Are you bored with conventional clothes and fed up with fast fashion? Would you like to add something unique, special, and handmade to your wardrobe? Check out these custom kilts and more by Abogfynn Studios!

Custom Kilts and More By Abogfynn Studios

How I discovered Faes

I wish I could tell you that I discovered Faes in an emerald forest, enveloped in the surround sound of bird songs and captivated by the mysteries of mushroom magic. But, the truth is, I found him on Facebook through a mutual friend who shared his work. The encounter may have been digital, but that didn’t make it any less magical.

Faes’ work is enchanting, and when I saw it, I knew I wanted to feature him. Faes was kind enough to give us a peek into the mind behind his art, and the responses to my interview questions are touching, beautiful, and inspiring.

Intro

My name is Faes pronounced as Fayes. I joke that I am the plural of the plural of faery.

I was born in and spent my first 20 years in Portland Oregon and the other 20 years of my life traveling and exploring and meeting amazing people everywhere I can. From hitchhiking across the United States to driving my bus from one rainbow gathering to another, amazing communities and festivals along the way.

Life has been a magical adventure punctuated with mystical people and experiences. Driven by my search for community and desire to learn and teach all the creative endeavors I can find.

How Long Have You Been Making Clothes and Accessories?

I’ve been working with leather for almost 20 years and making clothes for 12 years.

What Inspired You to Create?

I’ve always been creating. I feel like I’ve always had a drive and been excited to make things.

From some of my earliest memories with my mom making noodles, with her and my grandma always making things to decorate for every season and holiday of the year, and people around me always making crafts, food, etc.

My other grandma on my dad’s side was creating the impossible all the time. Things that seemed complicated and that she could seemingly pull out of thin air but she made things like signs, tables, things with motors, things that would shine colour through fibre optic strands. Butterflies that would light up and change colors inlaid in an in table she fabricated from scratch. Making each component herself.

If I was bored she would ask me to draw something and we would make it together, like anything! She was and is one of my biggest inspirations. She taught me that with innovation, imagination, and determination anything in this life is possible.

What Continues to Inspire You?

Everywhere I look in nature I see art. I think, how can you not be inspired by the trees, the way they stretch and move and grow and make us sweet oxygen? or the way a raven moves its wings and the sound that is created by such kinetic beauty.

What definitely inspires me is all the cold, desolate ugliness and grey wash I see in the modern world. The vast endless expanses of concrete and rigid boxy structures, the cages we choose to live our lives in.

And the art, the art conspires and transpires to transform that all into brilliant and vivid color, joy, and emotion; These expressions of our interpretation of our divine spirit coming out of us. A simple tool to make our life easier or something beautiful to look at in a landscape that doesn’t exist.

It makes the world bearable, breathable even. A way to work through the disdain for modern capitalism and a direct protest against the conformity that governance is pushing on us. It’s freedom itself, in the same way, that planting a seed is the strongest way you can rise against and push back against the machine and towards being one with the harmony of existence instead of trying to hold dominion over everything and every resource.

What is Your Favorite Thing About Making Wearable Art?

I love that the right outfit or piece of clothing can completely transform someone. Not in a physical way but in the way they exude the essence of their being and present themselves to the world.

Seeing people at festivals who would come to the booth with a certain attitude or sadness would put on the outfit and completely change, light up, and literally shine.

Especially for men, we’ve been given a pretty strict dress code, and other men will put you down and make comments trying to tear your spirit down for any stray from the mundane, And for what? I never understood these masculinity games.

I was already trying to break free, get out of the dress code and all the clothes I wanted to wear were costumes and poorly made. What I wanted to wear was fantastical, mythical adventure gear that lasted through my hard lifestyle and the entropy of time.

Once I learned how to make clothes I could alter anything. I had unlocked a superpower! I’d find things I like, then rip them apart and replace them with quality materials instead of planned obsolescence.

What Are Some of the Challenges of Making Art?

Art on demand is the most challenging.

When there’s freedom and excitement and ideas flowing I can lose myself in what I call creative psychosis. Time doesn’t exist, I can transcend and I have a direct link to some creative divine spirit that’s inhabiting my body. But sometimes that can get lost when I get better at something, like when I make something that is so amazing I can’t believe I created it. And later when I want to reproduce the same product it’s rigid, there is an order of operations, a formula and it doesn’t feel the same. It needs to be done just as well if not better; the play is gone and it’s just work. It can be arduous, but so damn worth it when you push through your own restraints.

What Makes Your Clothes Eco-Friendly?

My clothes journey started as an actual basic need from a lack of resources and a reaction/response to planned obsolescence.

Then as I delved further into the fashion industry I learned the horrors of fast fashion and what it does to communities and the environment and it became political for me, like a mission and I used post-consumer upcycled materials. Taking discarded items from free boxes, bags left behind in thrift stores, sheets, blankets, and patchworking things to be able to have enough fabric to make something.

I made kilts out of tablecloths, Frock coats, and pirate jackets made from old comforters, ugly curtains or drapes turned into vests, skirts, and kilts. I’ve made so many belts and backpacks from Danner boot scrap from the factory or old couches on the side of the road. I use natural wool as much as I can. I am always at a thrift store looking at blankets, sheets, duvets, clothes, etc.

Everything has potential in my world to be upcycled or turned into something new. I always say nothing in my life stays stock for long, everything ends up custom. For some of my kilts, I use a fabric that’s a 60/40 poly/cotton blend because 40% is made from organic cotton and 60% is made from recycled plastic bottles which is the same weight and material blend as some of the bigger named companies creating kilts but not having the same impact on the environment.

Leather is an amazing medium to work with but I don’t agree with the practices of cattle farms and how the animals are treated. I don’t believe in the ways things are chemically tanned but if we’re killing those animals for food we’ve got to use them for leather.

Vegan is, in my opinion, when used to explain textiles in the fashion industry is telling you that a product is made of plastic and lots of emissions have been used and it’s not sustainable.

Interestingly enough, leather when tanned and cared for properly is the longer-lasting option. By a long shot. I have a backpack that I made 10 years ago that has traveled the world with me. Made from patchworked Danner boot scrap and other tidbits I collected from trading with creatures in the woods at gatherings and found along the way. it is holding up and aging so well and only now on its 10th anniversary am I even thinking about upgrading some things. It’s absolutely solid after all these years.

I wish I could afford to have all of my fabrics sourced from sustainable places but the reality is it’s cheaper to buy the clothes from the store than it is to just buy the fabric to make what you want to wear. And that’s just for a basic outfit, not sustainable/eco-friendly wear.

If there is any title I could take in this life I would call myself a creative instigator. When everywhere you go you turn life into art it is absolutely contagious and creates a more beautiful, interesting, and fun life experience for us all.