BRIAN HUDDLESTON (BH)

Can you talk about founding Total Luxury Spa and some of the ideas or concepts that were embedded in it from the beginning?

DANIEL DESURE (DD)

Hassan and I were working closely in the studio here in LA, and it was this idea of a platform to put out zines and smaller projects that we could get behind: we might do a party behind one, we might do a talk, we did a summer film series. We were meeting artists that didn't have gallery representation. In the beginning it was a natural extension of our practices.

HASSAN RAHIM (HR)

Yeah, it was funny because we fully did start in publishing. We had a booth at the LA Art Book Fair. A lot of it, we were trying to put out work for our friends, but also finding people that, like Daniel said, lacked representation. We published a lot of people’s first books.

DD

We had a chance to start creating spaces, creating conversations around those spaces. That's essentially how it started. We started doing a small series of shirts in the beginning, and it turned into a clothing thing, but it still has that publishing kind of energy behind it.

BH

Ideas around wellness and spirituality were also part of that early energy.

DD

Yeah, those have always been present. My interests are in this long history of outsiders who were shaking up the status quo through wellness initiatives. You can look at groups like the Brotherhood of Eternal Love or the Source Family. Things that were really based in California. I've always been interested in cults or groups. In terms of our practice, even in the early days, we've hosted a meditation workshop. Initially it was free and open to the public, and we’d serve breakfast. People from the community would come out, our friends and colleagues would show up for it, and we did that on and off for a year and a half. Now that’s the Tropics initiative—it's been going now for five or six years; it's still free to the public, on Monday evenings at the Underground Museum.

Wellness now is a much larger loaded term, but I think about it not just terms of meditation and eating healthy, but more like a mindset. What is it socially? What does it mean in terms of the socioeconomic? How do you apply wellness to a space like the neighborhood? Or invite it in? We're interested in exploring the design behind those things as well. I know Justin also has a background in that. So we all kind of shared the toolset.

JUSTIN HUNT SLOANE (JHS)

It’s definitely a regionality thing, too. Like you were saying, LA has a history of secularized spirituality—a search for what would be spirituality or this way of shaping community that goes beyond friendship. That’s interesting to me because it's halfway turned away from you. It's kind of mysterious: you have to find room for the idea of something being good for you.

HR

What we've always tried to do is make it for the people. A lot of the stuff that we were interested in, like Source Family, those are legendary LA tales. They spawn from our environment, they give us energy to shape who we are.

DD

In a lot of ways, wellness is just a commodity now. I think you can dissect it and take it back to its source. It's about being healthy in the mind, healthy in terms of being, having access to nutritious inexpensive food, things that are natural. When you look at groups like this in the early ’60s and ’70s, they're just doing things that were extremely illegal. Those ideas were pretty radical at the time. We’re playing in that space. There are a lot of things that are still very radical and issues where wellness can help to create a dialogue around that.

BH

These ideas around community building and nurture, they operate on a slower cadence of time than the pace of fashion and commerce. How do you balance this juxtaposition?

DD

Making art—or making anything—isn’t ever a solitary practice. You’re always having a conversation with the world. For all three of us, it's much more interesting when that is with the community. It's about the people across the street and the people next door. We're not only creating a conversation but creating a two-way street. Take our space for instance, the shop that we just opened. People in the neighborhood work in that space, people come in to learn about the art and vice versa. Those same people can also get their skate needs or shirts. The shirts create a conversation around other elements that are about the neighborhood from the outside in. It's always important to kind of create that kind of two-way street.

JHS

Yeah, definitely: investing in ideas around smaller communities. I feel like nurture demands slowing down, more of an inward focus.

DD

Especially in streetwear and clothing, it feels like everything is very like omni-directional. It's all just to make as much money as fast as possible, and it goes to one area. When that happens, the focus of that lens becomes a little bit smaller. So, with Spa, it's this idea that we're trying to open up that lens more. There are real people behind it, a real community. Also, it's not just this community specifically, but it also spreads (hopefully) to other small communities as well. If we can have a larger dialogue around those things, it begins to grow beyond just streetwear.

HR

Fashion can be trend-based, and I feel like our trajectory is trying to put out something that speaks from the core and not necessarily a trend. That's the balance of a lot of our graphics. Not many people know this, but honestly some of the most well-known graphics were designed like three years before they came out. At the time we kind of waited to drop those—like the Crenshaw tee.

We were also trying to get our production and all the other stuff in order, but it was cool to marinate on it and make sure that we weren't focusing on just now. It’s important to not be too hyper-current with our graphics or messaging.

DD

It's all perspective: you can look at trends as a highway or as a river that’s moving really quickly. When we need to we can jump in and out of that river and use it to create a focus around certain movements by tapping in to that. The moment someone is like, “Oh, that's an amazing graphic,” that opens up the dialogue for us to say “And you know what, here’s this cause that needs all of your attention.”

