This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Maisie Schloss (Visual Arts, 2009) knew that she wanted to be a fashion designer from a young age and recalls the influence that old runway videos had on her in the early 2000s. Her love for visual arts brought her to The Academy as a sophomore, where she was able to fully envelop herself in the arts with a newfound sense of independence and artistic freedom.
After graduation, Maisie’s love for fashion design took her to New York City where she studied at Parsons School of Design. Quickly following college graduation, Maisie moved across the country to Los Angeles where she began working for Yeezy and later launched her own label called Maisie Wilen.
Maisie is now a Council of Fashion Designers of America Rising Star, a New York Fashion Week designer, and a Forbes 30 Under 30 artist. She has been making waves in the fashion industry since her time at The Academy.
Read more about Maisie’s time at The Academy and her life post-Academy below.
Tell us about your time here at The Academy.
I was a Visual Arts major and I graduated in 2009. I transferred in as a sophomore and it was a great experience for me. I felt really well served at the school; I felt connected to school in a way that I hadn’t before. It was a really encouraging place and a place with so much creative exploration and development.
What was different about The Academy from other schools you had attended?
It really is great at nurturing everybody individually. Everybody has a really unique thing going and it’s really embraced and celebrated. Compared to what a typical experience is, it’s a lot of people who have vision and direction and really love to see that in others, and that was so great.
What’s life been like since The Academy?
After The Academy, I went to Parsons to study Fashion Design. I lived in New York, including my time in school, for 6 years. I worked a few jobs there before relocating to LA where I started working at Yeezy and ultimately launching my own label. It’s been great. I went to The Academy knowing I wanted to be a Fashion Designer and I kept very consistently on my path, so it’s nice that I’ve been able to pursue that as consistently as I have. I’ve been in LA now for 7 years and have always either been studying art and design or working directly in it.
How do you think your time here at The Academy prepared you for college and post-college life?
Especially just the arts training – even at Parsons where they’re theoretically selective and I used a portfolio to apply – I felt very ahead going in. I felt like I was very good both with having learned some technical skills but also creatively understanding how to develop a concept. I feel like I had a bit of art college-adjacent experience before I even went in [to college]. It was definitely an easier and more seamless transition for me than my fellow students who had gone to more traditional high schools. I just had a headstart when going in there.
The Academy really allows you to be so independent. I feel like, at traditional high schools, your whole life is tied to this one little bubble, whereas [at The Academy] you’re given a really long leash, and everyone really has an independent life. You have an independence that helps when you transition to college. It’s less of a culture shock than people who come from really structured and regimented environments. That freedom is what helped me feel so comfortable at school.
Can you go into the process of some of your recent showings and collections?
I run on a pretty atypical fashion schedule where I show a little less than most people; I show twice a year, which means every six months I get a whole new collection together. The hologram show (Fall and Winter 2022 Collection) was a collaboration with Yahoo, which enabled me to have a super high-tech element. Honestly, I learned most of it as I was going. They were just like: “Hey, we have this really cool technology that can capture holograms” and I was like, “Cool. I want to do that. I absolutely want to do that.” It was at this insane studio they had in LA and I think there were 150 cameras around this green screen room – it looked so cool. It was more of a film shoot than anything I had ever done before. We had the models sort of acting – we had one girl fake cry, and we had some girls laugh at the camera. Giving that type of direction was just brand new, too. It was such a unique experience and definitely a new way to present clothing.
A common theme in my work is considering how technology can both affect the view of clothes as well as the creation of clothes. I think that’s because, as someone who started looking at fashion in the 2000s and onwards, my relationship with it was always very digital. I was looking at old shows on the computer and on blogs and stuff. And of course now, with social media as the main way that we look at fashion and marketing, people see each other wearing clothes, and that digital sharing of clothing is such a huge element of why it’s created. I like to think about how the design can be manipulated that way.
What are you working on right now?
This work never has a down season. I am always simultaneously working on producing whatever I’ve just sold for large production and distribution while developing the next collection. I will have a new collection ready in February… I should be further along on it than I am, but I’m working on it, so it’s fine. I have a collaboration with Keds coming out, which I’m very excited about. It’s been a long time in the making. We are releasing 4 pairs of sneakers together and they will finally be available for sale, and we are going to have a big party to celebrate. That’s the next big thing on the horizon.
Maisie’s collaboration with Keds was released on November 18th. Check out the one-of-a-kind collection here: https://www.keds.com/en/maisie-wilen/.
What is one piece of advice you would give to an incoming Visual Arts freshman and one piece of advice you would give to an outgoing Visual Arts senior?
For the incoming freshman: embrace the freedom and independence you can have at The Academy. It will help creatively; it will give you such a strong identity.
For the outgoing seniors: try to take that [freedom and independence] with you as much as possible, and try to keep having that true creative spirit as you continue on.
