CAL deconstructs his latex boots for Rick Owens – Amongst the glue, metal rods, and pins

From his live-work studio in London, designer CAL talks FKA twigs, those air-filled boots, and his (now-masked) life with latex

In conversation with Lampoon, CAL discusses Rick Owens, his bodice for FKA twigs, and the earth-descending mines that inspire his work

One of CAL’s initial connections with Rick Owens was through an upcycling residency that was featured at Dover Street Market.

CAL: I spent a summer in Concordia between my first and second year [at Central Saint Martins (CSM)]. I was there for three months by myself when I was presented with this opportunity. At first, I thought, “This isn’t real, like, okay whatever.”

I was given a big selection of deadstock that I could pretty much do whatever I wanted with. I was free to put my spin on it. It was interesting because, before that, I would go into stores and feel all these garments to try and understand how they were made. I’m a big construction person.

That’s where I got my design language: looking at all these brands that I admired. I like to understand how clothes are made and all these little tricks that we do to make them great. With this residency, I had the opportunity to get all these garments from the Rick Owens brand and take them apart, and actually see all the interfacing, and get to notice, like, “You chose to do that. This isn’t what I thought you had done. Good to know.”

CAL / the background in pattern drafting

CAL: I started in high school making replicas of stuff that I would see on runways. I thought, maybe I can be a bit cooler if I wear nice clothes. Coming from an arts perspective, I thought, “What if I just tried doing it myself? It’s not that hard, right?” My mom had an old sewing machine that she had since she was a kid, and I was just throwing stuff together. I just wanted to have clothes. The whole point of it was to make stuff that I could wear. For me, I would see a Balenciaga coat from a runway, and then try to make it. If I saw the shoulders not looking the same, I would go back and try to figure that out. I also try to watch YouTube videos… like a lot of YouTube videos.

The pattern techniques that I started with are not really proper, but I became so stuck in doing it my own way. I didn’t have a mannequin. I would just measure things on myself. Then, I would write down, like, hundreds of measurements. I was measuring things like: what’s the distance of [the sternum] and then the distance to my shoulder. It was kind of a process of triangulating things.

I would take down all these coordinates of my body and then draft something and make the garment from that. After a few years of that, I had my basics, which were very particular to what kind of silhouette I wanted. For a while, I was just altering those patterns that I already had.

CAL / latex as a medium

CAL: It started about two or three years ago. It was for this project I started at university. Everything began from vacuuming because I wanted something that could form to the body and adapt to different body types. I then became really obsessed with latex. There are a lot of brands doing latex – it’s quite a wave now. But the thing about it is that it’s completely different from making traditional clothes.

A traditional seamstress wouldn’t know how to use latex. There really aren’t a lot of people who know how to use it, but it is specifically in fetish communities. The first inspiration I found were these beautiful, bespoke vacuum suits that I believe were made in Germany. It’s a few grand for just one. It’s like hardcore fetish stuff, but the piping on it and the way that it vacuums in different places was so interesting.

When I was learning how to work with latex, I was messaging everyone I knew who was in the fetish community. There’s quite a lot here in London, so I slowly got all these different tips and tricks.

Latex is such a tough thing to work with. I find it very physically exhausting and attention-demanding. You have to wear masks the whole time. After a year and a half of not using a mask, I decided I need to use one. The glue is not good for you. It’s all very taxing.

So, I was doing these vacuum suits. I had a full-body suit, pants, and then I made these stockings. They were just socks, almost, but they were thigh-high. The initial idea was to make a shoe sole that you could put on your foot and then put the vacuum stocking over it. Then, you could vacuum it, and the sole would vacuum to your foot. It was this whole concept, but in the end, I never got to do the sole. I just had these stockings. When I went to shoot everything, I was like, “Well, what if I transform them? I have these stockings, but I need shoes.” So, I just used a hair dryer and blew them up.

They had this beautiful shape. It was so simple. I used them in a few of the looks as shoes. I also put them underneath one of the vacuum suits, so it kind of looked like it was one piece. At that point, the “boots” were just literally one piece of latex. You couldn’t even walk in them because they would fall off your feet.

CAL / The inflatable boots featured in the Rick Owens Men’s Porterville collection

CAL: In my final year in university, I wanted to make a version that you could wear: something with a sole and lining and all of that. And since the upcycling project, I’ve kept in touch with Rick [Owens] and the team. I’m always in Paris for the shows to see what they’re doing. It was the beginning of my final year when I met with Rick in Paris. I was going through all the things I was doing, and I had a photo of the boots. I told him I was using them for my graduate show, and he was like, “Oh, I really like that.”

And on the spot, he was like, “That would be great for our men’s show.” I thought “Okay, great, sure. Like, if you want.” But if there’s one thing I learned in fashion, it’s that people say a lot of things. But until you see it happen, don’t get too excited. But then, almost a week later, I got an email from the Rick Owens team asking, “Okay, so how do we do this?”

Over a few months, we were going back and forth on how to actually put it together. We went through quite a few variations on how the sole should be placed in the shoe, what’s underneath it, etc. At this point, I didn’t tell anyone about it because I wasn’t sure if it was real. And then I fully saw them at the show. I was like, “Oh, they used it, and they used it for quite a few looks.”

AJK: That was the first time I’d seen your work. I remember looking you up after that and seeing how young you were. This approach that Rick Owens takes to his work, supporting younger people so visibly like this, is pretty rare.

CAL: To this day, it’s really a testament to Rick and the team. Maybe a designer will have you as an intern or use your idea, but it’s rare that they put you in their press notes. I don’t know if I could name another brand that does that.