JHS

Yeah. There's a lot of fatigue around aesthetics, right? So many shirts and so much gets made, there's a lot of fatigue around things looking a certain way. But what people don't realize is that with a lot of the stuff we make we’re not really reaching for aesthetics—it’s the space between. It starts to weave together something like a mantra, a promotional piece, and the abstract.

DD

There's something kind of nice about creating graphics and concepts around older utopian ideals, things that maybe never came to fruition. We build a world around those things. In some ways it's like we're building the house first and then figuring how to fill it.

HR

We've always been about giving back. Another thing about the streetwear sphere, I think a lot of stuff is aesthetic or just responding to one thing. I’ve noticed people do a lot of collaborations just because. They're like, let’s team up with that brand, let’s team up with this musician, and it just seems a little pointless sometimes. I wonder, why would you want to collaborate with them? What do they have to offer? Are you thinking about the intention of whatever you're creating?

For us, we've narrowed down our collaboration program to just fine art. It’s been working well, and the exchanges feel healthy. It's always somebody that has a very strong message with their work and then they want to pick a charity or an organization of their choice where we give proceeds back. It helps to set an intention with everything we create.

BH

What do you feel is a successful collaboration?

DD

For each of us, there's a natural way of working together and a real extension of practice. My practice doesn't completely overlap with Hassan, and Hassan’s doesn’t completely overlap with Justin’s. That element of differentiation is core to our collective energy. Everyone’s just bringing their own kinds of elements to it, and because of that it's a real kind of synergy between all of us, as far as design goes.

Collaborations within the community, say with a mom-and-pop shop in the neighborhood, they're amazing. There's obviously a lot of trust put into us, and then we put a lot of trust into them as well. There can be real energy there—we feel very grateful that they're giving us that trust. Anyone that we've worked with, we maintain those relationships. They become one of the family and we build our family. There are people we worked with day one who we’re still in touch with. The family just continues to grow and evolve.

HR

Yeah, trust is so key. I want to go back to that because it’s all about your gut. We just know when it makes sense and when it doesn't. I think everyone's been in situation where what feels like it's going to be a cool team up turns into a client relationship. There are so many nuances and idiosyncrasies of different people in the way they work. We try to share a mutual trust and a mutual respect when we’re designing. To make sure we really are speaking the same language, and I don’t mean just design, but what's our intention of all of this?

Oftentimes, we're already big fans of these artists for a long time. Sometimes we're surprised to find out that vice versa. We've all been fans of Lauren Halsey’s work for years, and to hear that she wants to do something with us, we're like: oh shit.

DD

It’s rare that we get a cold call to say, Hey, do you want to collab? We ended up working with people that are around our spaces, and I think that trust is built over long periods of time. Whenever we work with someone on a project, whether it’s Kelsey Lu, Lauren Halsey, Cyprian, or someone in the neighborhood, they become part of the family. Once they’re in, they’re part of it. We might do a talk together. We might run into each other and go grab dinner together. And it's all based in trust.

Even the way Justin, Hassan, and I work together, it never feels like work. It always feel like it's just a very natural way of moving. I definitely always want to maintain that, so it doesn't ever feel too heavy or in opposition to the thing that we've created. We’re very organic with it—we'll talk about things for a while, we’ll circle around an idea, everyone will weigh in. There’s no ego. Everyone can speak their mind, things get thrown out, things get brought in. That element, to me, is the most important in all of it. It could take a year to make one shirt. If it’s done in the right way, it will have that energy. But it all comes back to trust, you have to trust in this way of working.

BRIAN HUDDLESTON (BH)

How did this collaboration between Ghostly International and Justin begin?

JUSTIN HUNT SLOANE (JHS)

Molly and Sam (Valenti IV, Ghostly Founder/CEO) reached out to me separately. I started working on some apparel for Ghostly and the Beacon LP at the same time, in 2018.

MOLLY SMITH (MS)

I was! Props to another talented designer and Ghostly friend, Hassan Rahim, for making me aware of Justin’s work.

BH

Is there a single project from your work together that stands out?

MS

Speaking from the label side, the artwork for Galcher Lustwerk’s Information was a highlight. The approach was very holistic—it was a close-knit back and forth between us, the artist, and our photographer/videographer, Collin Hughes. With everyone’s input and Justin’s direction, we really carved out a visual world that propelled the album forward as a whole and guided the narrative greatly.

JHS

Agreed, the Information project is a rare kind of project where actual world-making got to happen. Collin’s photos and the artist’s vision were central to that. Building out a kind of noir visual world that existed somewhere between past and present, high-tech and low-tech.

