IN CONVERSATION WITH YOUNG WARHOL: DRINK.MORE.WATER.

Founded in 2018 by the creative mind Young Warhol, Drink.More.Water stands as a multifaceted and inclusive urban art platform, fashion label, event production company, and publisher with its roots firmly planted in the vibrant landscape of New York City. With a dedication to artistic expression and innovation, this brand has made a significant impact within the fashion industry.

Photography by Samantha Sutcliffe

Having established a strong presence in both the NYC and London fashion scenes, Drink.More.Water can be found among the carefully curated selections at avant-garde boutiques like Retail Pharmacy, bleaq, Wolf & Badger, Bowery Showroom and recently in a few European fashion stores like Moodart Gallery inside COIN Excelsior, Verona, Italy . Since its inception, the brand has consistently unveiled five distinctive annual collections, each reflecting a blend of urban culture and contemporary design.

In addition to its striking fashion offerings, Drink.More.Water has taken the initiative to bring together art and music through various engaging events. With a portfolio that includes four captivating runway shows and a series of music events, such as a specially curated festival during Rockaway Art Week, the brand has showcased its commitment to fostering artistic collaborations and community engagement.

Recognized as a defining force within the independent art and fashion scene of NYC, Drink.More.Water has earned acclaim for its unique approach to styling and collaboration with a diverse array of talented artists, including popular names like Uffie, Model/Actriz, Harmony Tividad, Sid Simons, Blaketheman1000, Izzy Spears, Alice Longyu Gao, and Club Eat. Embracing a spirit of inclusivity and creativity, the brand regularly presents a thoughtfully curated monthly concert and interview series known as “The Artist Series,” which highlights the talents of local musicians and creatives. Furthermore, its frequent live music showcases and DJ parties have further solidified Drink.More.Water‘s role as a dynamic cultural hub and a driving force behind the artistic community it serves.

Photography by Caroline Safran + The Cobra Snake

In conversation with Young Warhol, founder of Drink.More.Water:

Can you shed light on the process behind the curation of Drink.More.Water’s five annual collections and how each collection reflects the brand’s ethos as a high-street art platform and clothing brand based in New York City?

I wanted to do no more than one annual collection for a variety of reasons. First of all, it’s just a lot of ‘fucking’ work to pull this off myself. I work with people for events but for the most part I’m still doing pretty much everything in the day to day work of the brand myself, and that includes all the design, all the sample manufacturing, all the production and creative direction for the shoots and shows. So just logistically it would be pretty hard to work any faster than I currently do and not completely lose my mind. But secondly, I don’t think the world needs more than one collection a year. There’s this push amongst both creatives and really anyone online to just constantly be putting out content which I really dislike. It’s a breakneck pace that incentivizes putting out forgettable slope which is not what I wanted to do with this. I put a ton of time and effort into every season so I want it to last; I want people to be able to sit and linger with each collection for a full calendar year. Lastly, I just like the structure of new year, new season, new energy. We do the runway show in the summer, release to our stockists in the fall/winter, and come the new year we can start anticipating the next collection, it’s a routine I’ve gotten comfortable with.

In terms of what goes into each collection, I describe the brand as being “top-down” because basically every season stems from an idea, a narrative of sorts, and builds out from there. So every season is contained within its own narrative arc, whether that’s last season which was the story of a fallen angel and all the Catholic religious imagery or the romance and emotion of Szn 4’s love story. I like to think of the clothing as costumes in the overarching story and the designs, prints, and patterns as worldbuilding. Because I call Drink.More.Water more of an art platform than a clothing brand, it frees me to do whatever I want with the project. Obviously clothing is the anchor but the project extends into live events, written/visual art, and really whatever we want it to be, all under the umbrella of the current season’s story.

How has Drink.More.Water successfully established itself in the fashion industry by being stocked at renowned boutiques worldwide and how has this contributed to the brand’s visibility and reach?

Every contact we got came from just pounding the pavement and hitting people up until they couldn’t ignore us anymore. I’ve talked about this before but there was a time several years ago when I started the brand when independent retail, certainly in NYC but really everywhere, seemed to be on its way out. Any store that supported smaller, up-and-coming brands either was closing or transitioning away from the wholesale model. And now I’m really blessed to be right in the middle of a mini retail renaissance here in NYC, I think undeniably kicked off by our good friend Sophia at Retail Pharmacy. She’s someone who really sees the beauty in independent art and has made it her mission to support and promote smaller designers and I can’t thank her enough for everything she’s done for our brand. Obviously just in pure business terms, selling through these channels helps us make money but it’s so much more than that. I love brick and mortar retail, there’s something really special about being able to physically see and interact with the clothes, so just by being on the racks of these boutiques it helps our profile. Maybe a customer doesn’t buy a dress from us immediately but now they’ve seen it irl and have it in their mind and maybe down the line if they see it again they’ll pull the trigger. I think that experience goes way further than seeing a picture of ours in the middle of an endless social media scroll. I’ve also just found that for whatever our pieces sell much better than online. As Drink.More.Water expands, working with independent retailers is definitely going to continue to be at the core of our project.

