One day, when I am 40, I might be like, we do not actually need this. We are all going to wear a single onesie that keeps your body temperature core the same
Maieutics – a philosophical method synonymous with Socrates, who liked to believe that every person had the answer inside them. This art of answering a question with another question also happens to be a favourite of Hillary Taymour’s. The founder and creative director of Collina Strada often says “Why not?” Unsurprisingly, this approach seeps into every aspect of her brand and its expression. Why not present a show on the grounds of a rooftop farm in Brooklyn? Why not transform models into animorphs via intricate VFX prosthetics? With a panache for avoiding the obvious next step, Taymour has been building on the definition of her brand for almost 15 years now – and she’s just hitting her stride.
With an evolving aesthetic that has a clear-cut, genuine flavour of the Noughties, Taymour’s fashion journey started in fact even earlier. “When I was five, six years old, I would only wear poufy dresses from Nordstrom. They’d always try to get me in my Gap jeans, and I would be like ‘Ew, never.’ So then one year I got this set of jeggings with faux embroidery and pearls on them. I remember thinking to myself: ‘These are decadent.’” This pre-adolescent love of exuberant clothes continued well into Taymour’s teenage years, when she discovered quintessential Noughties brands such as Frankie B, Miss Sixty and Kate Spade. “I had my pink tube top. I was living it. I loved Y2K fashion.” When talking about key moments in her life, Taymour always slips in a detailed chronicle of an outfit she wore at the time, showing how her love of fashion runs deeply and derives from a sense of playfulness; an uninhibited need to express herself through clothing.
It’s not surprising, then, that Collina Strada was born as an extension of her personal style, an evolution of a hobo bag she sewed for herself in her Los Angeles bedroom back in 2008. “It had a leather handle, a cute print that I went to Mood to buy, along with a magnet snap closure. I was like: ‘OMG, I’m so fancy, I can sew.’ And everyone asked me ‘What is this bag?’” Soon after, Taymour’s bag designs gained traction and she began selling Collina Strada globally – including in Target, as part of its collaboration with pioneering blog DailyCandy. But she always knew she wanted more – a need that awoke with an episode every fan of The Devil Wears Prada can relate to. “When I was 19, I snuck into a New York Fashion Week show wearing Marc Jacobs backwards heels. Then and there, I knew that’s what I wanted to do. And it felt like such a huge, impossible dream. I remember calling my mum and saying: ‘I want to do fashion shows, that’s my dream.’ And she was like: ‘What? Why? OK, Hillary.’”
By 2010, she had moved to New York and had refocused Collina Strada from an accessory brand into a ready-to-wear one, embarking on a journey of building the world of Collina Strada. While successful in crafting must-have products, like her diamanté-encrusted reusable water bottle, wide-leg cargo trousers or the microskirt-belt hybrid, it’s always been more than that. Today, Collina Strada is a true community of like-minded people, with Hilary Taymour as their oracle. “If you can really stand behind your clothes and be your biggest brand ambassador, people are going to wear it! Because people want to be like you. We’re all influencers, in a way,” she admits.
A major part of Taymour’s prophecy lies in a sustainable outlook on fashion – or whatever that word means in the moment. “The thing about sustainability – it’s always going to change. This process today will be completely different to my process tomorrow, and that’s what I think is really nice about it. Because it doesn’t put us in a box. And our product might change in the future, which is OK. One day, when I’m 40, I might be like, we actually don’t need this. We’re all just going to wear a single onesie that keeps your body temperature core the same. And that’s that. Here’s some removable patches to change it up. You never know.”
The brand’s past efforts on creating sustainably have varied considerably. From reusing T-shirts from landfills (s/s ’21) to creating awareness for organic city farms that play major roles in urban biodiversity (s/s ’23), Taymour has moulded the visual identity of Collina Strada in tandem with bigger conversations. The brand’s website clearly outlines some of its sustainability practices, including specific fabric choices and techniques, while Taymour notes that their current efforts are focused on localisation of production and figuring out how to ship less in the process. “We take bold moves and do bold things that not a lot of people can pull off. And I’m so happy to be in that space. Because fashion can be totally political and a little bit rude, and stuck up, in a way that doesn’t interest me. I just want to be the best version of myself, through clothes. If we’re going to play a capitalist game, we have to be the best version.”
While her objectives are serious, it’s evident that Taymour and her team don’t lack a sense of humour. Her longstanding collaboration with photographer and director Charlie Engman (they met on Craigslist in 2011 – “He’s like my brother,” says Taymour) has resulted in many a funny moment. Perhaps the pinnacle of fashion comedy was The Collinas, a 13-minute video spoof of Noughties TV series The Hills starring Tommy Dorfman as an aspiring, dim-witted fashion assistant trying to slay an internship at Collina Strada. “We were texting every housewife that’s ever existed, trying to get them there, asking everyone and their mum for a fucking favour,” Taymour says with utmost New York tenacity, noting just how much went into the two-day filming. The video came in place of the brand’s a/w ’22 presentation and made noise in a time that made it hard to stand out in the digital realm due to the pandemic. According to the designer, even Netflix got in touch after seeing the film, which was infused by inside jokes that add to the feeling of Collina Strada as a collective.
À la old-school fashion houses, Taymour’s goal has always been to create big shows that excite people, including herself – and this objective had its most realised chapter yet this past February. Bluntly titled Please Don’t Eat My Friends, the a/w ’23 collection evoked Taymour’s vegetarian lifestyle in fashion form. Though the biggest talking point were the Isamaya Ffrench-designed animorphic prosthetics worn by some of the models (had there been no financial and time limitations, Taymour admits she wanted all of the models wearing them), the collection showcased smart, vegan versions of traditional animal fibres. Numerous iterations of animal prints, including fur-printed denim and a T-shirt covered in a photo of Taymour’s dog Pow. The looks were slinkier, sexier than before; an ode to the wood nymph in all of us. “It was kind of a fuck you to all,” Taymour exclaims. “We had quite a lot of problems with the collection because it was so controversial – even had a few sponsors pull out… But I’m not going to change the name of the collection, because it’s fun.”
Collina Strada is a perfect reflection of the duality that lives in the brand’s founder. You’ve got Hilary Taymour’s undying love of fashion and what it used to be on one side, and her rebellious, mischievous and politically charged voice on the other. And somehow, those things collide in a way that responds to the tensions that are emerging in the brand’s environment. “I don’t want to be called anti-fashion, but I like to push the boundaries of what fashion could or should be in today’s society. And I love fashion, I love clothes – that’s the reason I’m doing this. If I didn’t love clothes, I’d go and be a performance artist.”
Model: Greta Alberta. Extra models: Fran, Chris and Alice Beasley, Rachel Share, Will Chalk, Mabel Waudby. Casting director: Emma Matell. Casting assistant: Oliwia Jancerowicz. Styling assistant: Brigitte Kovats