On Thursday I had the opportunity to attend the Fashion Icons Series held at 92Y on the Upper East Side… That night, the revolutionary designer John Varvatos sat down with Fern Mallis and talked about growing up in Detroit, working for leading American menswear designers Ralph Lauren and Calvin Klein and of course, the successfulness of his emblematic brand.
During the almost 90-minute talk we got immerse in the memories and creative mind of the designer… A sincere and inspiring chitchat that sparked the imagination of the crowd.
But we also learned one or two things about the rebel with a cause menswear designer.
Here are 11 things I bet you didn’t know about John Varvatos:
11. Being a Leo born on August 8th, he’s a natural “star”
10. When he was in seventh or eighth grade the girl he had a crush on gave him a compliment about the sweater he was wearing. From that moment on he really had to think about what he was going to wear. “It was all about impressing the girls, for sure”
09. During his teenage years, he used to go down to his basement, put on in his headphones and listen to rock and roll music.
08. He still wears the first motorcycle leather jacket he ever bought from Detroit-bred leather brand, Buco. “It was black, but now its kind of grey” he says.
07. He started off pre-med at Eastern Michigan University, but switched towards the end of his time at college and got a degree in Education.
06. The most important thing he learned from Ralph Lauren was: “The bar is never raised high enough.”
05. While working at Calvin Klein he cut off a pair of long johns into shorts and gave birth to the brand’s boxer briefs as we now them today. – You can thank John for the entire Marky Mark extravaganza!
04. Surprisingly, he had a really hard time naming his brand because he never thought about his own name…
03. He didn’t want anybody to know they were shooting the band KISS for the brand, so during the photoshoot of the campaign in Brooklyn, people were told it was an editorial for a Japanese magazine.
02. If he weren’t a fashion designer he would be a musician.
01.His key to success: dreaming.
Jorge Gallegos
Not just a pretty face
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