London designer Olivia Rubin trained at Central Saint Martins, worked at Alexander McQueen, Dior and Galliano, then relaunched her own label from her dining table with a rainbow sequin skirt. Now she paints her prints by hand. Her clothes lift your mood before you walk out the door in the morning, and she has built a whole community around dressing in exciting vibrant colors. I am so happy she agreed to an interview with DomaChroma Magazine! Follow her on Instagram @oliviarubinlondon, and see everything she creates at www.oliviarubinlondon.com.
DomaChroma: What is your favorite color, and why?
Olivia Rubin: I get asked that question a lot and it will always depend on my mood. At the moment I’m going through a yellow phase. It really is like wearing pure sunshine. I am trying to encourage more people to wear yellow as I think people automatically think they cannot wear it but there is a shade of yellow for every skin tone.
DC: Olivia Rubin embodies color maximalist style. What do you especially love about living in full blown color every day all day?
OR: Wearing colour is genuinely an automatic mood lifter. That doesn’t mean I am dressed in head to toe rainbow every day. I often like mixing prints and silhouettes. Whether it be a printed coord or baggy jeans and a crop top, it has to be comfortable as well; I’m not interested in ‘flattering’.
DC: “Dopamine dressing” is practically your signature. What do you think color does for the women wearing your pieces?
OR: I started the Anti-Beige Club; a community for people who are done being dulled down by society, made to shrink by others, and generally want to celebrate being unapologetically themselves. Dopamine dressing is more than just clothes; it’s a form of expressionism and importantly creates a dialogue without speech.
DC: After McQueen, Dior, and Galliano, what made you go fully joyful and colorful with your own label?
OR: Experience was key to building my own aesthetic and learning the mechanics behind running a fashion brand. I was focused on print and surface design, and very much into exploring colour already at CSM. Working at a range of different designers helped me hone in on my signature, and gave me exposure to so many new ways of creativity, as well as the mechanics behind running a brand.
DC: How do you keep evolving your rainbow signature without losing what makes it yours?
OR: I am always thinking of new ideas and designs, it is the way my brain is programmed, 100s of thoughts a day. But I equally think it is vital to stay true to past designs I created. At my more sustainable pace I am currently revisiting past pieces and giving them a new lease of life.
DC: You hand-draw your prints and palettes! What inspires your art?
OR: The majority of my prints have always been hand drawn and then worked into Photoshop. Since I got back into painting more (well actually made more time for it) I’m much more into crafting and keeping the original paintings as prints with less work on the computer. I like this way of working; it feels more personable and intimate than going mass produced on computer screens.
DC: What’s your advice to young designers who are just starting their careers?
OR: I would say go for it! I accidentally started my brand with no plan, no funding; just an idea and a longing to create colourful clothes that made me feel like myself again post-partum. I believe that if a brand or business is born from a place of love and ambition then it will succeed in some way. Success looks very different to me now than it did 9 years ago and I’m in a much happier and mentally stable place.
