NEW YORK — Todd Oldham, an interdisciplinarian creative, showed on Thursday how his career is based on the principle of working smart and often rather than hard work.
After blazing through the world of fashion in the ’80s and ’90s, Oldham, a 1991 Perry Ellis award winner from the CFDA, continues to exercise his dexterity in a myriad of projects. Oldham spoke calmly with Fern Mallis at The 92nd Street Y. “I knew that I was unemployable. I don’t mean that I was a bad employee. I knew that I was better served executing my own ideas.”
He and his mother created all of the patterns and samples in 1982. Tony Longoria became his business partner a few years later. They moved to an East Village walk-up apartment on the fourth floor where Simon Doonan had painted the living room using warped black-and white line drawings. “It was like being in a crazy fun house. It felt as if the outside was just as important as what was inside. The streets were crowded with screaming people. It was such a magical spot. Susanne was amazing. She would bring a lot of the English designers over and have wild parties.”
Oldham was candid about his “a-ha” moment to stop doing collections, cursing at how he always sounds when recalling the breaking point. The moment involved a four-ply duchesse satin dress that “required a nut-job amount of effort.” Fabrics were woven in the Far East, the dyeing was done in Italy and he hand-painted dogwood branches and buds on acetate that was later turned into full-size screens and hand-screened by professionals. His sculptor mother handmade dogwood petals from fresh water pearls that were appliquéd to the dress. At a certain point, Oldham decided, “What am I doing? It was so complicated, involved so many countries, so many people, and took so much time. Cindy Crawford [whom he appeared on the TV show ‘House of Style’ with],” he said.
“The machine was smoking at that point but something just turned for me at this moment,” Oldham said. The recurring comment from consumers of “I love what you do. I could never afford it” was also “painful” for Oldham to hear routinely, he said.
His quest for affordable design evolved on “House of Style,” which included such lazy-guy tips as self-done haircuts, which he still does himself. Kool Aid’s at-home hair-dyeing advice, which suggested using toothpaste to remove the dye, was misinterpreted. The joint belief that “ideas were important and money wasn’t” rang throughout the show. Oldham said, “I could interview John Galliano one moment and then get a rock and tie copper around it to show how to make a button. It was all about creativity.”
The program’s popularity was due to Crawford, “who is still as lovely as can be. Crawford was like an earthquake at the time. People fell over. They would fall over if they were 10 feet from her. [practically] Pass out. She’s the only model who looks like herself when she shows up. It’s necessary to paint the model. And that’s fine, they look great. But she looks like herself.”
Unabashed about how a “Three Stooges” episode he had seen as a child inspired his memorable “interiors” collection, Oldham said, “It’s this one called ‘Slippery Silks.’ The Three Stooges are plumbers, but when they show up at this house, the woman thinks they are fashion designers. They put on an actual fashion show. It was the first time I could relate to something so clearly. It burned in my brain and it was my permission slip.”
He rediscovered his passion for design and began to work in interiors, books and arts, as well as creating tools and accessories for children. But the self-described “serious pack rat” has kept highly orderly archives for his “immaculately made” clothes, including some styles made with a 400-year-old beading company in India. “We never had sample sales. Every thing we did was important to me. We had every sample, every shoe, every accessory,” Oldham said.
His decision to shut down fashion resulted in all of the company’s partners, including a Japanese company, getting “real mad,” he admitted. “They just didn’t understand. They understood me, however. They were interested in getting the business’ sales up and I was just like, ‘OK, bye.’”
After an exhibition at the Rhode Island School of Design’s Museum, Oldham has de-acquisitioned pieces there, as well as to the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute and an archive in Texas. Oldham, who has published more than 20 books on the subject, is currently working on a Phaidon book about Alexander Girard. “I love immersing myself trying to learn every single thing about something. If you’re doing a book on someone, you have to learn about and honor their Rosetta Stone. You can’t decorate or assert yourself. You’re in service.”
Oldham uses equal care in creating arts-related materials for children, including the newly launched Smarts & Crafts at Walmart stores. By going “hyper mass,” Oldham strives to reach people in tinier towns where access to such products are not always readily available. Mallis encouraged attendees to visit Todd Oldham Studio to view the wide range of designs and toys, as well as the gem-shaped crayons.
His own parents — one a sculptor and the other an early computer whiz — encouraged him to be innovative in his thinking. He was a frequent traveler as a child and lived in Iran when he was a kid. Among the first to use digital printing in his fashion, Oldham isn’t fully out of that picture. He will make available online reissued Pantone patterns through the Todd Oldham Maker Shop.
Oldham, who was one of the first designers to work for Target in the 2000s, confirmed that he had designed more than 2,000 products in just two years. This included dorm room necessities and home decor. Still in disbelief about the volume he produced at that time for everything that is needed when one leaves home for the first time, he said, “[I didn’t have] the college experience — I barely graduated high school — but that has to be a really intense thing. Imagine how difficult that was. It was great fun trying to solve problems and getting all excited. The most mundane things were my favorite. It was an amazing experience to make that sponge. We bent it slightly to make it more ergonomic. Then we printed it in gorgeous patterns. Getting to do things in the public domain, you can make everything a little bit lovelier.”
His interior portfolio also included furniture, rugs and lamps for La-Z-Boy; such “borderline taste level” projects with iconic brands really charmed him. “There was an edge to it that I loved. They were super-kind and open to trying new things. Nobody ever blinks at what they did. I bet they did in private meetings but not to me.”
Jones New York was another alliance for Todd Oldham jeans. Oldham shared a Reikawakubo quote on kicking the machines and said he understood that. Noting how Jones New York was selling the-then coveted Gloria Vanderbilt jeans, the designer said he persuaded the company “to turn things on their ear and work with acid-wash, which nobody wanted. It was terrible and outdated. We just built it and built it and it turned into this giant thing.”
However, this success led to a conflict between Target and us. “We got in so much trouble with Target. We were just a few too early. Every other business that we owned was affected. I knew it was the future, but it did stop a lot of opportunities for us for sure.”
Asked for advice for aspiring designers, he said, “You should do it. Don’t listen to me or to too many people. We need someone with different ideas and a different point of view. You can listen from a historical perspective and then translate that information into something else. The goal is to create something that everyone can benefit from. We don’t need more. Everyone doesn’t need anything. If you’re going to do something, thrill us. Make it count.”