Leandra Medine, a.k.a. the Man Repeller, joined shoppers at Bloomingdales in Soho last night to celebrate her capsule collection with PJK. DJ Cheslea Leyland spun tunes while people enjoyed champagne and a candy bar stocked with Medine's personal picks of gummy bears, blue m&ms, and candy necklaces. The colorful arrangement complemented her vibrant designs: a mix of printed dresses, denim in all styles, and graphic tees all giving a nod to her cool, creative style. Medine has collaborated with other brands on just about everything from shoes, to jewelry, and even window displays, but this project is her first full clothing collection. The ever-busy fashion blogger took a minute with us to chat about her latest project.
ELLE: Congrats on your first collection! Tell us a bit about your design process.
Leandra Medine: I was just trying to design wearable clothes for my blog reader, [creating] the things that ubiquitously exist but don't actually exist. I was trying to think about what I would want to buy.
ELLE: Any favorite piece from the collection?
LM: The shirt I'm wearing actually! The denim shirtwith these ruffle sleeves.
ELLE: We love the unique prints in the collection - what's your favorite way to style prints?
ELLE: The tees are great, too - what makes a good graphic tee?
ELLE: Aside from humor, where else did you draw inspiration from?
LM: It wasn't so much about inspiration as seeing something I wanted to see come to fruition. I really like denim, so there's a lot of denim, there's a lot of brocade because brocade and denim are kind of a nice disconnect: [wearing] something fancy with something that's traditionally casual. I guess the inspiration was wearability. I wanted girls to find fun in high fashion at a lower price point.
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