What are the biggest obstacles to scaling up a creative business?

Unequivocally I can say it’s personnel. At Common Good we don’t subscribe to the growth model of hiring just for the sake of scaling up. I’m not sure why, but I see a lot of creative enterprises hiring far too many roles at once because they think their business merit is based on head count. Six months later they’ve put themselves in financial jeopardy and they realize their flash hiring method only yielded mediocre creative output.

Instead, we scale up based on great talent, whether we’re looking for it or not. Sometimes we identify a skill set that will help increase our bandwidth, creative output, earning potential, etc and do a deep dive to find the right person. But a lot of the time we come across an individual who integrates perfectly with our ideology and overall goals so we just end up hiring them and creating a custom position. This hiring strategy has always worked out best. If you have confidence in their unique skill set and personality, it usually results in growth for the business.

What were some of your early film influences?

Oh man this could be a 10 page document unto itself. I’m just going to hit you with some random stuff that is in the forefront of my mind…

Pee Wee’s Playhouse (my absolute favourite as a kid), Streetwise (the doc that inspired KIDS), Persona, Gummo, My Own Private Idaho, Magnolia, Goodfellas, Paris Texas, Cleo de 5 á 7, Talk to Her (so many beautiful moments), Mauvais Sang, Beau Travaille…oh and definitely Mishima: A Life In Four Chapters.

What are your thoughts about doing work that doesn't hit the portfolio?

I want to be as clear and honest as possible about this because the majority of people only see the jobs with decent creative. The reality is that for 99.9% of companies, you absolutely have to do work that doesn’t hit the portfolio if you want to make proper money (obviously ‘proper money’ is highly subjective). There’s a relatively simple method we apply to prospective jobs which is widely used throughout creative industries.

It’s essentially a Venn diagram with three circles:

1 - Creative - does it fulfill you on an emotional, intellectual or visceral level?

2 - Relationship - does it help build new clients or maintain a pre-existing one?

Simply put, if there is overlap between two of three circles, we generally engage. If not, we decline. Of course there will always be extraneous circumstances and/or anomalies but this is a pretty good first step when you’re considering whether or not to take on work.

Jamie Webster is the creative director and co-founder of Common Good, a directing collective based in Toronto. His directorial work explores a wide variety of references ranging from film to television, digital media and experiential installations.

Do you have varying recipes for your cookies? Have you perfected the ultimate cookie recipe or does it keep evolving?

I always use the same sugar cookie and gingerbread recipes, they’re pretty simple but everyone loves them. The key is butter. I make other types of cookies that aren’t decorated - and I always play around with those recipes.. just depending on what I have on hand. I remember in grade 6 we had to make muffins and I put Rice Krispies in them and I failed the project because I didn’t follow the recipe properly lol

How do you describe what you do to others?

I own and operate a custom baking business.

Are there any long term or short term goals you're working towards?

My main goal and constant struggle is work/life balance. I really am always working - but I love my job and I’m so grateful for it, so I think it counts as leisure??

How do you consolidate the creative and business parts of your practice?

They overlap and intertwine. I try and invoice and return emails throughout the day. My dad is my accountant which is the best - cause I can get ahold of him anytime to go over business things and I can ask him stupid questions (repeatedly) without hesitation.

How did you transition from a side business to a "real" one?

I knew I had to make a certain amount of money to support myself.. I would never be able to sell a cookie for $100 no matter how nice and delicious it is, so I’d have to sell A LOT of cookies to make the business work. I started small and then bought things as I needed them when I had the budget, like mixers, ovens, my car etc. I never overextended myself. I grew up in Toronto so I had lots of friends in different industries that would use me for events, lots of friends getting married, so I’d do their cakes and desserts, I did Flea markets, I sold to stores and coffee shops. I even did a donut tv show once... I just said yes to everything and learned so much along the way and I guess I still do that.

What was it like when the business first started and how did you grow into the size it was today?

I think the answer is the same as above, I never marketed or advertised I just worked as much as possible and the word spread that I’d do a really good job with a quick turnover. The proof is in the pudding (or cookie)

Lindsey Gazel is a baker who operates an independent baking company called LINDSEY BAKES, based in Toronto. She specializes in making custom decorative cookies for a variety of occasions.

Photographer Maya Fuhr visits the hospital's implant ward. 

At what point did you decide to pursue photography as a career? What was your life like leading up to it?

