Texas-born Myah Hasbany just finished their final year at Central Saint Martins, and they‘re already making their mark in the fashion world. The young designer was the winner of this year’s L’Oréal prize at the CSM graduate show, establishing their status as one to watch. They’ve also been working with Erykah Badu for a few years now (having met randomly at their high school where Badu – an alumnus – went to audition for dancers) – they dressed her in the viral “booty suit” for the Billboard Awards, where Badu won Icon of the Year.
Hasbany’s work is cemented in breaking boundaries (both literally and metaphorically): their designs often explore themes of gender, body dysmorphia (and UFOs) via crochet and knitwear-work, building structural pieces that revolve around proportions. Their artistry is next level.
Through our recent interview series of CSM graduates (check out our interviews with Ayham Hassan, Joshua Cornwell, Haseeb Hassan, and Seoyoun Shin), we got to chat with Myah about their UFO-inspired graduate collection, their beaded penis embroideries, and the ass cheeks on Erykah Badu’s booty suit.
What was the inspiration behind your graduate collection?
“The collection was based off of this somewhat true story of a UFO crash that happened in a small town of Texas, I thought it was a really good allegory of sort of how the South treats anyone that’s different from the status quo. Sort of my experience growing up there as a queer person, it sometimes felt like an alien who crash-landed in Texas a little bit.”
What was your favourite piece from the collection?
“This piece was my biggest labour of love, it was somewhere around 300,000 beads in total, and I worked on it for over a year. I was super lucky to have a bunch of helpers that came and just like beaded for hours with me. We beaded penises on the back, but they’re shooting like beaded splooge which is really funny to me. Also, because people say my work looks like d*cks all the time, so I was also trying to make a joke out of that.”
What was on your mood board?
“For my mood boards I sort of wanted to imagine the government trying ot come in and clean up this crash and cover it up and so I structured each sketchbook to almost be like a case file so like what would be in their bedroom or their office or their home. And it was also amazing, while I was researching, the US government declassified like thousands of UFO documents like my paper was actually declassified government documents.”
Congrats on your L’Oréal prize!
“I’m honestly shocked I won, I’m honestly still shocked that people like it to be honest with you, because I fuck with it’s because I’ve looked at it for so long. I don’t know if it was like ‘good’ or people liked it was like really far from like anything that I was thinking about. It was amazing, and I’m super happy and thankful, but I’m still shocked that people like it this much. So, I guess, thank you, thank you for that.”
Talk to us about the suit you made for Erykah Badu.
“It has boobs. She called me afterwards and I was like you know that you can make them twerk and she was like: ‘oh, I didn’t know that I was doing that,’ and people were like screaming’”
What’s your favourite small detail in your collection?
“My favourite detail that no one would notice except from me is on these two sweaters that I made I wanted them to be referential of the 1947 Dior Bar jacket – albeit it looking just like a normal cardigan, inside there’s like bias binding, and I think it’s kind of speaking to the alienness of this collection.”
What’s one thing you want people to know about you?
“One thing I would probably want people to know is that it’s just me here, just me guys, so when you email me, it’s just me, there’s no one else here. So please be nice to me.”
What’s next?
“I think I’d like to just keep doing what I’m doing to make it more accessible and make pieces that have the same energy but are something you can wear every day.”
Featured images Myah Hasbany©
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