After a magnificent performance at the Box last fall, Jose Orellana has done it again with his latest FW collection, Transeasonal Boy. I attended the colorful show with photographer, Eric Acquaye, and my assistant Yani Lopez last monday at the notorious Lips Lounge.  I have always appreciated Orellana’s work for his dedication to creating pieces of both style and comfort.  To find menswear in particular that has both a fashion edge and a comfort you could wear all day is no easy task, but for Orellana it comes naturally.  The outerwear for me, made the strongest statement.  I enjoyed the length and accentuated lapels.  The slacks also had a great and versatile fit that would fly for a casual or formal occasion.  I for one, am thrilled and excited for what his next season will bring.

A: I started modeling in New York, three years ago, in 2009.

A: One of my most memorable shoots was the editorial shoot for the cover of German High-Fashion Magazine ACHTUNG in August 2011 in Berlin. Shooting a cover story is definitely a very exciting moment. The entire team is hypersensitive with you, with your look, with your movements, lights… etc. It was hard work and a lot of fun at the same time.

A: New York is definitely my favorite city to walk in for Fashion Week and I am thankful to have had the opportunity to walk a number of shows during New York Fashion Week in the last two years. The shows are amazing, the global media is following every step and the after parties in this city are just over the top. [When] you walk in New York fashion week, you walk in front of the world.

A: Next to modeling, I have been producing music for various international singers for the past three years. I have composed songs and produced remixes for artists in France, Germany, Bulgaria, Serbia and the USA . In 2011, I decided to start a career as a solo artist. My background as a model helped me find a talented entourage of professionals to visualize my music through video clips. My first two video clips “Your Dream” and “Creature In Me” would not have become the way they are now without the support of my friends in the fashion industry. In “Your Dream”, I am wearing the jacked of a friend of mine in Berlin – the talented designer Ivan Man, while the nude female in the clip is wearing a head piece by Alexander Mc Queen. In “Creature In Me”, we use clothing designed by Vivienne Westwood, Alexander McQueen as well as other unique pieces of art created by friends of mine, such as the phenomenal high-heels by Daniel Nieto (former footwear designer at Calvin Klein, now at Diane Von Fürstenberg), the unique jewelry creations by Danielle Hills (Gilding Primal Instinct) and the breath-taking costumes by the performer and designer Yozmit.

A: My last 3 years in New York had a major impact on my philosophy on life. During the day, I was surrounded by people in fashion, at night I became part of the Manhattan Clubkids. What other people would consider “extreme” or “avant garde” became daily routine to me. In fashion, as well as in New York nightlife, everybody is unique, everybody is a creature. The numerous creatures I encountered in my life inspired me to create a song about self expression, about what the ‘creature’ really is. We all have that divine creature inside of us. It’s time to manifest it.  When I finished the song in my home studio in Manhattan, I had a vision of the video clip. I wanted to create a ‘videtorial’ – a clip full of high-fashion designs, extreme colors, extreme hair, shoes, but still with a message. As the viewer can see in the end of the video, me and the female protagonist leave behind our clothes and reveal the “real” creature within us in its purest way: it is our individual divine uniqueness.  Being a creative director was something new to me and meant an entire month of extensive, hard work: conceptualizing, discussions, negotiations, writing a script, mooodboards, brainstorming and fine-tuning of ideas, meeting with cinematographers, designers, art directors, assistants…With the help of my clubkid creatures and my friends in the fashion business, I was able to put together a team of 50 people to work on that incredible project. I am very happy with the result and still keep a surprise: the video clip also comes in a 8-Minute art version, with a different musical version as well as unreleased scenes. This version will primarilly be only shown at secret private screenings and will include more nudity, more brutality and more ‘creature’ scenes.

A: 2012 has just begun and Alek Sandar is full of surprises I will continue to work as a model, however, I will put a major emphasis on my career in music. Very soon, Splendid Sounds Records will release a unique song I composed together with the phenomenal artist Yozmit. “Sound of New Pussy” will be out in February. It comes in 4 different versions – form Club Music to Dubstep to Buddhist Chanting. The viewer will also be surprised by a high-budget video clip, which will have visual allusions to “Creature In Me”.  Moreover, I am simultaneously working on two new songs and I am in the middle of negotiations with other European artists, so stay tuned and expect more art in 2012.

To learn more about Alek Sandar visit www.alek-sandar.com

JM: How long have you lived in New York?