I decided I wanted to pursue photography as a career in 2009 or so. I had really odd jobs living in Montreal - I worked @ Cinema L'Amour followed by a busy bar doing coatcheck. During both those jobs I was constantly working on my photography and making work * multitasking ;) * , but it wasn't until I moved to Toronto that I got paid for my work. I knew that I had to get out of Montreal to get paid because at the time there weren't fashion brands and outlets like there are now. VICE was my only outlet.

Do you have any advice for emerging photographers to find authentic and meaningful work?

Have coffee with anyone you're interested in collabing with and learn about them and their process.

How do you see your industry evolving into the future?

In the art and fashion industry, crews and teams and gallerists have been seemingly important. I'm finding now in this heavy iPhone era that artist, model, stylist, photographer, PR and even online gallery can be encompassing of one person.

What do you think is the biggest asset emerging photographers can be equipped with?

Maya Fuhr is a photographer and artist based in Toronto. Her work is often nostalgic, capturing candid and colourful subject matter on film.

You've had a less conventional route than most graphic designers. Can you speak about your journey and how it's led to where you are today?

In retrospect, I think I’ve intentionally decided on a less conventional routes early in my practice out of being disinterested in operating exclusively as a graphic designer. Before art school, I’d spent a lot of my time thinking about relatively esoteric subject matter in a part of southern Ontario that is not the Greater Toronto Area. This sets the tone for wherever I’ve been and where I’m at with my practice—operating in the overlaps and non-definable spaces. I’ve had the opportunity to work with many people and organizations that have this perspective and the sum of all of those interactions have made my journey worthwhile.When I started out spent a lot of time thinking about graphic design through as many lenses as possible. At first, I believed that being a graphic designer meant a discrete set of tasks, tools, processes, and cultural references. The more time I spent on it, the more I felt its boundaries. This will become a regular pattern—knowing where things simply stop and finding a different vector of practice. I felt this way about graphic design as an industry early on and decided to avoid particular kinds of work and focus on research, methodologies, technology, and defining a novel design practice that is critical and adjacent to present. The practice I wanted, maybe naively, would exist outside of commercial work and reflect on alternative definitions of design. I stuck with academia for an extended time early in my career and had much luck in finding practices that I felt compelled in pursuing. The moment I’m current in feels distinct and, while reflecting with a friend, feels stumbled into. Design pedagogy, software, methods, decentralization, and infrastructure (in the broadest sense) are words that I’ve been thinking of most often lately. I stumbled away from graphic design and into something else and that feels intentional.

What do you think about the Toronto design community? Where do you see it going in the future?

I’ve always had one foot out the door with the Toronto community and can’t speak much to its current state without reflecting on the flatness of design discourse in Canada and recurring temperament for designers in Toronto trying to find, or establish, a community. I believe there is a community to be had in Toronto, but it’s really difficult to find a place in it when your practice is deliberately in operating beyond a set definition and in the weird spaces between disciplines. In the future, I hope there will be room for other practices and ways of defining community that is less specific to allow those who are neither designers, artists, technologists, organizers, researchers—finding connections and building alternative spaces that are pluralistic.

What does your ideal version of the internet look like?

I’ve been thinking about an ideal version of the internet through a bunch of different perspectives and each feels short of fully developing a coherent version and that seems okay. There are a few thoughts, and questions, that I really want to point to that feels related: How do we meaningfully talk about, and reference, the aesthetics of the early web but avoid applying it as a shorthand for nostalgia? How do we create alternative aesthetics that are of the networks? (referencing Hito Steyerl—swarm circulation, digital dispersion, fractured and flexible temporalities), and how could peers gather together more beautifully. Intertwingularity is a word that Ted Nelson uses in Computer Lib/Dream Machines and it feels in keeping to these ideas, or at least some parts of it: “In an important sense there are no "subjects" at all; there is only all knowledge, since the cross-connections among the myriad topics of this world simply cannot be divided up neatly.”

Moving away from conventional graphic design career paths, how do you see your practice evolving in the future? What are some major targets?

I see it moving towards more peripheral practices, which feels in keeping to my theme of working around edges and seams. What these practices look like is an unknown to me right now, but I can imagine them being grounded, thematically, around co-creation, workshops, thinking-while-making, and teaching. Reflecting on the past couple of years for me, it all feels related to finding those themes and getting more acquainted with practices that I feel has been just outside my understanding. I’ve also been thinking about writing as a mode of practice—taking a lot of learnings from others who have committed to writing newsletters at a regular cadence for the sake of articulating ideas both fully formed and half-thought. I believe I’m still far out from that kind of practice.

