Sometimes I feel like I am just on vampire time. Something will be on my to-do list and I’ll feel like darn-it-some-time-has-passed. Only it will be more time than seems possible in my gut response. Anyway, it has been on my to-do list to bring you all more fashion coverage on BlueBlood.net. So I’m going to start checking this off my gigantic to-do list with this exclusive never-before-seen interview with Tyler Ondine Whitman of Heavy Red Noir Couture. Tyler and I had a good interview and I’m sorry it took so long to get it live. In my defense, the file was called blueblood-interview, so it was not super obvious what was in it, while it was sitting on my hard drive. Without further ado, I bring you the feature interview on Heavy Red:

AG: How did you first get into being a designer?

TOW: I love clothing that looks like it is straight out of a beautifully demented dream. I wanted my clothing to look like it was from a dark cabaret ball in a haunted estate at the edge of time. Eventually that led to designing and making gothic clothing for myself. Once I got started, well, of course it became an addiction. I am still making clothes for myself, as well as the ladies, gentlemen and other creatures of the night who attend the dark balls and walk the night as elegant, tortured souls.

AG: What is your fashion/educational background?

TOW: Gothic clothing is a style all its own, so the best way to learn it is by doing it and wearing the results. I would go to Perversion, or some other club or event, wearing something I had just designed. If I felt fabulous and dark as I walked in, shadows in all the right places, like a queen of the underworld, then the design was right. I also studied at Parson’s in NYC, but that was mostly for photography.

AG: What are your favorite design materials and why?

TOW: Currently, I enjoy working with gauze. It’s got a lot of interesting implications, some obviously being morbid. Those implications appeal to me, I won’t lie. It is also really malleable. It can be stretched and twisted in the most interesting ways. I always get faint at the sight of the perfect wool pinstripe. I am having fun with my new dresses which incorporate charmeuse, linen and satin – very form fitting, seductive and naughty.

AG: What are your favorite fetish materials i.e. latex, leather, metal, satin, silk, corsets, boots, etc. and why?

TOW: I love buckles & straps – anything that binds. When you strap something it becomes more sexy; restrained, tragic and dangerous, like Joan of Arc at the stake. I love ripping straps and sewing them on everywhere. You can never be too safe when restraints are involved…

AG: What do you find inspirational from a design perspective? Other designers, music, books, movies, etc?

TOW: The shadows on the wall of my bedroom at night are great. Sometimes I look at them and see a serial killer, and sometimes I see a beautiful skirt. I am always hoping for the skirt. Inspiration is everywhere. I look at a lot of art, because sometimes people who draw come up with the most interesting designs. They don’t have to worry about things actually being worn by anyone, after all.

AG: What are your favorite fashion events?

TOW: Runway. I love watching a Tom Ford dress saunter down the catwalk. Heavy Red will be doing a runway show at some point in the near future, and it is going to be fabulous. It will be like going to the castle of the damned at the edge of the haunted forest for a huge party, with spectacular people and decadent clothing. It will be an event, and we will keep you posted on it.

AG: What sorts of occasions do you feel your designs are best-suited for?

TOW: When you would like to be noticed by someone, our clothes are perfect for that. They are dark and sexual, but elegant. We have evening gowns for haunted midnight balls in Paris. We have shirts and skirts for going out to gothic/industrial clubs and dancing, hanging out, or other devilish activities. We have corsets, waist cinchers, and other details for layering. Whenever you want to be the princess of a dark and spooky wonderland,that is the occasion for our clothing. Each piece is designed to be sensual, lush, and sinful. The designs are simple, flattering, and darkly delicious. I really want to make people look great, and get noticed by the person they would like to get noticed by.

AG: What celebrity would you most like to dress?

TOW: I would love to dress Marlene Dietrich. She was so fabulous, and it would be a challenge to see if I could design something for her. I don’t usually design with blondes in mind, so that would be another challenge. I would give anything to see her perform a song in something I had designed.

AG: What types of designs are you introducing now?

TOW: We are introducing our Winter line, and I am extremely excited. We are releasing an all new line of corsets that will make you drop dead with delight… All of the corsets are steel boned, fully lined (they look as gorgeous on the inside as the outside)with an extraordinary fit. Our dresses for this season are so luscious. They are fabulous, bold and dark. I can picture them on the Queen of Nightmare land. The skirts this season are very versatile. You can wear them to a club, to a funeral, or wherever. We also have deliciously tragic long sleeve shirts, new naughty girl gothic ties, men’s shirts, and other things that I may have forgotten.

AG: Any other fashion background or particular inspirations or news or anecdotes or promo whatever you would like to mention?

TOW: We are always striving to top ourselves. The designs rely on simplicity, and a focus on flattering the natural lines of the feminine frame. We have a classic fit for woman with curves and women who want to have curves. Elegant lines mixed with raw and tattered materials. Black, always black. There will be a lot of experimentation with different bindings and fabrics. So much fun stuff. You are going to love it.

TOW: We at Heavy Red are here to create a spooky dream world for your pleasure and ours, and it is a horribly beautiful thrill. I am honored to be part of the Gothic community and I love having the opportunity to dress you. The response I have had to Heavy Red has been stunning, and I just want to thank everyone. I am going to strive to continually make great clothing for all of my dark and tortured peers.

