ARTS INTERVIEW: KIMBERLEY GORDON OF WILDFOX COUTURE

Designer Speaks On What Inspires The Equally Chic, Casual and Dreamy Wildfox

By: Seth Shellhouse

April 11, 2012

The Music Speed Date, wherein we ask a popular artist/band to answer fifteen questions in fifteen minutes, has become a staple of Buzzine Music. Given the format's popularity, we have adapted the Speed Date model to apply to artists of diverse disciplines. Ladies and Gentlemen, the Buzzine Arts Speed Date:

I can think of no better inaugural candidate for the Arts Speed Date than Wildfox Couture designer and co-owner, Kimberley Gordon. Kim is a long time personal friend, and ranks among my favorite people, so it goes without saying that I am super proud of her and partner Emily Faulstich. A favorite of celebrities and real girls alike, Wildfox has, in five short years, become one of the most important women's lines in the world. As a designer, Kim infuses so much of her personality and her energy into her brand that it's difficult to discuss one without discussing the other. There is a warm fuzziness about Wildfox, a dreaminess, a coy sexiness, and a legitimate, borderline obsessive care for girls (women, yes, but more accurately, girls). The innocent, hip and effortless Wildfox look has permeated the industry, both in design and presentation. Oft imitated, never duplicated, their influence is hard to miss. One might even go so far as to suggest that the explosion in popularity of vintage photo filters is due in part to the universal desire to re-create the world as it looks to Kim. It's a stretch, but what writer doesn't like to stretch here and there?

Regardless, without further ado, and just in time for Coachella (where everyone wears Wildfox, duh), our interview with Kim Gordon:

Let’s start with the obligatory opening question: who are you and what you do?

I am Kim Gordon, I’m the designer/co-owner at Wildfox. 

What are you currently working on and/or promoting?

I’m working on Wildfox!

Where are you from and where are you now?

I am from East Grinstead in the UK and now I live in Los Angeles, CA.

Where would you say you got your start, or, what was the breakthrough that transformed your art into your career?

I was waitressing and had always been an artist, I never considered designing before but it suddenly felt like what I should be doing. I applied for a job as an assistant at a design firm and got it, I think he really liked my drawings and the project I did for him. He gave me a break basically!

What is the one element you are really into incorporating into your work at the moment?

I love incorporating the feeling of my friendships, of girls and the way they are all dreamy and fuzzy and lovely, but also bitchy and vindictive and amazingly cool!

All creatives have passing (or lasting) obsessions: what is your current obsession?

I am obsessing over cats actually, ahah, and of course pastel colors. I always obsess over sparkly things.

Who would you cite as your key influences?

My friends and movies from my past, mostly from high school. Pop culture is a huge influence on me!

Perhaps more importantly, who would you like to influence?

I would like to influence young designers and lost teenage girls, I want to make them feel empowered and feel as if they can reach out for bigger things.

Do you have any contemporaries/peers who you look to for inspiration, or whose work you really dig?

I really like Erin Fetherston, I would like to know her personally, but I think we live in the same dreamy mindscape!  

If you could be any other artist in any medium (from music to sculpture to gastronomy to whatever else you consider an art), who would you be and why?

I would be a doll designer because that is what I have wanted to do forever, I chose designing over this.

Who are the important people in your life?

The girls who work for me are so important to me, they are my hands! My boyfriend and my parents are also incredible, and my friends are the most important because they inspire me!

When you're not working, what might we find you doing?

Custom designing My Little Ponies, painting, having sleepovers

If you were stranded on a desert island, what three things would you bring and why?

Boyfriend, paints, food!

What do you want to do next?

Open a store!

When the bell tolls, when it's all over, what do you want people to say about your work? How do you want to be remembered?

As someone inspiring, and someone who helped young girls feel good.

And the bonus question: where can online fans find out more about your work?

Ilovewildfox.com  Wedreamoficecream.tumblr.com