What advice or insights would you share for those interested in community-building?

It takes time to find the right ways, and language, to communicate intent, especially when you’re trying to do something that is cross-disciplinary. It’s tempting to build through the lense of another community that one admires, but I’ll advocate to being responsive to what is most immediate. One of the things that I’d also think about is the importance of space, both digitally and offline. There's value in developing both, but each have different qualities and simply mimicking one into another hasn’t been an ideal practice yet. That said, I think there one should experiment in different ways of building communities. It feels like there are methods and scenarios that have yet to be realized and I wish designers, artists, and adjacent practitioners, are able to realize those scenarios, and methods, as part of their practice. It sometimes feels like it takes one moment, space, and prompt to build something that resembles community.

Garry Ing is a designer based in Toronto. With a background in graphic design, Garry's practice exists within commercial, academic and speculative spaces.

How did Kira start and how do you see it evolving in the future?

KIRA started as an idea that turned into a dream and manifested into its physical equivalent. I see KIRA evolving to more than just clothing. The garments serve as a vessel for the narrative.

What are the biggest challenges to setting up a clothing brand?

Setting up a structure. Especially being based in Canada where resources are scarce, you really have to play your cards right to make it work.

To give you an example, there's really only one dye house in all of Canada, so in order to create what you truly desire - it becomes a daunting task. Sure, one can outsource to places like Los Angeles or New York, where places like dye houses are in abundance, but that cuts into lead time for development and production.

Do you have any advice for emerging brands or designers to reconcile this?

One way is to definitely outsource and be very organized with your development and production. What I did was research and learn things myself, for example the various methods of dyeing fabric and treating it with chemicals, investing in the right machines and products to conduct my own experiments.

What role does biomimicry have within your practice?

Nature is the master creator, it serves as the very infrastructure for design - from the golden ratio to how colours pair together within this realm.

What influence does that have on your work?

One example of how I applied the golden ratio (fibonacci sequence) to my designs is the back shoulder vents featured in the jacket. When drafting the pattern, the curvature was divided into sacred numbers; 3,6,12. I applied this because the golden ratio is what our brain recognizes as 'perfection' or true beauty. Please see the second set of attachments. Another example of how I use nature as a reference is presented with our Lavender River silk button up. The colours were inspired by the sun setting over cascading mountains, I wanted to capture that moment in time and translate it into a garment. We actually had an artist paint the scenery and we produced the silk based on the artwork.

Lavender River silk button up reference painting

I'm an introvert. So when I isolate myself, I'm able to recharge, I can stand back and evaluate, to think clearly and I think from this, my greatest ideas come to life. The extent of my isolation is no distractions, sometimes no communication from friends and family. I isolate myself for days or even weeks, to just be.

Why does each KIRA piece follow a concept or ethos? Are there recurring themes or do you try to explore completely new spaces with each collection?

I definitely enjoy seeing ideas grow, so with each collection, there's a new narrative. But the core of every collection circles back to the theme of dualities and how this silent contrast defines the very essence of the universe: in everything we recognise two principles that determine the events; light and darkness, good and evil, creation and destruction - as in electricity we know it as plus and minus. It's always: either or...

Michael Ji is a fashion designer based in Toronto. He is the owner of Kira, a luxury menswear line with a focus on concept-based couture. Through the lens of apparel, Michael explores themes of nature, decay, posthumanism and esoterism.

What is Street Feet and how did that influence your work up to today?

Street Feet is Toronto-based collective that has been making skateboard videos since 2006 or something. It started with me and a few of my friends buying a Sony tape camera and a fisheye to film skateboarding behind the Payless shoe store in Scarborough. We started doing trips to Europe, India, Myanmar, China and other places, just looking for gritty skate spots with a strong visual aesthetic to shoot it. It was a really good training ground for both the technical side of cameras, as well as learning how to use natural light and to frame with what you have. I’m a big supporter of adding to the existing space and paying respect to it as opposed to created something from scratch. Augmentation over recreation. I think skateboarding gave me that quality. I was able to try all these other mediums, and explore different aesthetics, and there was always subjects around to film and practise with. It was an incredible space to work within.