AL: Just over a year.

JM: Tell me about how you started in hair to where you are now.

AL: I think I’ve been really lucky.  A lot of great things have happened for me from meeting the right people at the right time.  It all started for me at the Aveda Institute.  When I graduated there, I went to Spalon Montage.  I did my apprenticeship there and worked there for about eight years.  During the time that I was working there, I became really passionate about education, so I went to all the classes that were ever offered.  I would even travel to Chicago or New York or San Francisco to take classes at the Wella Studio.  It was through Wella that I started doing editorial work.  They have a competition every year called the Trend Vision Competition.  It’s a big event that they do where hair stylists compete against each other, and it starts with designing a look and taking a photo of it, so I competed and that was how I met the first photographer that I ever worked with.  I just started networking after that photo shoot.  I was always reaching out to anyone and everyone that I wanted to work with.  I never had any embarrassment about emailing any photographer, even if I was positive they would say no.  I would email them and say, “Hey, I would love to test with you.  I love your work.”  Through that, it just started happening.  I started producing photo shoots, really.  I would arrange for a photographer, contact models, pull clothes, then do the hair.  The only thing I didn’t do was take pictures or do makeup.  You just make it happen.  I did that for probably three years or something, building a book, then, once I felt I was ready, I would venture outside of the city.  I would make regular trips to New York to do shoots.  For me, my big break was when I met Oribe when I was working at Spalon [Montage].  He’s been doing really big editorial and fashion work since the 80s.  He was working with all the first generation supermodels and was J.Lo’s hairstylist during the whole “On the 6” thing.

JM: Tell me a bit about the experience of working with celebrities, runway models, and salon clients.  Which has proven to be the greatest challenge?

AL: Well, working with celebrities and working with salon clients is really very much alike.  Working with models is completely different.  A model is a model, so it’s not her concern what you’re doing with her.  Either you are doing what you want or you are taking direction from an art director or designer.  Models are amazing.  They just sit there, and they’re beautiful, and you make them look however you need to.  Their job is to make it look cool.  Models are really easy to work with, usually!  Every now and then you might get a little drama, but really I find that it’s very easy to keep the girls, the models, happy.  If you keep them happy, then everything will look better.  You have to be nice to them.  It’s really pretty easy, unless you get a big diva!  Now working with celebrities and clients is very similar.  The difference is an A-list celebrity has some kind of “thing” that is their thing that they need.  There is some kind of design element that is their thing, that is an important part of their persona, and you have to be very respectful of that; whereas sometimes clients are totally open, and you can cut their hair off, and it’s totally fine.  With celebrities you have to be a little more careful to make sure you make them look like themselves, make them look really good, hopefully, their best (like Goldie Hawn has to have bangs).  There’s always something.  You have [the most] time with celebrities usually.  An A-list celebrity will never come in to the salon.  You go to them, and you’ll have more time with them.

JM: I love that Vanity Fair cover of the “Hollywood Issue.”  Whose hair did you do for that spread?

AL: I worked on Jennifer Lawrence.  I did Jake Gyllenhaal’s grooming and worked on Annie Hathaway.  I’ll tell you a little secret about that cover.  The main cover of the magazine was shot here at Pier 59.  All the rest of it was shot in LA, and it was a composite.

JM: I figured!  I said to myself, there’s no way they got them all on the same schedule!

AL: I was not at the LA shoot, so the main cover is the one that I worked on; so we had Ryan with us, Annie, James, Jake, Jennifer, and Robert Duvall; so to answer the question, I know I’m rambling, I worked on Annie, Jennifer Lawrence, and I did Jake’s grooming.  I actually learned a lot from doing the grooming job with Jake, because men’s grooming is such a different thing, and he came in with a beard, and the photographer didn’t want it.  He didn’t like it for that look.  If you shave a guy really clean, on some guys it’s not flattering; whereas if you leave a little stubble, it contours the face, like blush on a female; so we shaved him down just a bit, and it looked good.  They were so fun.  They’re such fun people.  They’re young and hysterical, and they were giving each other shit.  It was a great environment on the set.

Adam resides in Brooklyn, New York.  His incredible work can be seen on his website.

Special thanks to BlackBlue for supplying garments.

JM: So what have you been up to since your Fashion Week show?

