Office Hours at the K.NGSLEY School for Girls
The week after his show, I paid Kingsley Gbadegesin a visit at his office in DUMBO to talk about the Kingsley School for Girls and the evolution of his brand.
Congratulations on the show! How are you feeling now?
I feel cute! I feel cute. Three days before, there was just a sense of calm. I’m someone who always knows what they want, especially when I see it. I'm so happy that I work with a group of people who have the right synergy — I really feel like first and foremost there is an energy that we create, so I'm happy that all of us came together. The last days before the show, it just made sense. I felt really confident. I mean, life was happening but like, she's always gonna happen. But when I just saw [the collection] I was just like, “CORRECT!” You know, so that's how I feel. [laughs]
Can you tell me a little bit about how the idea for this collection came about?
The idea of the collection came from a kiki from our first show. At the end, everyone was just really happy that the show was over. I remember we had our model board still up, and Noah, who works with us, is like, “the Kingsley School for Girls!” or something like that.
We were like, yes, Kingsley School for Girls, like this was the first class! You know, I didn't think much of it at that time. Last June was the first time that concept came back into my head. And as we just kept on building out this collection, it just reverted back to that energy because we work with a school of people. There's a school of girls that make all of this happen.
The first thing that we did that brought the whole collegiate energy in was when we made our Bushwick graphic. I love it. I mean, look at this. The University of Bushwick!
I’m not lying, I need one of those. When I lived there, my best friend and I used to always joke that Bushwick was my college.
I lived in Bushwick for like six years, and I'm 30 now. It really molded me — as a creative, as a person, you know, like everybody and their mother lived in Bushwick. I just recently moved to BedStuy about a year ago, but I'm super thankful for Bushwick and I wanted to pay tribute to it because there is an exuberant amount of talent in Bushwick. The people that gave me the audacity to be me, are people I know from Bushwick. So that was one of the first things, before we even came to “school for girls,” it was, “how do we honor Bushwick?”
This piece we did in November of last year actually. It became this world that something can be true and false at the same time. Bushwick can be very grunge, very lo-fi, it can be chaotic, but there's also beauty in that, there’s resilience in that, there’s a sharpness that comes with that. And there's no shame. I mean, you graduate! You go through Bushwick, it puts you through a school of its own, and you graduate and you take all of that with you.
Some of my dear friends who also have businesses like Syro and LEAK come out of Bushwick. So I was just really really happy to have a true ode to it.
Is there a piece or element of this collection that you would say you're the most excited about?
In the design meeting, we were like, what is the “live, laugh, love,” of Bushwick? First we did the insignia, the crest with the poppers. While we were joking, I said “Mind, Body, Hole,” and everybody was just like, “Yes, pin it to the board! We're doing it!” And then we did it, and I'm so happy that everyone has just been… getting it! And we also dressed it up, with this very schoolboy energy.
Something else that I'm also really excited about is the reinvention of the polo, which does really, really well for us. I wanted to take something that we've done before and bring it into this new era of the collection. We actually designed this just a month ago. You can see the raw edges, and one thing that I really love about it is that it's a French terry.
The whole purpose of my brand is that it’s every-day, you know, but there's a refined, contemporary tailoring to it. I say this all the time, your clothes have to be able to do more for you. This is something that you can dress up, and you can dress down. You could have dinner with your parents and then you can also be with your girls right after and that vibe would still carry.
I love it. Can you tell me more about the denim pieces?
Denim has been a new pillar for us, which I'm really excited about. Last season we did the Raver Denim, which took off to a lot of success, the denim that we had with the little gap — we said “pubes are in!” [laughs] So, these are basically the same style that the girls love, we just covered it up this season in the front for the “modest” girls.
And this season we made this denim corset. This collection is light on tanks, and we kind of did that on purpose. We really wanted to show that while we may always continue to give you a version of a tank — it's our core and we are the house that was built on tanks, and we're super thankful for it —- but with this elevation, we wanted to expand it a little bit. So this is like our original two-way tank made into ready-to-wear, but we gave you girls construction, we gave you boning, we gave you girls serious tailoring, but also hoe, serious hoe — she owns 51% of this company and you better know it!
That’s the energy that I was really excited to play with this scene and this show.
Wow, yeah. I love that. Even since the original tank, what I’ve always loved about K.NGSLEY was how you design for Black queer people in ways that allow us to be feminine, but serious. Because so often if we are represented by the mainstream, either we’re masc, or we’re fem but it’s as comedic relief.
Honestly, it’s a love letter to me, to myself and my people - to be able to embody both. It's very me, I'm this person. In the beginning of the brand, I had a hard time finding acceptance, but at the end of the day, it's what makes me, me. I'm soft and I can be strong at the same time.
I’m really happy with how I’ve been able to manifest this season — it’s strong, it’s serious, there’s serious craft that went into it. It’s just made really well. One textile I was really excited about was from a mill in Paris that does most of Chanel’s tweed. I love how used the same textiles in the same playing field as Chanel, but brought the K.NGSLEY energy to it. With the help of my amazing design team, we’ve been able to work with some of the best factories in the world and can’t wait for you all to see what’s to come.