Skateboarding has influenced my entire approach. I learned really early on that filmmaking is all I’m here to do, that’s all I have to give. It’s a lifelong process that will never end. In terms of influence, I think it’s lead me to the ability to adapt to situations quickly as well as developed an interest in the types of narratives I’m drawn to making. You have to adapt to any situation in filmmaking, things go wrong all the time. And filming skateboarding has taught me to do more with less, to work with the tools you have to make the best thing you can. Pushing down the busy street with a camera in your hand during rush hour you have to improvise. Each take is a different set of circumstances, and you adapt to those circumstances. It’s given me a freedom in improvisation and just letting things go. It doesn’t have to be perfect, sometimes the mistakes are better than what you intended. As a documentary filmmaker, it’s sort of my job to spend my time looking at the world. Skateboarding enabled that. We’re out in the street, filming, sitting on curbs waiting for a trick to happen, people come by and chat with us. It feels like you're part of the moving city. I’ve developed a heightened interest in social realism, and street culture in general. Going to work, people just put their headphones in and go into their bubble. Being out there exposes you to another side of things I suppose.

Are there any notable references in the space of social realism?

Whenever I visit new places, I’m always drawn to the same things. Barber shops, tea stalls, bus terminals, bars. I don’t know why but there’s something incredibly interesting to me about working class people in these spaces. Exploring the hardships of daily life and finding beauty in the people in a dignifying way. Tarkovski said that art exists because the world is imperfect, and if there was perfect harmony there would be no place for artistic expression. So in a way, it’s an exploration into humanity for me. I think Werner Herzog does this well. He makes a hero out of seemingly everyday flawed people. I've always loved his search for cinematic truth through genres. I’ve been wrestling with this idea of truth in cinema both in the documentary and fictional space. I heard a story about these female boxers in one of the largest slums in Kampala (Uganda). Hellen, the main women was assaulted and almost rapped near her home. From there she decided to train at the local boxing gym to defend herself, a taboo for women. She eventually went on to fighting competitively world wide and now her and her friends acts as vigilantes in the slum. They beat up guys who abuse women, their wives, etc. I thought this story was so compelling and morally grey. So a few of us went to East Africa to find Hellen. We ended up writing a film with female fighters and having re-enactments of flashbacks in her past to communicate what it felt like for her at the time. We also matched this up with real boxing matches and training sessions. So was this a documentary with re-enactments or a fiction with real people playing themselves? I think despite the fact that these are re-enactments, they still have a certain truth or validity in the emotion that they're trying to recreate. The journal from this project can be seen here: http://www.robertmentov.com/journal

I sort of fell into filmmaking. I bought my first tape camcorder to film my friends skateboarding. I’ve always loved cinema. At some point everything came together. I didn’t really know that you could make a living through film unless you were working on a big movie set, so I went on to study accounting for 4 years while shooting films with my friends. By then, I built up a small portfolio and after finishing school, a company I was interning for somehow saw my footage and thought it was interesting. They sent me across India and Nepal to make films for them. I told myself that I would try to freelance for a year, and if I failed at making it sustainable, I’d pursue accounting. That was around 2013 and I haven’t thought about going back since.

How did you define failure or success in this case?

At first it seemed simple. Make films and earn an income. The challenge is that when you start out the work is very broad, and you take any form of film and photography jobs that you can find. But as you start to grow in your craft, you realize where your sensibilities lay. You realize the type of film works that match your innate sense of whatever it is you’re trying to say. And so I believe to be an effective creative, you need to be specific, and you need to niche within your craft. You can’t necessarily take every job that comes along. Although it’s naive to think we’re just artists working on our craft, it’s a balance and we need to eat. And so, initially I defined success on a purely financial metric. If I can pay rent and put food on the table, that’s success. But now, it feels deeper and more complex. Collaborating with the right people and selecting the projects that you identify with while at the same time being able to support yourself financially. It’s really tough balancing these two things. At the end of the day though, I’m lucky enough to be working in film. Film and imagery is all I have to contribute.

What are your short term and long term goals for your practice?

With goal setting, I try to focus on the output itself and why I want achieve it as opposed to working toward a specific result from that output. For instance, if your goal is to get into a big festival or become a big time director, the work you create will be done to serve that result rather than focusing on the film itself. It's easy to get caught up in film stocks, expensive lenses and current lighting styles but it's more important to focus on the core of why you work on your craft to begin with.

My short term goals are to find more collaborators and to work on meaningful projects. I want to continue to make films with my friends, and to do it sustainably. I want to get to a point where we can always fund our passion projects.

I want to get better. I want to become a better filmmaker and to contribute to meaningful cinema. To create something that will make someone stop and think about their own life or about the world itself. I believe cinema is the most immersive medium and has this ability to pull people away from their everyday cycle of life and question more. Cinema and art pose questions, they are not designed to provide answers.

