Getting to know Ksubi

Written by Valerie Koh

Designer - Profile

Tags: Australia | designers | Ksubi

They're a group of Australian surfers who formed a fashion label called Ksubi (pronounced Sue-bee) that has now branched out into art installations, books, music and more. Fashionbrain talked to the duo during a recent stop in town...

FASHIONBRAIN: Your designs are really creative. How do you guys get your inspiration?

DAN SINGLE: We take it from everything: our friends, families, and places we go to. A lot of our stuff tends to be paradoxical, like our new Spring line. There are prints of old television screens on top of a highly technological print. Get it? (laughs)

FASHIONBRAIN: What was the craziest fashion item you have worn?

SINGLE: One time, I found these pair of neon pink roller skates and for a month, I would not take them off. I went everywhere in them, even drove a car in them. It was ridiculous. I didn't even know how to skate properly so I was falling everywhere. It was massively funny.

GEORGE GORROW: Well, most of the time, we don't bring anything at all. We just travel by ourselves. In the past we had luggage and such but it changed when, a couple years back, a friend of ours came from France. He had on skintight leather pants and boots and came out of the arrival hall with nothing but his passport. That was awesome.

FASHIONBRAIN: What fashion item do you dislike?

SINGLE: Ugg boots. Those things are ugly. Actually not really ... they just aren't very pretty.

GORROW: Actually, we don't really dislike anything. Everything is cool in its own right. I wear things I am comfortable in and can pull off.

FASHIONBRAIN: What about an event that you had a lot of fun doing?

GORROW: We had a new store opening in a shopping mall and there wasn't any renovation going on in there. It was a big space and we didn't know what to do.

SINGLE: So, we decided to build a house out of cardboard within the store space. We went out one day, collected tons of cardboard off the streets and got lots of plywood and duct tape.

GORROW: It took a couple weeks, but Dan and I completed it and added a changing room.

FASHIONBRAIN: Talk about a fashion show that you enjoyed doing the most...

GORROW: Well, there was one where we hired black models to wear clothes that lit up in a completely dark room, so the models blended in with the darkness and the shirts seemed to be walking themselves. This concept worked really well on the runway. The models were wearing cardboard watches and bracelets, which was really fun.

SINGLE: I think we are the first brand in the world to have a drunken fashion show. We got all the models a bit tipsy before they stepped on the runway so they were a bit uneasy on their feet. That definitely added to the effect of things.