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At any rate, life’s transforming experiences can act as the mold to shape art inspired by the creativity and journey of the artist. Like a caterpillar in a cocoon, life’s moments can metamorphose the artist into a butterfly, creating a renewing effect. Often inspired by the elements of nature, fashion designer Sienna Graham is the driving force behind her brand Sienna Iman. The womenswear brand is infused with a sense of feminine cool that remains balanced. I had the opportunity to speak with the emerging designer as we talked about her debut NYFW show, her point of view as a designer, and her journey as a creative.
Lauren: “Tell me about your brand Sienna Iman.”
Sienna: “It is a brand that I started here in Brooklyn. It’s a women’s wear brand, but I say that anything can be genderless. It’s a high-end contemporary brand and everything’s made to order. It’s a brand that I started – to put out into the world what I wanted to see. I’ve always been interested in fashion and design. I feel like I have a point of view, so I really just wanted to start my own brand. I feel like the pieces I create are wearable but still really artful. I like to create pieces that have interesting silhouettes but can still be worn by a girl who’s on the go or in the fashion and arts scene.”
Lauren: “You mentioned you created a brand to put out what you’d like to see in the world of fashion. What would you say your point of view is as a designer and who is your muse?”
Sienna: “My muse is myself. It is girls that look like me. It’s you know, the strong really beautiful black women that I grew up around and that raised me. I really want to create pieces that make people feel really beautiful, confident, and badass. Like they could, you know, take on whatever. Also, I want to create pieces that they can go about their day and do all the things in. I want to make pieces that make them feel magical and cool. I want to make pieces that reflect how I see a lot of us.”
Lauren: “How would you describe your brand?”
Sienna: “I would say effortlessly cool and edgy. I like to say that I’m mixing the masculine and feminine like not necessarily in an androgynous way, but I like to mix those elements together.”
Lauren: “I watched your Spring ‘24 collection through Flying Solo during New York Fashion Week, online. I feel that the collection exudes what you said, a balance of edginess yet feminine. What was your inspiration specifically behind the collection?”
Sienna: “This specific collection was inspired by the process of butterflies and being in their cocoons. Basically, it’s a pretty direct influence of the transformation of that. So I did a lot of research and [collected] a lot of inspirational photos. It’s a lot of layering and a lot of organic kind of shapes, and mixing these different textures. It’s a little matte, it’s a little metallic. It’s things that you see in nature anyway, and mixing of these different textures. You’ll see in the collection a lot of pinning and tucking of certain things to create these really interesting shapes and a lot of layering. I also included a lot of these little jewels like little crystals in my collection. Because I was inspired by little dew drops in nature. I’m a city girl, so I’m influenced by that but I want to bring a little bit of my inspiration from nature into that too.”
Lauren: “You mentioned that the inspiration behind the collection is essentially transformation. With being an emerging designer what was the transition like of starting your own brand?”
Sienna: “Honestly, I feel like I’m always evolving and transforming through different experiences. My brand is a couple years old, but I’ve been in the industry for a bit longer than that. I think a big transformation for me was what moved me on to create my own brand because I just wanted to create things that I like to create just for the sake of creating basically and not really listen to what’s necessarily like the trend and things like that. I feel like creatives, a lot of times can get really burnt out when we’re not just doing it for ourselves because you can get so caught up doing things for everyone else and doing things that you think will be popular. I started being happier with what I was creating when I really got back to the root of why I like creating. When I was doing this collection I had just gone through a very transformative experience just like personally too, so I think that definitely influenced me to move in this direction for this specific collection.”
Lauren: “How has working in the fashion industry prepared you for running your own brand?“
Sienna: “What’s prepared me is that I’ve done a few things within the industry. So I feel like that’s helped make me more well-rounded and given me a lot of different perspectives that I can use and a lot of different skill sets. I’ve worked for people as a designer, I’ve done styling, I’ve worked in product development and production. So I feel like it’s giving me all these different skill sets that have helped me to be more well-rounded and kind of just like being able to do anything. For my brand, I can create a piece from scratch. I’m doing the sketching, sewing, and pattern making. So it helps me to really develop my skills there.”
Lauren: “Going more into your background, tell me about how you got introduced to fashion?”
Sienna: “I have pretty much always been into fashion and in the arts. I’ve always been surrounded by creatives in my family or people who did things like that in nature. My grandmother was a costume design teacher. So I learned at a very young age how to sew. I remember being like 5 years old, and sitting on her lap while she was pressing the presser footer under the table and I’m like helping her sew on this machine. That was my first experience really learning how to sew and I just really loved it. I went to a Performing Arts, middle school and high school. My aunt has worked in the fashion industry too for some time. So I was just really surrounded by it. My mom is a teacher but she’s always been like this really amazing artist, so I was just always surrounded by it, and being supported in it throughout my childhood definitely helped me to become this.”
Lauren: “What’s next for Sienna Iman that you’d like to share?”
Sienna: “I’d like to be in another Fashion Week show. I’m really trying to grow my brand and get more eyes on it. My NYFW show was actually my first show in New York Fashion Week, so that was really cool. So I definitely want to do that again. I’m aiming to elevate the brand. There are things that I do that aren’t necessarily fashion but I do creatively that I want to be a part of the brand and the brand identity, like working with music artists and incorporating some of my art into the brand. More so, I want to articulate the muse and the vision for the brand. I want to be a household name. I want people to recognize my stuff on the street. So I really want to hone in on you know, creating this identity and getting more eyes on it. There’s a lot coming up that I’m excited for people to see.”
Lauren: “What new projects are you working on that you’d like to share a little bit about?”
Sienna: “I am working on a new collection to show and I’m working on some more capsule pieces that I can release outside of the fashion calendar. I am definitely working on a new collection for next year. It’s really really cool so far, so I’m excited.”
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