Breezy: Right now we just launched our SS2012 collection, Rainy Days.  It’s cool because when we first started our sunglasses, it was studded frames and hand-crafted glasses.  Our products are manufactured now.  Rainy Days is pretty much inspired by our story.  We always felt that we were different.  Umbrellas shield people from rain and our sunglasses shield us from people.  We feel very comfortable when we wear our shades.  It’s also crazy that it’s all in progression, because all our stuff was handcrafted, and now we have everything made official with our logo and name brand.

Coco: We’re pretty excited because now we’re branching out to a whole new market.  We’re working on finding a new customer.  From our studded sunglasses on to the glasses we have now is another pedestal.  Right now we are working on developing our brand, thinking of what’s next for us.

JM: What excites you the most about the work that you do?

Coco: What excites us the most, I think, is being in New York.

Breezy: Also, seeing our production on the streets.

Coco: Yeah, being in Starbucks and seeing a girl walk in wearing our glasses or somebody walking down the street, someone that doesn’t know us, walking right past us with our product on makes us feel so amazing!  Also, having the chance to be on set with [Beyonce].  We’re in the new Beyonce video, and it’s so unreal, especially coming from Minnesota where you hardly see celebrities.  In New York it’s normal.  It’s New York!  Being next to the most powerful woman in music right now and spending time working with her on set for like 13 hours, every minute we’re like, “Are we really here?”  It’s crazy!

JM: At MPLSTYLE, we like that a lot of your products look really good on both men and women.  I especially love the accessories.  Do you want to talk a little about that?

Coco: When we create a product, we don’t create it for a certain gender.  It’s for the person with the personality to wear it.  A piece doesn’t care if it’s for a female or male, it’s for the person that will wear it.  Somebody might choose our Gold Liners, a style that’s more [tame] as opposed to our Starboat, which have a crazier design to it, so if you have the confidence to wear that piece, then you’ll do it.  A lot of people will start out with a calm pair, and they’ll get more comfortable, and they’ll progress to a pair with a crazier effect.

JM: Do you see yourselves ever expanding to more clothing?

Coco: Yes we do.  When we’re in our creative process, we don’t really find inspiration in other designers’ collections but in their journey.  Ralph Lauren is one of the designers who we love how he started and branded himself.  He started with ties, branded his name, and branched off to clothing, shoes, everything, so that’s kind of what we’re doing.  We’re finding our niche in eyewear and accessories, and once people are familiar with our brand, then we can expand to other categories.  Once they’re familiar, we’ll branch off to clothing, shoes, fragrance, etc.

JM: The kids’ stuff is great, too.

C&B: Yeah, we love it.

JM: What are you really inspired by right now?

Breezy: We’re really inspired by music actually.  When we’re designing, if a bad song comes on, I feel like I can’t think.  We like blasting our music when working and designing. It’s crazy because we’ll go from orchestral music to dub-step to Drake.  We never listen to one genre.  We’ll listen to different music to change our mood while we’re designing.

Coco: Also, recently we were in Paris, and we’ve been there twice in the last couple of months.  Being in a different atmosphere changes your direction and changes the way you think.  The way the human mind works, if you’re not exposed to something, you’ll never know, so being in a whole new environment opens your mind and causes you to expand your creativity level to something you didn’t know you had.  Flying and being on a plane is also inspirational.

Breezy: I design my tail off on the plane.

Coco: We feel like we live on our own planet, and the plane is our spaceship going to the next city, so when we’re on the plane is when we create the story line for our next collection.  We’ve started all our story lines on a plane.

JM: The music industry has been really good to you.  Are you ever going to release a single?  You can dance and you’ve got the look.

Breezy: It might be kind of fun one day.  Who knows?  We can’t say no, but we can tell you it’s not in our plans right now, but I don’t want to say no because what if it does happen?

Coco: We have tons of friends in the music industry; it’s so crazy that people we wouldn’t think know us do!  We met Drake and everyone who knows us knows we listen to Drake.  Last week we went to SNL because our friend Kenan Thompson is in the cast.  We were invited because Drake was performing.  They have a private dinner after the show, and we got to attend with Kenan, his fiancée, and a couple of her friends.  They’re going around the table and introducing everyone, and when it came to us, Drake said, “I know who they are!” and I was like, “No, you don’t!” and he came up to us and was like, “Yeah, my friend who lives in Toronto loves your brand!”

You can shop Coco & Breezy’s latest collection as well as get updates on their growing brand on their website.  Also be sure to like MPLSTYLE on facebook for more updates and to see coverage of Coco & Breezy’s NYFW show.