participate, and I know our customer is [responsive to] that.
CA: I've been a Lisa Says Gah fan for quite some time and there’s such an accessible and approachable energy within the brand. When you were a kid were you into fashion? I read that you were pretty artistically-inclined.
LB: I was so into fashion. I grew up in the supermodel era [with], like, Cindy Crawford. Fashion felt so fierce and powerful. I was really attracted to that. As far as artistic, I think I also had a business side to me. I would always make paintings and try to sell them to my parents. My mom would give me a quarter, and then I'd come back to her with like 10 different other options. I think I have that business sense where I know what will work and what people are reacting to.
CA: Cool. What is one trend that you saw in your teenage years, or even your childhood, that you would like to see come back?
LB: It's all coming back. It's funny to look back at photos and see [fashions] circling back. I really love our LSG denim, and I remember wearing long denim shorts as a kid. I feel like they're definitely making their way back in a light indigo wash. I also think about my mom's fashion too. She was definitely into more mall apparel — like Ann Taylor — and that kind of look feels relevant suddenly.
CA: I know that LSG is all about prints. If you had to pick a print to define your personality, what would it be?
LB: The food prints are so good. I'll go with the Roma tomato print because I think she's just fun, but can be kind of classy. It's a nice color red [and] kind of ties back into our branding.
“I grew up in the supermodel era [with], like, Cindy Crawford. Fashion felt so fierce and powerful. I was really attracted to that.”
CA: Would you say that you’re a foodie?
LB: Yes, definitely. I studied abroad in Italy for a while, and lived there for a stint in my early twenties. It's fun to see [that] come through in our summer prints. I think people now are more open to having fun with their clothing. It's great that we can test some of these things! People seem to really love [the food prints], so we can keep the momentum going and bring new prints to the table.
CA: And you have a pasta-shaped earring!
LB: Yes, the Farfalle Earring. That was a part of our Italian Summer collection. We did some jewelry. We had a sardine necklace and the farfalle hoops. Now it's kind of a staple on the site. We just keep reordering them. I think they’re such a nice little treat and they make people feel good. A lot of people will stop you in the street and ask you where you got them. They’re a fun conversation piece, too.
CA: Do you have a favorite kind of pasta shape?
LB: I mean, the farfalle is pretty fun. I think you can eat it gracefully compared to the noodle. I make this elbow macaroni for me and my kids every week. There's something nice about the elbow. It’s not as pretty for print, maybe kind of boring, but it's just a nice hearty noodle.
CA: Yeah, it's comforting.
LB: Totally better than the mac and cheese ones because those are kind of weak out of the box.
CA: Yes, very true. What are your hopes for the future of Lisa Says Gah? Let's say maybe in the next five years?
LB: My hopes for LSG — [there are] so many! I really want to focus on the LSG brand, how we can expand it as far as sustainability goes. I would love to open LSG New York where a lot of our customers are based. [I’d like to] bring back some of the content that we started off strong with, like an interview series and highlighting people we admire through fashion. Highlighting our designers, too. It's hard to do. There’s a lot of moving parts in putting content together, and sometimes it feels so short lived, especially on social media. But I think it's so important to the identity of our brand to continue to highlight and sharing with our community. For the stores, it's been so fun in LA, but expanding to new locations would be a great goal for us.