Anja Wakeham is a designer, tailor, and all around sewing machine. She is also my mother’s cousin. On a family trip to Germany in June, I saw (for the first time since I was 14) just how hard Anja works. Though she and her husband, Dave, took some time out of their busy work days to make us breakfast and show us around Hamburg, where they live, Anja was constantly working. From restaurant uniforms to wedding gowns to her own line of organic clothing, Anja sews it all. Luckily, I had time to hang out in Anja’s home studio and hear a little about what she does.

How did you dress as a teenager, and how has your style changed since then?

As a teenager I was a punk. When I was 15 I went to London to learn more English. When I came back after three weeks I wore my new black and white checked trousers that I bought on Carnaby Street and my hair was red. My mother’s first question was: “Does that wash out?” My style is still a bit rock ‘n’ roll, but more stylish. When I started to study fashion design, the biker style was very trendy and I made a lot of stuff out of black leather and studs for myself. That was in 1989.

How old were you when you first started sewing? Why did you start?

I was 18 when I first started sewing. I still went to school and I made trousers without a zipper, because I couldn’t do difficult things like that. I just sewed loops on them for a belt and the belt would hold them up. Some people even asked me where I got the trousers from. I always knew exacty what I wanted and so I thought it was better to be able to make it myself. It happens to me all the time with other things, like shoes, that I want something that I can’t find in a shop. Sometimes it’s in the shops a year later!

Did you study fashion in school?

I studied in two different private schools in Hamburg, Germany. The first one was a one year preparation where I learned sewing techniques and how to make patterns. Later I studied Fashion Design at the AMD Academy for Fashion Design where I learned design, drawing and textile technology. Other subjects where photography, Italian, and how to run a business.

What things in particular inspire your designs?

I get inspired by films, especially historic ones. An example is a parka I made where you can fold up the sides with a pushbutton which was inspired by a Prussian cavalry uniform. It’s a modern uniform for riding your bicycle in the city. I really loved the TV series The Tudors for the costumes and I will try to use details from that in the future. I certainly always look at trends, but these days there are so many different styles, that it’s more about the shape.

What do you hope to accomplish with your designs?

My intention with everything I design and make is very easy: I want people to look good and cool. That’s all I want and I believe that that’s what fashion should be. If you wear a good piece of clothing it makes you feel good. I also think of practical details.

Besides designing your own line of clothing, what else do you do?

I do a lot of different things. I design service uniforms for the gastronomy, as well as workwear (for dentists, for example). I make made-to-measure evening dresses and bridal wear, I work one day a week as a freelancer for a company that makes sportswear, and I sew curtains for customers. I even designed and made a cuddly toy for a friend who is a cartoon illustrator. The character was an elk named Roffe.

You often use organic and fair trade materials. Why do you think that’s important?

All fabrics I am using now for my Organic Fashion collection are fair trade and made of organic cotton. Some are even hand-loom or naturally dyed with herbal colours. When I studied we had a project with a school in Berlin called HDK Universitiy of Art. The students there were studying how to create a marketing concept and corporate identity for a product. We had to form groups, and our part was to design a collection with a certain concept and they had to create the marketing. That was 21 years ago, in 1990, and I had just read something about pesticides in cotton and how dangerous it can be. I suggested to design a collection made of organic cotton. Looking back now, I was far ahead of the times, because now many labels are doing this. In the past I worked with natural un-dyed linen, because it was not possible to get organic cotton fabrics. When I was able to make my own small collection in 2009 it was clear that I would only use organic cotton.

Do your clothing designs for customers reflect your own personal style?

My own collection reflects my own style, but I also make clothing for customers how they want them, which I would probably never wear myself. I only wear certain colours, like black, white, grey, and pink.

When you’re not wearing your own designs, what do you wear?

I buy clothes from H&M, and I bought the first organic cotton T-shirts they offered. I am not willing to pay a lot of money for expensive labels. I make most of my clothes myself and I got fleece jackets and a rain-proof jacket from Jack Wolfskin. They have a good design and the materials keep you warm in the winter.

Interview and photography by Stephanie Fereiro

[Editor's note: WARNING! The following blog post contains many a spoiler concerning the events in our favourite fictional Pacific Northwest town. SECOND WARNING! This post also contains some photos of Special Agent Dale Cooper looking rather dashing, and they may just make your heart melt. Read at your own risk. Carry on, Stephanie! - Anna]

There’s something magical about a man in a suit and tie. (Especially when that man is Kyle MacLachlan, Twin Peaks‘ Special Agent Dale Cooper.) Throughout the entire series, Cooper’s style adapts to his surroundings and to the personalities he wishes to convey. In the pilot episode, when we first meet Cooper, he’s wearing a perfectly pressed black suit and recording a message for his assistant, Diane. (Whether Diane really exists is unclear, but that’s a whole other can of dramatic, small-town worms.) The extent to which Cooper comes across as an arrogant “city slicker” in the show’s first few episodes — with the aide of his wardrobe — nearly makes him a caricature, as he utters things like “Look at that! Ducks. On a lake!”

