Re-opened their webstore last week, and it looks good....I've been following the 5Preview brand for a little while and I had a few questions, so I e-mailed Emeli to see if she was up for answering some of them.
I'm from Sweden, I'm 30 years old. I moved to Italy 10 years ago where I studied and then worked for the Miss Sixty-brand for 5 years as a print designer. I got tired of people telling me what to do, how "fashion" should be made, and I'm also into D-I-Y so *I did some T-shirts, put them on Myspace they put them in Dazed & Confused etc etc...
Next winter a small collection will be available in shops all over the world "5-piece-wardrobe". That was the original idea but to do a collection you need cash and to get cah you need to print T-shirts. So 5preview is a preview of this other thing. The name 5-piece -wardrobe comes from the idea of the stylish french womens 4-5 piece wardrobe: each season they add 4-5 new pieces to their classic/basic wardrobe to make it perfect and trendy. I make these missing pieces.
-Once I discovered 5 Preview and the blog I was hooked, I scrolled through so many pages of the blog in one sitting. I saw you had a 'run in' or 2 with Chanel, how was that? scary? flattering? or just no big deal?
In the beginning it was scary because you don't want to meet in court with these people. Then I understood that they were just threatening (but still I didn' t want to provoke to much...) so I asked them that maybe they needed a new print-designer 'cause I thought they could sell a lot of T-shirts...and maybe they could tell Mr Lagerfeld about that and then I didn't hear anything else from them. You do understand that things are getting big when the lawyers of registered trademark Chanel write to you. Then 5preview got published in MUSE magazine and french Vogue and they wrote that the shirts were "Vintage Chanel" but it was our Cavour T-shirt. Whatever...
-On the other end of that spectrum, the 5 preview imposters seem to poppin up all the time. How is that for you?
Like people that are copying? In Italy right now it's crazy! I'm a little afraid of the lack of creativity in people. That's why 5preview became so big, because this kind of creativity was missing. Simplicity and irony. I moved back to Sweden where it's a more civilized climate. A little bit like what I found in SF last july, it was freezing cold and filled with interesting artists.
-Busta Rhymes??? How did that come about? Was he just a fan and hit you up for some tees?
Ahahah....When they did that photoshoot they asked if I wanted to come around to say Hi Wazzup but I was a little scared. I didn't know Busta Rhymes before (i'm more into punkrock) but my friends told me he's really innovative in hip-hop music (and best friend of Martha Stewart) and i got a little bit scared. He was just a friend of the photographer that is married to a friend of a girl that will make the distribution of 5preview in Taiwan. That's how it works in Williamsburg.
-Your tees and accessories are dope but you've also worked with other organizations, Weekday, Polipo, and A question of.... Is there anything you want people to know about whats coming up next for 5 Preview or just about the brand in general?
I'm a restless person and I want new things to happen all the time. Otherwise I get bored. I love doing collaborations. Right now I have another one going on with Elena Gallen, the girl that did the T-shirts with the Kate Moss face and the Bambi with 2 heads...Also the 5-piece-paper project is all about collaborations. I'm playing God and say: You take a picture of this famous person with a 5preview T-shirt on and You make an interview with the photographer and the famous person takes a picture of the journalist...you know, it's funny and you never know what the result will be. Maybe it will be crap, but I went the other day to see the new Harmony Korine film "Trash Humpers" and more crappy than that it will never be.
Thanks Emeli.