Are there any recurring questions that are raised throughout your practice?

I think the challenge and joy in the projects I take on, is finding universal themes that could translate to both western audiences as well as a foreign ones. What do I have in common with a female boxer in the slums of Kampala? Or with a boy living in a voodoo village in West Africa? A mother in Uganda will want the best for her children, the same as our parents made sacrifices to give us the best possible lives. I think the questions are the universal questions that humans have wrestled with for centuries. Why are we here, what is our purpose. I think film helps me explore these things. It gives you a precedent to ask questions to subjects that you normally couldn’t ask as easily. Our universal struggles that we all deal with are the same no matter where we’re from. The more places I visit, the more I see similarities in humanity. This transcends religion, class, financial situation, gender. We all have the same sense of humanity at our core and so I think it’s important to ask questions that allow us to re-examine ourselves, and our lives.

Robert Mentov is a Russian-Canadian Cinematographer currently based in Toronto. He has a focus on social realism and human issue stories in documentary and fiction.

What does it mean to make work for yourself first?

I make work I would personally want to see in the world, or items I would want to wear myself. This question can tie in with my last response. Things will always be trendy or cool, and it's easy to pick up on that and make work that follows those guidelines, but to me it is boring. I like to see peoples unique take on art and reflect their individuality. Artists have the freedom to create something that has never existed, so why take the easy road.

What do you think the trend in recent fashion-house rebrands say about the current state of cultural production?

This is interesting to see. All capital letters, it appears these designer labels have lost their uniqueness and flair. They see where the money and trends are and they’re targeting that audience.

What's the relationship between your work and your identity?

They are connected if intentional or not. That is why I value new experiences whether they are good or bad. It all adds to the subconscious mind which influences the things I choose to create.

Shana Sadeghi-Ray is a multimedia artist based in Brooklyn. Her work spans across various mediums from graphics to physical installations and exists within both commercial and personal contexts.

https://www.instagram.com/scorpioincharge/

How did East Room start? What was it like in the beginning?

East Room took root from my love and interest in Hotels, Restaurants etc. and lacking the economic necessities / knowhow to build one. The idea of coworking was beginning to take steam at the time and I believed that it would be a good way of hacking the hotel / restaurant vibe. A business that would require less upfront cost, less employee support, but be able to deliver big on the design just like some of my favourite boutique hotels and restaurants around the world. Sounded like a good prospect at the time, but the day my brother and I opened the space it was a spectacular failure. Few people understood what we were trying to do, let alone wanted to set up office in some weird warehouse on the east of the city. Over time, I think, as the city began to expand and we began to see more density, people’s perspective of the area changed and it began to be seen as an extension of the downtown vs. no man’s land. We also began to understand what the customers were looking for and adapted and luckily grew the business.

How has your taste in furniture and interiors evolved over the years?

I’ve been surrounded by furniture my whole life. My father was in the antique business, buying and selling furniture, art and collectibles. He was always bringing something home, explaining their reason for being, the purchase history etc. so I built up an interest and affinity over time almost by osmosis. He was primarily focused on the 17th - 19th century. I learned a lot about construction, wood-types, socio-political expression in various style periods. A lot of this was was a good primer. I always appreciated good construction, materiality etc. So as my tastes changed, I really fell into French and Italian mid century design. They just do it better. You see a lot of this influence in East Room. A couple years ago I also met Colen Colthurst from Porch Modern - now a partner of mine in New Auction - who has one of the best mid century modern collections in the country. Ive spent a lot of hours in his shop and still do, talking and learning about art & design. So my taste is always evolving, filtered through deeper understanding and appreciation.

What do you see in the near and long term future for East Room?

We are working on a restaurant (Don’s Restaurant & Vino) operated by my good friend Michael Mercanti that will be opening spring / summer 2020. We’re building in the old warehouse's boiler room and have attached a beautiful steel & glass solarium to increase dining space. Our hope is for it to become a special place to dine and hang out; grab a bite, a glass of wine and meet new people.

Secondly, the crown jewel of Carroll St - a 10,000 sq foot raw warehouse space with 19 foot ceilings - will be going through a significant facelift over the course of the year. This will be the primary venue space for our cultural programming including talks, music, film screenings, radio, retail etc. I’m very excited about this area.