Cooper quickly falls in love with Twin Peaks and decides he wants to settle there permanently. He feels Twin Peaks is the perfect place to hide from his past — until his past catches up with him in the form of Windom Earle, his former partner who brings terror to the already shaken town with a vengeful killing spree. When Cooper is suspended from the FBI after using “unorthodox” investigation methods in the Laura Palmer case, he abandons his suits and ties and adopts a more woodsy, “Twin Peaks” look, fitting of his intentions to stay: plaid flannel button-down shirts and puffy vests. Though his new wardrobe is more appropriate for the show’s setting than his black suits, his new style almost makes Cooper look like he’s dressing from someone else’s closet. The contrast between his well-groomed hair and clean-shaven face and his new forest-hued wardrobe is confusing, to say the least.

Thankfully, as the series comes to a close, Cooper starts wearing suits again. Then he goes crazy.

CITY SLICKER

“Harry, I’m going to let you in on a little secret. Every day, once a day, give yourself a present. Don’t plan it, don’t wait for it, just let it happen. Could be a new shirt at the men’s store, a catnap in your office chair, or two cups of good, hot, black coffee.” - Special Agent Dale Cooper

REAL TWIN PEAKS-ER

“Oh, Coop, about the uniform — replacing the quiet elegance of the dark suit and tie with the casual indifference of these muted earth tones is a form of fashion suicide, but — call me crazy — on you it works.” - FBI Agent Albert Rosenfield

Stay tuned for more on Twin Peaks style, coming soon to WORNJournal.com.

- Stephanie Fereiro

Arden Wray lives in Toronto and just graduated from the photography program at Concordia University in Montreal. She recently shot an editorial spread for issue 12 of WORN, and sometimes takes photos for our blog. Arden is (almost naturally) friends with Yuli Sato, another Montreal photographer and a recent WORN Crush. Arden talks to WORN about silly high school phases, Britney and Justin’s matching outfits at the American Music Awards, and the inspiration behind her shoot in issue 12.

What’s your favourite fashion publication, and why do you like it?
My favourite fashion magazine is Lula, hands down. I’m a total dork and hold onto all the issues, so I’ve got a big stack of them in my bedroom. I really appreciate how finely they’ve tuned their aesthetic. It’s really consistent in its palette and feel, so after a while it kind of seems like hanging out with an imaginary girlfriend flipping through it. They profile really interesting women and frame it all in such a sweet, earnest, conversational way. It just makes me feel really good to look through it, which is definitely not what I’d say about a lot of fashion magazines.

What did you dress like in high school? Has your style changed much since then?
I went through all sorts of silly phases. Nothing too extreme, just more awful in hindsight than anything. Picture evenly spaced blonde highlights, too much makeup, and platform flip-flops. I like to think it wasn’t all my fault. My friends and I joke about the period between 1999 and 2003 as being “The Void” — just a total style wasteland where pretty much nobody looked good. I would point here to Britney and Justin’s matching denim cowboy get-ups at the 2001 American Music Awards. An IMDB search of the 2001 Teen Choice Awards gallery is also pretty stellar entertainment. So, from there, my style has changed pretty hugely. I think it was in about ninth grade that I really discovered vintage and fell in love. Now, I love wearing classic pieces, natural materials like cotton and leather, and neutral colours. I’m hugely inspired by the look and feel of Chloe.

What’s your favourite photo or series you’ve ever taken?
I think the work I feel most connected to is the “Nesting” series I completed in 2010. I worked on it from this place of just being so completely at peace with where I was at in my life. I was in love and just kind of lazily happy, spending time with close friends and building a home for myself, and I wanted to create a document of that experience.

Have any fashion photographers in particular influenced your work?
I definitely love the aesthetic of Juergen Teller. I’m more influenced by fine art photographers, however, than fashion photographers generally. Stephen Shore and William Eggleston were some of the first artists who got me really excited about the potential of photography and inspired me to start shooting. In terms of people working right now, I’m a big fan of Alec Soth. All of them share a really raw, honest quality in their work which I hugely admire and respond to.

If you could take a photo of anyone, anywhere in the world, living or dead, who would it be and why?
I’d love to be able to photograph my mother’s mother, who died before I was born. Even though I never met her, my mom always tells me ways in which we’re similar and little stories about her. She designed fabulous hats for her living, had a huge personality, and just seems like somebody who would be so warm and delightful to be around. I’d love the experience of taking her portrait and getting to know her in the process.

