Introducing | Claudia Li

We are thrilled to announce that New Zealand designer Claudia Li has launched online and in-store at The Shelter. Darling of the international fashion scene, CLAUDIA LI has gained a cult-like following, with household names like Michelle Obama, Kendall Jenner & Bella Hadid counted amongst her fans.

Recently returning from New York due to covid, we sat down with Claudia to chat all about her eponymous brand founded in 2015, which defines creativity and true craftsmanship by combining quirky artistic design aesthetics with an emphasis on details.

From left to right (top) Big Bow Shirt - Black, Belted Tee - White & Paracord Bag - Mustard, Big Bow Tank - Lily Print, Rugby Shirt - Black, Pintuck Shirt - Black & Big Bow Shirt - White

(The Shelter) We are beyond excited to have you stocked at the Shelter, can you give us a little taste of what your brand is all about for those who don’t already know?

(Claudia) CLAUDIA LI is A LOOK. The CLAUDIA LI customer is a dreamer, who embraces the idea of dressing up, even for everyday life; who craves the fantasy of fashion and thrives from being different.

(S) Going back to your childhood, when did you first realise that you were inclined towards fashion?

(C) The idea of “dressing up” has been very important in my family. Growing up my parents would dress up to go to art auctions and visit galleries due to my father’s work. I remember my mum telling me that she would save as much money as she could from work to buy fashion, it was something that made her happy rather than an obligation to dress up. I think that was the beginning of what the word “Fashion” meant to me as a child. To me, it is something that makes me happy, that I have fun with, it is never forced. It is a fantasy that can actually become a reality.

(S) You’ve gone to some of the most prestigious fashion schools in the world, can you tell us about the journey that got you there, and subsequently your time in London at CSM and doing your master’s at Parsons in New York?

(C) I had studied fine arts my whole life and I wanted to try something that felt not quite as “planned”. I wanted to try something that I had fun with and the first thing that came to mind was naturally fashion, so I went with it.

I was 19, and at this point, I had lived in a variety of cities across the South Pacific, and Europe seemed like the next sensible step. So I left home and moved to London. I studied at Central Saint Martin’s for Fashion Design and it felt like a natural evolution. I didn’t have a master plan, I just wanted to be there, push myself and see what came of it. I was recommended to the Parsons MFA program by my pattern-making professor at CSM. In 2012, I moved to New York and it was one of the best career-defining decisions I’ve made.

(S) You’ve also worked for some huge industry names like JW Anderson and Brandon Maxwell’s Haus of Gaga, how does that compare to running your own label?

(C) I’ve learned so much from my past experiences but I think the most important lesson I have learned is to be kind and be grateful. I really love the fact that everyone on my team is genuinely kind and down to earth. I am really lucky to have such an amazing team and together we’ve created an awesome working environment which is essential to produce great work.

(S) How do you create a collection? What’s your process?

(C) My collections have always been very personal, I want to be able to express myself as I did with painting. Art has also been an important part of the way my family lives and now it has become a part of my being, and therefore I see my work as a form of artistic expression. A collection usually starts with that one single spark of feeling, whether if it’s a word, an image, a sound, a random note that I wrote down… something that sparks a memory, something that I react to instantly. Then through the process of creating the mood boards, making prints, playing with colours, fabrics culminate to create silhouettes. I really like the dynamic of my team, we go off and do our own research and then bounce ideas off of each other. We also love to do experiments, so the studio sometimes is filled with water buckets, paints, UV reactive yarns, and flowers…

All of these processes to me comes to a full circle, the goal is to capture and recreate that initial feeling where the collection started from. To me, the success of a collection is when the audience can translate the collection back into the feeling intended.

Claudia Li SS21 "Till we meet again"

(S) Congratulations on making the Forbes 30 under 30, what are some of the other moments you count as your biggest successes?

I guess it’s seeing my collections on fearless and amazing women like Lady Gaga, Simone Biles, Ava DuVernay, Bella Hadid. Then the Michelle Obama moment was just surreal. The most recent humbling moment was being selected to become a member of the CFDA.

(S) You returned to New Zealand due to the pandemic, have you found unexpected challenges being back or opportunities to recalibrate?

Even before the pandemic, the world’s fashion industries were running on a failing system. A lot of us wanted the system to change but couldn't do anything about it. I think now it's a whole new world, a "restart" button has been pushed, and now we need to set our own rules. Because obviously the old ways didn't work and won't work in this new environment. We need to slow down. As an industry, as a brand, as an individual. I think in some ways, the pandemic "pause" really made the noise go away, at least for me. Before it, the world was getting so noisy and just filled with unnecessary. We were being asked to create more and more and more, always MORE, NEXT, NEW, FAST. Just look at how much waste there is already, not just material waste, but also the wastage of creativity, wastage of time, and thoughts being put into everything we create.

Since I got back to NZ, I’ve been rethinking the whole system we base our businesses on. How we create, when we create, what we create. How we sell, when we sell, what we sell. I think New Zealand is the answer. I know that most foreign fashion people think that “oh, NZ fashion industry is too small, it’s not important because it’s such a small market and so faraway…” But I think the outside fashion world has a whole LOT to learn from us. And YES it’s slower, smaller, but EXACTLY where the entire fashion industry needs to be doing, for our businesses, our environment, and for our future.

(S) What’s next for your brand?

The plan is to bring CLAUDIA LI back to NZ. We haven’t had any presence here at all, and it feels like the right time to do so. We’ve already moved some of our development and production here, moving forward, I’m going to spend at least 70% of my year in NZ, so a lot of the creative, development, and production processes will be happening here and in NY simultaneously.

Discover the full range of clothing, bags, headbands & accessories online or in-store now.