Mr. International
As two very different collections debut, where in the world is Michael Herrera?
The prospective design students fidgeted uncomfortably. They wanted to be told to follow their dreams, but Michael Herrera’s tough talk was like an unexpected hailstorm on their Sunday picnic.
“You can have the bestlooking design,” he told them. “But if you don’t turn it in by the deadline, no one cares.”
As Herrera pontificated on the difficulties of making a living as a fashion designer, a Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising administrator, like an impresario from the days of vaudeville, gave him the hook, bringing the lecture to an abrupt halt.
Herrera knows all about reality, though his has been far from harsh. For the busy designer, Spring 2004 is a tale of two collections, and it is both the blessed of times and the cursed of times.
Last year, 28-year-old Herrera faced the proverbial fork in the road. On one side was the smoothly paved path of a well-paying corporate gig. On the other, the dicey byway of the young designer launching his own collection.
Herrera has magically managed to straddle both. He is bridging fashion and corporate identity with his new BMW Formula One collection, while his own collection, The Movement, is influenced by his travels in Peru, India and China.
On May 15, Herrera will unveil his exclusive The Movement collection, which he will sell directly at www.mthemovement.com. The denim-based sportswear line’s retail prices start at $125 and rise steeply to $1,000 for custom jeans with a gold-plated chain attached to a matching wallet, served up Evisu-style in elaborate packaging. The line was previously available only to a select clientele, including Britney Spears.
The Philippine native (his family emigrated to Los Angeles when he was four) still considers himself a Los Angeles–based designer, despite currently residing in Traunstein, a small village in Germany’s Bavaria region. Herrera relocated there last fall after being named international design director for Cosmoworld, a 15-year-old merchandisedapparel company whose clients include Red Bull, Shell and Vodafone.
Though leery at first of having his creative wings clipped by corporate culture, Herrera accepted the position and now oversees a design staff of 10. He tells them the same thing he told those fresh-faced FIDM students: “It’s called fashion design, not fashion art. It’s a commercial skill. You can make something as pretty as you want, but if people don’t order it, you’d better find another job.”
A partnership between Puma and BMW Formula One has brought Herrera’s corporate designs to the masses via Puma stores worldwide.
While each of Cosmoworld’s clients has a corporate identity manual, a veritable breviary whose scriptures are stringently enforced, Herrera said the companies are open to a fashion-oriented approach.
“We’re taking it to a fashion level because the industry is more competitive and everybody wants something more fashionable,” Herrera said. “Even Vodafone wants something trendy now.”
BMW initially wanted a simple line of athletic tops, but Herrera was able to convince executives to greenlight a vintage-style fitted stone-washed denim jacket. “They never would have done it before because they don’t like things to look old,” Herrera said.
The compromise preserved the racing-sponsor logos while adding a fashionable vintage look.
The corporate gig allows Herrera to run his own line without the pressure of having to make a living from it. He just has to find the time, which is also eaten up by free-lancing for the Snoop Dogg line and Los Angeles–based Five Four. “I just don’t want to break off more than I can chew,” Herrera said, clearly with unintentional irony.
Herrera designed The Movement while spending a year in Lima, Peru. He has also traveled extensively throughout the Far East. Though a man of the world, he is not a man of the city. Several months in the frenetic hurly-burly of Hong Kong “almost killed me,” he said. Ditto for Los Angeles, where employees head up an office for The Movement.
Whether placing corporate logos or designing Peruvian-inspired denim embroideries, Herrera stays focused on wearability.
“I hate [unwearable clothes] the most,” he said. “People don’t have time for them.”
With a career that allows him to “just e-mail files,” Herrera intends to remain a transcontinental telecommuter. He plans to move to Italy in the next couple of years and maybe even buy a villa. Italians know how to live, he said, and there’s a bounty of inspiration to be found in la dolce vita.
“In order to be a designer you have to be of the times,” he said. “And the best way to do that is to be part of the international world.”