Can you tell us about the photo shoot you did for issue 12 of WORN?
Setting out for the shoot, we were playing with this idea of two girls sort of camping out in a space but making it their own. We wanted a very luxurious, vintage vibe to the whole thing but to play with the feeling of something always being a little bit off as well — a sort of Margot Tenenbaum meets Dallas vibe. We ended up having the opportunity to shoot in a super ’90s condo in Montreal which belonged to the parents of the art director, Pascale. The space was hilarious — no right angles, mirrors everywhere, intense carpeting, and lots and lots of peachy-bandaid coloured paint. We had a super lovely team of ladies on set and our models were two of my babe friends, Ming and Sadaf, so the energy was high, even though it ended up being a long day, and we all had a good time. It was funny incorporating some of the silly props we did — chinese takeout (which we all happily munched on before using), a big palm tree (which Serah-Marie and Ted bravely lugged to the set), and sparklers in the elevator (which almost set off the fire alarm and called for evacuation of the whole complex). In between chatting about Jordan Catalano and Twin Peaks, ogling Natasha Thomas’s gorgeous designs, and grooving to silly music, we managed to get some really great shots! I love the spread and I hope the readers will too.

Interview by Stephanie Fereiro
Photos by Arden Wray

[Editor's note: WARNING! The following blog post contains many a spoiler concerning the events in our favourite fictional Pacific Northwest town. Read at your own risk. - Anna]

Laura Palmer’s plastic-wrapped body, discovered by an over-eager fisherman in the pilot episode of Twin Peaks, is the first sign that everything is about to break. Audrey Horne’s switch from saddle shoes to heels, moments later, is the first sign that nothing — as long as the show lasts — will ever be as it seems.

Throughout the two seasons of Twin Peaks, there are several incidents that reveal things to be different from what they seem — there are doppelgängers, dream worlds, and Killer BOB, who takes over the bodies of innocent men and uses them to rape and kill. [Editor's note: See?! Told you there were spoilers! Back to you, Stephanie. - Anna] There’s also the character of Laura: though we never meet her alive, she is portrayed in flashbacks and memories as the perfect teenage girl — well-liked and intelligent, beautiful, and every parent’s dream — but in reality, she was addicted to cocaine and was cheating on her long-term boyfriend with several men, including her employer, who is married with children. Finally, and most obviously, there is the town of Twin Peaks itself; it appears to be quaint and quiet, but has horrible things brewing under its surface, in its forests.

The characters in Twin Peaks are defined largely by their wardrobes, which reveal their true personalities, often by making such drastic attempts at concealing them.

AUDREY HORNE: A SEDUCTRESS IN SADDLE SHOES

“I’m insane? Well, I’m Audrey Horne and I get what I want.”

Audrey Horne, played by Sherilyn Fenn, is a high school student and the only daughter of Benjamin Horne, who owns the Great Northern Hotel, Horne’s department store, and — according to Sheriff Truman — half the town of Twin Peaks. In one of the first scenes in the pilot episode, Audrey changes from a pair of black and white saddle shoes to a pair of bright red heels. This moment represents Audrey’s always changing personality and her deceitful, manipulative ways. Audrey’s saddle shoes are the picture-perfect side of the quaint little town of Twin Peaks, and her red heels are the dirty side, the secret “something” that makes Twin Peaks different — and scary. At school, Audrey wears fitted sweaters and pencil skirts and smokes in the bathroom. At the Great Northern, she plays Daddy’s little girl, often dressed in saddle shoes and simple t-shirts, blazers, and matching skirts. Audrey makes it her mission to solve the mystery of Laura’s murder, not because she misses Laura, but because she desperately wants to sleep with Special Agent Dale Cooper. Then again, who doesn’t? Never mind.

JOSIE PACKARD: A WOLF IN WOMEN’S CLOTHING

“If anything unfortunate were to happen to me, it would lead authorities to a certain safety deposit box in a bank in another city, inside of which there is enough evidence to lock you away for three lifetimes.”

Josie Packard, played by Joan Chen, is the wife and heir to the (supposedly) “late” mill owner Andrew Packard. On more than one occasion, she mysteriously disappears to “go shopping in Washington” during an investigation in which she’s a suspect. Josie always looks over-dressed, or like she’s going somewhere important — when really, she stays cooped up in her log cabin, waiting for something to happen. Josie tries to appear fragile and feminine and like the “ideal” waif-like woman, and we’re supposed to recognize her as such. She’s beautiful and immaculately dressed. She’s soft-spoken and apologetic. She’s perfect. And then you realize that she isn’t — she killed her husband for his money and has a long life of crime trailing behind her. Josie is, as Dale Cooper puts it, “a hardened criminal,” and her clothing conceal more than her thin, delicate frame. Even at the end of her life, when she tries to shoot and kill Agent Cooper, she is wearing an ultra-feminine dress that looks almost childish — like something a debutante would wear to her coming out party.

Stay tuned for more on Twin Peaks style, coming soon to WORNJournal.com.

- Stephanie Fereiro