What is your current state of mind?
Optimistic, confused, tired, happy, enraged, driven.
Disturbia is a family-owned reality since 2003, can you shed us some light onto your darkness and tell us a bit about yourselves, your background. Who is behind it and how did it all start?
I had the seed of an idea for the brand whilst I was as student at Northumbria University studying Fashion (Frank). After graduating and generally being dissatisfied with everything, I decided to start to make my own clothes. Got samples made, my photographer girlfriend shoot them, we build an e-commerce website mainly on intuition, and the rest they say is… a slow and steady 20 years of blood, sweat and tees. Helen and I have worked in cahoots on the brand since day one and I believe the key is our collaborative and opposing skill sets.
How did you choose the name “Disturbia”, is there a specific story behind?
A university project required us to create a brand, and so I was interested in the similarity of the words suburb and disturb, and the punk connotations of the dichotomy. So this eventually became a portmanteau of the words, and et voila: Disturbia. It stuck.
Who do you design for?
We believe our customer is socially and environmentally conscious. They are looking for clothing that speaks of their individualism and creativity. Most of our customers have a dark sensibility, a sharp intellect and an even sharper wardrobe.
We’re interested in subcultural style and how this now just permeates the mainstream in this post- postmodern shitshow in which we live. So we like to create product that references all these weird countercultural signifiers but make them accessible and for everyday.
Which living person do you most admire and would love to collaborate with?
All my heroes are dead.
Future plans you would like to share with us?
We have some exciting collaboration in the lab at the moment. We’re just mainly busying ourselves in growing the brand, our community, our team and our resolve; to make the brand more sustainable, agile and inclusive.
Lady Darkness
Credits:
Photography: Marco Giuliano / @marcogiulianoph
Styling: Anca Macavei / @ancamacavei
Fashion: Disturbia / www.disturbia.co.uk / @disturbia
Soundtrack: AKMV-18 – Melancholia
Shot during Wave-Gotik-Treffen in Leipzig, Germany
Model: Cody / @__aenima__