Tell me a bit more about where you’re based—your studio is here in Berlin, yes?
Luis: We’ve had a studio in Berlin for six months now, but we are actually from the countryside, six hours away, in Mechernich. It’s in the middle of fucking nowhere—like, the bus comes every two hours. There’s nothing to do, but I like it there. I like to be in nature. I don’t go out, I don’t do parties, I don’t do anything. I just like to design, and have my freedom.
I grew up there; my parents live there. I live in my studio. I had to find a studio, and there was this old building where I went when I was younger to play soccer, as there’s a soccer field nearby—I was like, One day I’ll have a studio there. When I turned 18 and left school, I rented a space there, and now we have four big studios in the building.
How do the three of you split up the work of running the label?
Luis: Mo helps with design and creative direction, and my big brother, Leon, does the management and the business side of the company. We have a shipper in Cologne, but we do everything else by ourselves: all the designing, the drawings, the technical specifications; we create all the shoots. The last collection was 50 looks—and we did everything. It’s not easy, because normally for this amount of work, you’d have a bigger team. People see the brand on social media, and….
Mo: It looks like a team of 20 people behind the label.
So, where are you sampling your collections?
Luis: We have a sampling room in Italy, so we’re not sewing the pieces. we have one good friend who lives in the next town, and he’s a good model, so we work with him every time.
Mo: Back when I joined Luis about three years ago, when he made pants or jackets it was always in a size L, because that’s what fit him. So he was our first fit model—he just went to the mirror and looked at the new piece he was wearing, and he’d be like, “Okay, it’s cool”—or not.