Thirdly, we have acquired a second property (507 King st East) that is currently under construction and slated to open in Feb / March 2021. This project is unique in the sense that we have the opportunity, thanks to our incredible partners at Hullmark Developments, to build the entirety of the building in one shot vs the staggered space by space build at our previous property. I think it will lend to a much tighter, polished overall development.

All three of these projects are more than enough work to keep us going to the next couple of years. We are very geared towards ensuring an excellent product and experience for all our East Room members, extended community and any general public that happen to walk through our doors.

How do you talk about your own practice? Is it easy to describe what you do?

Co-working has gone through a massive evolution over the past 5-10 years. So yes, initially most people were unaware of what we were. But as an awareness has grown around the idea of coworking, it has become easier to describe our business to others and define what makes us stand out amidst a flurry of other spaces.

Can you speak a bit about New Auction, how it started, and what it's objectives are?

New Auction is a business that Colen Colthurst and I started about a year ago. We created it with the intention to grow awareness of Art & Design in the city through events and actual auctions. We have hosted a couple events so far with Castor Design and the artist Geoff McFetridge, which were both great. We are gearing up for another in January for Design Week with Thrush Holmes. As we get closer to completing the East Room venue space at Carroll, these events and auctions will become more frequent as we work to expose more accomplished and emerging artists & designers to the Toronto public.

Derreck Martin is the president and co-founder of East Room, a communal workspace based in Toronto's east end. He is also a founding partner at New Auction, an auctioning and exhibition platform.

I spiral sometimes but I still leave my house. Sometimes I’m spiralling when I leave my house but maybe that’s not important.

Can you explain the concept of design being more than a commodity?

Many of us grew up under the understanding that to make it into a creative field we would have to enslave ourselves to instant ramen dinners and a perpetual worry about being unable to make rent. As a result of this, it's often easy to cheapen or commodify our work: finding ways to diminish its value for fear of competing with "market prices". Design is everywhere we look: the coffee mug on our desk, or our favourite e-commerce websites' brand identity. But not everyone can do it, and not everyone should do it.

How does the democratization of design tools affect this dynamic?

We need to be more critical of the work we put out there and be honest about where our ideas and inspiration come from. This calls to attention a needed conversation about originality as well as integrity. We can be inventors, but the fact is, we exist in a space where we are inevitably followers at the same time we are innovators

Dani Roche is a creative director, digital marketing strategist, and entrepreneur based in Toronto. She is the founder and owner of Kastor and Pollux, a multi-disciplinary agency with a focus on digital and experiential work.

What is it like operating a creative business in LA vs Toronto?

When I was living full-time in Toronto I was operating and working out of DNS (Day Night Studio), which was my hair salon and creative space. Having a business really allowed for me to find my voice as a stylist. I was dedicated to salon life at that time and working with my staff and clientele in the salon everyday. Eventually I started doing hair more on set and started traveling and working in LA. It’s important for me to keep growing and changing in my work. Being able to work in both cities offers me different opportunities and brings a fresh perspective.

Do you have any advice for emerging artists to uphold this idea?

Make work that you enjoy and people that are attracted to what you’re doing will approach you. You have to make it for yourself first, otherwise you will always be trying to fit into someone else’s expectations.

There are so many ways that I see my industry evolving. Some of the most important growth has been about redefining beauty. There are less boundaries regarding what is considered beautiful and the definition is changing all the time. There’s also a growing movement towards chemical free products, or clean beauty. People are tired of using chemical laden products everyday as a part of their beauty ritual. More brands are beginning to develop products that fit this growing need.

What I mean by “speaks the same language” is someone that has the same references and points of interest or inspiration. When you share these things with someone it is so fluid working together because you don’t have to constantly explain where it is that you are coming from. It’s almost as if you can just read each other’s thoughts! I recently did the hair for a presentation with a clothing brand called Poche. I loved working with Gabby and Jiro, they are so talented and collaborative.

Models: @wratcella @baby___bing @synmiarosine @nathanielsantos

Chanel Croker is a hairstylist based in LA. Before moving to Los Angeles, she ran DNS, her own salon in Toronto. Chanel pulls from a range of influences to create distinct looks. 

Information

Jamie Webster

Creative Director

Dani Roche

Creative Director

Michael Ji

Designer

Lindsey Gazel

Baker

Robert Mentov

Film Maker

Shana Sadeghi-Ray

Visual Artist

Maya Fuhr

Photographer

Garry Ing

Designer

Chanel Croker

Hair Stylist

Derreck Martin

Co-Founder, President