Patterns

I was in a market in Johannesburg and a woman walked past me in a coat with a lining so beautiful I almost asked to borrow it. That was a Tuesday. By Thursday I had a sketch.

That's how patterns happen for me.

Not in a studio. Not staring at a mood board. In a train car in Berlin noticing how the light hits old tile. In a museum in Paris standing too close to a tapestry until a guard tells me to back up. Walking through a botanical garden in Amsterdam thinking about what that would look like quilted.

I am a menace in any city with good architecture and a slow afternoon.

The BB SPOKE lining is never an afterthought. It's the punchline. The joke the coat tells when you open it. The teal floral quilted interior nobody sees until they do — and then they can't unsee it. The eagle print inside the hoodie hood. The Medusa sitting at chest height like she owns the place. She does.

My patterns come from everywhere. A matchbox I found in a hotel lobby. A tile pattern in a Bronzeville building that should be a UNESCO site but isn't. A bird I saw in Joburg that had no business being that colorful but clearly didn't care.

I travel. I look. I steal with my eyes. Then I put it on a coat.

Most designers think about what goes on the outside. I'm always thinking about what's inside. Ask any comedian. That's where the real work lives.