Conversation w/ Company of We

CC: My partner Jayzel Samonte and I started together. He is from Los Angeles and I am from Florida--though having been here for almost 10 years I cross my fingers I can call myself a proper New Yorker. Anyway, west and east--company of we. *wink wink*

I design a women’s wear line, Christopher Deane which I started about 9 years ago and Jayzel has been forever jilted by the fact that while he is dating a designer he never gets any of the clothing perks that so often go to the women in my life--though to be fair I have made him a jacket or two.

JS: I worked very hard for that jacket.



CC: We both love fashion and have always wanted to do a project together. He has a great sense about men's clothes, color and marketing--He works at Arnell and has just finished his first book sleepy/ambitious.

JS: Our first campaign was inspired by ee cummings—he always had a wit with words and punctuation—the beauty and uniqueness of his prose stems from resourcefulness and respect. He never really resorted to indulgent devices. He was genius: unique but accessible. This captures what we want to do with men's fashion. Individualize attire without making it about spectacle. We have very independent style aesthetics, as we combined our wardrobes we captured an edgy, very breezy west coast look. Sophisticated yet playful.



CC: We're both relatively thin, and we were so tired of paying a premium for clothes that fit, for clothes that had more thought behind the cut, or for clothes that had a wink about them. We thought, there is nothing these other contemporary designers are doing differently except making huge mark ups- and I've always come to understand this with my two other lines- the cost of something is contingent on may aspects- from the stylist at the shoot for the fancy advertising campaign to the brick and mortar store that you pay an exorbitant lease on. Having done a lot of shopping on line we wanted to create a site where there we no 300 dollar shorts and 1000 blazers. We worked together on designing a site filled with lots of stuff under a 100 dollars that was often difficult to find in the market. Simple clothes with great/inventive details that we really see people wearing and
living in.