MS

Justin has a great balance of being a good listener and knowing when to assert his sensibilities, which is a rare quality that makes him super easy to work with. Typically, we start with throwing all of our ideas on the table—in this case, Chris/Galcher had an amazing folder of references, ranging from vintage advertisements to impressionist paintings to screenshots from spy movies—then we moved on to sorting through all of the photos Collin shot. Justin then came back with a wide assortment of ideas that we slowly narrowed in on round after round, grabbing elements that we liked best as we went along. Editing down was tough! But I think those difficult choices are part of what made the end results so striking.

JHS

After we went through all the reference material I kept thinking about three things a lot:

• The opening credits to Taxi Driver
• Blade Runner—the whole visual texture, the movie, and the concept art
•  Quincy Jones’s Body Heat record cover

Collin’s photos lent themselves perfectly to a really macro-focused version of all those things. Establishing those central references and building excitement as a group around this kind of feeling we were going for was really crucial in getting to a point where all the elements gelled together in a particular way.

BH

Working on releases for Ghostly also involves a third collaborator—the artist or the label itself. How do you balance these voices when there are disparate goals?

JHS

Just being careful, the projects don’t move very quickly, we get to sit with the ideas for a while and make sure we’re doing the right thing. There’s usually a good amount of back and forth between Molly and I, but the artist doesn’t see the work until we’re feeling right about it.

I usually get to work in response to what’s already done, which is nice; the music is made already. In the case of the Galcher sleeve, the photos were shot, and Beacon had done a lot of research prior to starting. There is a lot to expand on usually.

The Arthur Russell thing was different, the artwork was made already. Repurposing it in a way that was respectful to the source and interesting in a new context was hard. More restraint involved.

MS

I’d like to think that Ghostly’s goals are straightforward: quality work that feels timeless and ultimately looks good when someone is holding it in their hands. Sometimes working with musicians, even the ones with a design background (sometimes especially!), it can take a bit of work to help them understand that the design is reflecting the statements they’re trying to make. Sometimes they refuse to budge on an idea that doesn’t mesh well, and at that point it’s just about following through on what they want while making it as good as it can be. The results of those types of projects might not hit the highest potential we had hoped for, but they can also be surprisingly interesting.

BH

How present are the artists in collaborations between the two of you?

JHS

Other than providing input at the beginning and meeting for a review somewhere in between, they don’t tend to be very present.

MS

While it’s always the artist’s opinion that matters most at the end of the day, the near-infinite amount of options can be overwhelming, so it’s our jobs to keep things as simple and focused as possible. For example, it’s always preferable to give three options than giving 30—it’s too easy to get lost in micro-adjustments at that point, where feedback becomes more about pixel adjustments than the big picture.

JHS

Very true, the biggest struggle is trying not to over-deliver.

BH

Where do you like to start with a project?

JHS

Feeling like I’ve come to an understanding with people is important, seeing the whole picture of what they want. Doing research and building out a narrative that works with the established themes of the record or the label itself.

I don’t necessarily want to make the releases "connect" with one another visually but the idea of a visually cohesive "catalogue" is cool to me. Labels like Factory and ECM didn't have templated formats or anything but you do see a commitment to visual ideas running through everything they do.

I think about legacy a lot when working on Ghostly, dealing with a label with a 20-year history and trying to balance that with my own thing I’m trying to do. On top of the artist’s vision for their record, their own set of visual goals. Trying to find the right interplay between all those things in a way where everybody gets build on their own integrity and feel good about it.

BH

How important is it to maintain your voice in a collaborative process?

MS

Sometimes my voice isn’t present at all, which is fine by me. I consider myself a mediator above all else, making sure that everyone else’s ideas are present and at their best.

JHS

Not super important, the project feeling beautiful and effortless means getting my opinion out of the way a lot of the time. Half of being a designer is being a facilitator of good things happening, getting people to the idea faster.

BH

Do you see collaboration as an ideological response to the cultural climate of our age?

JHS

In a way. Maybe prioritizing listening over talking is important in our moment. If "politics is downstream from culture," maybe cultural production in 2020 can be about moving slower, not lifting up individuals, hearing both sides, being less impulsive.

I read this piece recently that reminded me of how absurd and excessive the last 10 years feel in hindsight. It’s "fun," but is it getting anywhere?

MS

Totally. The act of collaborative creating, where all voices are heard, leads to something that is greater than the sum of its parts. I love being able to see a bunch of unique distinguishable voices coming together in harmony.

BH

What is the most important part of maintaining a long-term partnership?

JHS

Keeping time open to continue. Remaining excited.

MS

Having trust in the other person is key—that they hear what you’re saying, that they’re considering all angles, that the work they’re giving is their best. It’s that trust that helps in a pinch when a project desperately needs help and I know I have a designer I can count on to deliver a Midas touch.