What Happens When International Fashion Design And Music Intertwine Feat Emily Daccarett

In this episode Durell is joined by fashion designer and indie artist Emily Daccarett. Durell and Emily begin the episode talking about the beautiful intertwine that she has going with fashion design and music. She shares that she is originally from Kansas but raised in California. Emily talks about the fact that she is grateful to have a multi-cultural background being the fact that her family is from Honduras. Durell shares that he has had the opportunity to travel to six different countries and being able to put into perspective that even though America is going through alot right now with the pandemic and political divisiveness with the President we still have so much to be thankful for being born in this country.

Emily shares that her earliest memories of music being at 5 years old when her mom put her in dance class and she had her first recital. She talks about being nervous to perform at first but when the music came on she transferred that nervous energy somewhere else and was able to give a great performance being connected to the music. Emily and Durell both agree that music is something that is needed for a balanced life. Emily shares that she always knew fashion was also something she was passionate about and credits her mom because fashion was something that she also wanted to pursue but couldn’t due to the time and place she was in. Emily remembers her mother making clothes by hand for the both of them and her mom teaching her how to sew and then she would go and make outfits for her barbie dolls. She remembers watching Fashion Week on E Entertainment television and having a little sketchbook and trying to find how many of her designs that she could find on the runway. She knew that when it was time to decide what she wanted to do for college, fashion was what she wanted to do.

Emily decided to go to France to study fashion design. Durell and Emily both agree that as people of color they were both treated with so much respect during their time there. She studied and graduated from the Instituto Marangoni which allowed her to develop a different style aesthetic and overall design. Emily then enrolled into the prestigious Ecole De La Chambre Syndicale De La Coture Praisienne which had some very famous and well known designers as Alumni such as Saint Laurent, Valentino and Karl Lagerfield. Emily shares that she didn’t get a scholarship and she had to pay out of pocket because she was an international student. She said she was so thankful to her parents who believed in her dreams and were willing to support her during her time as a fashion student. She also shared that she was able to get paid internships because of the rules in France that any internship that’s at least three months must be paid. After graduating from school Emily shared that she worked on several fashion week projects for designers like Dior, Kenzo, & Alexander Wang to name a few.

Emily and Durell talk about the debut of her first collection in 2013 at L.A. Fashion Week at Concept. Emily shares that she left France to move to L.A. because she knew that she wasn’t simply just a designer but also an artist and she wanted to be able to have the freedom to express that in her own way. She shares that she reached out to Tiger House Films who she felt would align with her designs because of their unique storytelling. Emily said they loved her pitch and were excited because they never worked with a designer and were extremely excited to see what they could come up with. She then took the stills from the fashion film and reached out to the head of Concept to get on their roster. She shares the day of the fashion show so many things that she couldn’t plan for happened and that fashion press skipped the later show and showed up at her show which ultimately had some of the biggest names and fashion brands in attendance (Wo