In what ways do the four runway shows organized by Drink.More.Water showcase the brand’s creativity and artistic direction, and how do these events reinforce its position as a multifaceted creative platform in New York City?

The runway shows are the hallmark of the brand and frankly I think they’re something we do better than any other brand of this size and even brands significantly bigger than us. Every summer we take over a Brooklyn warehouse that’s sort of become our HQ, it’s really special because it’s a totally unique venue (it’s usually a metalworks facility) that no one else really does events at so it feels very much ours. Also we do it in July, completely disconnected from the regular fashion calendar. As someone who goes to fashion week every season I see firsthand how insignificant and repetitive everyone’s events are and by the end of the week everything has blurred together and no one can even remember what they’ve seen and what shows they went to. Whereas with us, nothing else is going on at the time, you’re gonna remember going to a runway show in the middle of July.

Photography by Caroline Safran

”I think the shows are the best way to bring our community together and to have everyone who makes it possible to do what we do present while we show off our new stuff. Also I mean, we know how to throw a ‘fucking’ party :))) ”

DRINK.MORE.WATER.

Photography by Caroline Safran

Could you elaborate on the impact of producing music events, including a curated festival for Rockaway Art Week, on Drink.More.Water’s brand identity and how these initiatives connect the brand with a diverse creative community?

The music connection has been in our brand’s DNA since day 1 and it’s only gotten stronger as the years have gone by. Working with artists is probably my favorite part of this whole project; I’m not a musician myself but I’m a huge live music fan so on a personal level it’s so much fun to be able to see and discover so many amazing artists. I remember at a recent event just turning to my friend like “holy shit isn’t it so cool that we know so many insanely talented people?” It’s so great to be surrounded by so many amazing people and to be able to support each other in our projects.

In terms of putting on music shows, we had been working with a ton of artists styling them for their shows and shoots, really just by word of mouth like we’d work with someone, then a friend of theirs would see and ask if we could style them or we’d see someone cool and hit them up. All the initial hype we got came from styling artists, and I’m fully indebted to the myriad of amazing creatives who’ve let us dress them including but certainly not limited to: Uffie, Model/Actriz, Club Eat, Shallowhalo, Blaketheman1000, May Rio, Sid Simons, Izzy Spears, Valley Latini and so many more. We’d been doing that and also doing the yearly runway shows which each year have a musical guest, and eventually I was like wait enough with bothering artists to let us style them, let’s just put on our own shows and style them there. So we did our first standalone music show about a year ago in the basement of an Italian restaurant with Izzy Spears, Mgna Crrrta, Sadie, and Jean-Luc and haven’t looked back since. We try to do one big music event every 2-3 months and just threw a massive 5 year anniversary party at Baby’s All Right which was a truly special experience.

In terms of projects like Rockaway Art Week, we’ve always operated on an ethos of “if the vibes are good let’s make it happen” no matter what “it” is, so when the Locker Room approached us last spring to help curate the music part of their arts festival we jumped at the chance. They gave us a little budget and a kickass stage with a beach backdrop and we gave them a hell of a show with our friends Thoom, Quiet Luke, Laurel Canyon, and Nailtech. Would love to work on more opportunities like this in the future, hopefully year 2 of Rockaway coming this August.

How does Drink.More.Water’s monthly concert/interview event series, “The Artist Series,” contribute to the brand’s engagement with local musicians and the indie scene, and how does this platform support emerging artists while aligning with the brand’s overall vision and values?

“The Artist Series”, similar to our live music shows, is just another way to bring our audience into our world and let them interact with our community. Really I saw that there weren’t a ton of outlets catering specifically to up and coming artists, despite how many cool ones we were working with, so we stepped in hoping to be that voice. It’s been a lot of fun figuring out the best format for the show and we’re still tinkering, but it’s been a blast so far.

In terms of what’s next in the music lane, we started an in-house record label/artist management company called Ridicule Records and are currently working on an EP for our first signee Hyderdaze, due out this summer. So expect much more music content in addition to the fashion down the line.