It was wild. From the beginning, they approached it as a collaboration. Owens’ approach was, “I need your name on this as much as mine.” I’m really grateful for them. I think other brands should take notice. They don’t have to be afraid of this. They can say who’s doing what because, when it comes down to credit, it can be kind of wild.

CAL / the feature in FKA twigs’ new music video Eusexua. It’s covered in very fine pleats and has these two large rods that come up from the breast of the dress

AJK: What were some of the considerations you made forming this dress to the body of someone in movement?

CAL: I call them spikes. I’ve been doing them for a while. I love metal work. That look was for my graduate show, and it’s actually just a top. The whole point of that piece was to answer, “How do you have a garment that’s tight to the body, that shows the form, but is also open?” Open like, there’s an entire gap in the front that shows skin without the use of any straps.

AJK: How does that fit on the body? How does that stay up?

CAL: These are the challenges that make me go crazy. What I did was: it has a metal rod that goes around the waist, and it was a nightmare to engineer. I won’t even get into it, but it hinges open. Oh, my god, I have it here actually. [CAL brings the bodice into view]

It doesn’t have a zipper or anything like that. It hinges open, and then when you put it on, you lock the hinge, and then it will just sit on your waist. I kind of cheated by making it just metal. But then it’s about how to hide it and make the audience question how all these things are happening. Typically, the answer to this challenge is to put a transparent mesh panel in the front. But no, I want to make my life very hard.

The choreography [in Eusexua by Zoï Tatopoulos] is wild. When I was there showing the stylist [Yaz XL, a friend from CSM] how to work with the piece, they were all there just rehearsing, rehearsing, rehearsing. When you’re designing stuff, a lot of it’s just being home and making clothes. Maybe a stylist will come here and there to pick up something. But when you see it take form like that, it’s just incredible.

CAL / references

CAL: The last project that I did was six looks for my graduate show. In that project, I was looking at garments that are made for people to withstand harsh environments.

I had found this amazing archive of photos of the Apollo missions. It had all the space suits categorized alongside documentation of what certain things did. I spent a few weeks digitally replicating the patterns used on those suits so that I could put them into more day-to-day fabrics to create a juxtaposition. I love design features with a clear purpose: space suits, pressure suits, airplane equipment.

Part of this research process even went into mining equipment. I grew up moving around a lot because we were in mining towns. Specifically, I remember we were in a small mining town called Kalgoorlie in Australia. I remember going down the shafts and seeing these huge pits. It wasn’t until this year that I realized a lot of my references go back to that period.

For example, I was thinking about how things are distressed and pieced together. When it comes to that part of the aesthetic, you start asking questions like: Okay, these jeans are distressed, but what distressed them? What would something look like if it were hit by space debris? Or if it had been buried under a salt flat in the middle of Australia? That’s the aspect of aesthetics I find interesting.

CAL / prototype

AJK: I’ve seen that you’re really hands-on with your process. Where do you work & prototype? Can you give me an idea of what your space looks like now?

CAL: I was really fortunate to find an apartment in my favorite building in London. A few months ago, I converted my one-bedroom into my studio, so now my bed is in my living room.

It is such a blessing to close the door and not think about mess. It’s clean now, so it’s nice to have an actual living space. And even though I have my patterns lying on the floor right now, it’s a lot better than having scraps and needles there too.

I like being able to work on things whenever I want. Over the years, I’ve been collecting different equipment pieces to fill up my studio. A few months ago, I got a knit machine, one of the big ones. That’s what’s been keeping me up at night. I love where I work. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

CAL / inflated jackets

AJK: Where are the inflated jackets that I’ve seen you working on?

For those, the basic idea is about taking up space and being conscious about filling up a room. It’s the closest I take my practice into something performative. I’m particularly interested in how the engineering and the design develops as it morphs into shape.

It’s also very convenient to store as it can just be deflated: as I mentioned, I’m running out of space in my studio. The inflatable latex is a more recent development. There was something special about inflating the garment and then letting it vacuum. After this, I started with the puffers. When the latex is inflated it has very interesting qualities: it’s light and has bounce but it also has a strength and rigidity. It holds its structure a lot better than a traditional puffer and it opens a lot of possibilities with pattern cutting. It allows me to consider structure where someone might not expect it.

I use some 3d programs to simulate this, adjusting the quilting widths and angles to find the right form. It saves me a lot of time. When I started with the puffers I would have to take them out of trash bags and inflate it with a hair dryer to visualize that final form.

AJK: I’m interested then how you choose to make something yourself versus when to hand it off to another person?

CAL: I’m currently finding that limit. It’s been a topic in my head. Since I was young, I was always interested in learning things. It wasn’t just clothes. I was doing a lot of 3D design work, Photoshop, videos, editing, photography. I think when you grow up without many friends, you kind of have to do things a lot by yourself. Then it develops into this mentality where it’s just easier and quicker if I do it myself.

I shoot a lot of things on my body in my apartment. I edit the photos. I take on a lot of the processes. Really, as a designer, I value knowing how things are done. It’s really empowering to know what level you’re at and what’s possible, because it starts then influencing the actual design. Each thing that I pick up becomes a skill unlocked, and then now, I can proceed to the next level.

CAL (a.k.a. Straytukay)

CAL is a London-based fashion designer working hands-on in small-scale, experimental fashion, often incorporating unconventional materials like inflated latex and metal. Known for his work on the inflatable latex boots featured in Rick Owens’ Fall 2024 Men’s Porterville collection, his pieces have also been seen on FKA twigs, and other players in pop culture.

Annalise June Kamegawa