In March of 2003 I wrote an opening editorial for the late lamented Swag magazine project. The editorial was about how a lot of freaks internalize the negativity the larger society has for them. It was about how punk was supposed to promise the allure of a classless society. It was about how we shouldn’t hammer ourselves down because we deserve the rewards of the larger society, at least as much as anyone. The mere existence of this editorial is ironic in so many ways. I have no idea how many people read this the first time around, though, so I’d like to share it online now.

You should also definitely read the piece on Swag, by my old school, zine explosion compatriot Scott Hefflon, which ran first in Lollipop in print, and is now reprinted on Lollipop online. Part of what Scott had to say about the content Forrest Black and I and our pals created was, “It’s really surprising how rarely you find something unique in these “alternative” times. So many things still tow the line, the line is just called something else . . . So yeah, on the surface, Swag could look like a Gothic fashion mag. Lots of scantily-clad vixens, most of them models for one of the sites under the Blue Blood umbrella, but seeing as Amelia G and Forrest Black are top-notch Goth/fetish photographers and have great taste in hotties as well as the few bits of clothing the models wear, that’s far from a bad thing . . . What makes Swag cool is what doesn’t become clear right at first. Style . . . It was fun, I learned a couple things, and there was no nostagia back-in-my-day shit or mindless bashing of how everything sucks now and everyone’s a sell-out. No, it was well-researched bashing – funny, but not hatefully hipster ironic – and it read like something I’d write, or something one of my friends’d write. I wanna buy the writer a drink and see what they say next. That’s good writing, right? Hell, I even read Amelia G’s one-pager about buying a fuckin’ car. Sure, I know she can write and all, but who the hell care what car she bought and why and what it means to her? By the end of her story, I did. Who knew? It was a little tough to read cuz the text was one column across the entire page, but I read the whole thing, liked it, and I wanna buy Amelia G a drink to see what else she has to say. (OK, maybe I just wanna get her drunk. Heh.) . . . All in all, a damn fine publication, and one quite unlike anything else out there. And it’s got layers, baby, cuz these are not stupid fuckin’ posers spouting hipster slogans, parroting some review they just read and passing it off as their own wit. There’s eye candy, there’s smart, attitude-laced editorial (without being needlessly vicious), and there’s coverage of topics you didn’t know you were interested in until you found yourself absorbed in the piece.” Go to Lollipop and check out the whole feature on Swag there.

And now for the promised editorial:

I admit that sometimes I get discouraged with my subculture lifestyle. I think to myself that I started down this path by choice and maybe it is not too late to change direction. I think that, now that I have finally paid off my student loans and gotten my brain out of hock, maybe I should go back to school. Maybe business school could beat the importance of money into my head. Maybe I should become an attorney like my father. Maybe, at a bare minimum, I should steer my photography and writing towards more mainstream subjects.

There are a variety of things which will make me spin out into the headspace where I think such things. Inconsistent friends pretty much top the list. We’ve all known people who were our friends one day and the next they were blabbing our confidences or talking trash and then the next day they thought they could just be pals again. I’m not talking about plastic Los Angeles fair weather friends. Those are honest in their fashion and all you have to do to keep them pleasant is to keep doing well. I’m talking about alterna-identified people who have such deep-seated unhappiness about where they are at that they strike out at those closest to them because they just feel upset and are sure it must be somebody else’s fault. One of my pet peeves is cool counterculture girls who get to a certain age and start obsessing on how classy they are.

I became the sort of person I am today partly because my parents raised me to be without prejudice of class, color, or religion. On the face of it, one might think that bringing a child up to be genuinely colorblind was a very virtuous act. I believe it was. Of course those are the values I was brought up with, so I am biased. But it certainly contributes to my sense of alienation because some of the artificial things that other people use to identify supposedly kindred spirits just don’t apply for me.

One of the things which first attracted me to the counterculture was the lack of class boundaries. It was up to the individual what impression to make. You could be cool whether your parents were rich or poor, educated or illiterate, prominent in the community or living in another country. The lack of boundaries also meant a rich cross-pollination of ideas because everyone had a different background and there was not a this-is-the-way-it-has-always-been mentality.

Okay, over time, I have realized that there is one hidebound idea which really bothers me but which is endemic to subcultures. There is the notion that freaks should not be successful. This self-defeating sentiment can be found throughout most of the counterculture, whatever the specific affiliation of the people involved might be – Gothic, punk, deathrock, rockabilly, fetish, hippie, altrock, etc. No matter what I believe intellectually, my inner punk rocker believes that, on some level, success equals oppression. No matter how hard you work for it. On some level, like any minority, I have internalized the prejudice of the mainstream. I’ve been told that my weird hair and my perceived sexuality and my leather jacket all mean I do not deserve to be successful.

Well, the point here is to tell my inner punk rocker that there are rewards for being cool. Being able to express yourself with your appearance and being able to enjoy unique cool stuff are important rewards for taking the road less traveled.

And I deserve those rewards. And so do you.