California Dreaming With Eli Russell Linnetz

It comes from growing up in LA, around the movie business. My mom always made me watch musicals, classic stuff like West Side Story, and I was always really taken by the fantasy of that, the larger-than-life world on the screen. I’d also walk around my neighborhood seeing movies getting made, so, in a way, the fantasy seemed very obtainable—it’s just a bunch of people making something happen. Maybe that’s why I didn’t perceive a boundary between me and the people I wanted to learn from.

I’ve just always been super curious, always chasing new things. When I was in high school, I’d get up at 5 AM to go to wrestling practice before school, and then I’d stay until 10 PM because I was in the choir. If I wanted to do something, I’d do it. I’d find the time and energy, and I never worried about other people’s reactions, because my desire to explore was so strong, it kind of blocked out any sense of judgment or rejection.

I used to design costumes in high school, too, and that was my first real interest in making clothes. Freshman year, I looked up a list of top designers and made up a fake resume and sent it to people like Marc Jacobs and Tom Ford. Of course, no one replied, but it didn’t faze me. It was like, they’re doing their thing and I’m doing my thing. Sometimes I wish I was more like my younger self now.

Yeah, totally, and then a week later the whole Dior team is at my studio. [Laughs] I learned so much from Kim. He has such command of his ship—he really is a “director,” in that he’s directing thousands of people to execute his vision. And that entails knowing what you want but also being open. The way Kim works, it’s not egotistical, it’s all about the team. I was shocked by the amount of freedom he gave me. There was never a moment he said “no.”

Yeah, that Dior experience got me interested in tailoring and working in a more elevated way. I wanted to see what would happen if I took some of the color away and worked through hues like silver. It was so sober compared to what I normally do, so much cleaner. And because there were complicated suiting and couture-like embellishments, I had to let other people into the process. It was a whole undertaking. Normally, here in Venice, I’ll have one design assistant. For Pitti, it had to be a big team.

I’m 100% still a costume designer because everything I design is part of a story. For Pitti, it was this crazy idea I came up with: A hundred years from now, Florence is underwater and the city is occupied by the American military. These surfers show up one summer to surf and sneak into a fancy party given by one of the generals. I liked the idea of these surfers pretending to be rich for the night. The way they’d twist it, like wearing jackets backward. But I was also into the idea of, “What does ERL look like in a hundred years?” “What does nostalgia look like?” “What are we nostalgic for?”

Like I said, I watched a lot of musicals as a kid. That’s an aspect of nostalgia, too. I have this really 1950s idea of glamour. You’ve got to be a golden-age movie star to wear a suit. And someone I work with was like, “You know, normal people wear suits, too. Surfers wear suits sometimes.” I was already brainstorming the collection around Freaks and Geeks, back to high school and prom and jocks and nerds. After that conversation, the idea of this normal guy going to prom became the prompt. I’ll still be incorporating those couture elements—why can’t that be part of what a high schooler in my head wears to a dance in the ’90s?

It’s funny you bring that up. My dad literally just sent me this photo. I’m little and I’m wearing my baby blanket the exact same way I show them on the runway, clenched up around me. There’s something so human about that gesture. Everyone does it. Little kids, surfers who just got out of the water. Or if you’re just walking around your house with your duvet when it’s cold. It’s universal.

My all-time favorite collaboration is my blanket A$AP Rocky wore to the Met Gala. I’m always finding these horcruxes and odds and ends at the flea market. Rocky came to my studio to talk about his Met look and I jokingly pointed to the quilt on the sofa, suggesting he should just wear that. He was like, “Let’s do it.” He was so game. But I knew if it was going to be a Met Gala look, I had to find some way to make it my own, so I reached out to this artist, Zak Foster, who does quilting, and sent him a bunch of stuff like my dad’s old boxers, family heirlooms. That got incorporated into the underside of the quilt, which no one really got to see. But the reason I love it is there are so many layers of collaboration: Rocky, me and Zak, and me and the anonymous quilter who made this beautiful quilt originally. It’s like an endless conversation.

I’ll never get away from my Venice roots, the surfers and the streetwear—there would be no point running away from it. It will always come through my work.