Street style meets street art with Edwin

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New York serves as one of few fashion capitals of the world. With places like, Soho, Harlem, and Brooklyn’s very own Flatbush just a train ride away, there are colorful people around every corner. Edwin Morel, Rag & Bone stylist, writer, and student, uses New York as his inspiration for the very work that keeps him going every day, and keeps it all interesting.

Q: Fashion is obviously a huge part of your life, as a stylist, writer and just lover of fashion, how does fashion affect your creative process?

A: I use fashion as a catalyst for the things I do in my life. I use it as a source of energy, constantly finding inspiration through social media, published work, and my environment. Working in Soho and going to school in the Lower East Side has definitely changed my outlook on creativity, since I was raised in Corona, Queens.Edwin7

Q: Where do you draw your inspiration?

A: Inspiration is not something I necessarily “draw” from, but something that I just run into. It could be a 14-year-old kid rocking Yeezy’s with a vintage baseball cap, or the graffiti on the street sign on my block in Brooklyn; it just happens. One of my biggest inspiration is music though, especially hip-hop. I also get inspiration from the books I read. I fell like recognizing what my struggle is and reading about people who hone their struggles in words, helps me get motivated to ultimately find what my purpose is in the world.

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Q: How does hip-hip influence your creative process as well as your wardrobe?

A: I feel like style and hip-hop or sub categories to artistic freedom, serving as mediums of expression to channel individuality. Hip-hop serves as an outlet for a lot of the things I feel or think that I can’t necessarily say all the time. It’s aggressive and somewhat uncomfortably raw nature inspires me to let my style and my writing speak in the same tone. Rappers like Chance the Rapper, Kanye West, and Childish Gambino push the envelopes creatively. They don’t allow society to push their creative process, yet they push society to reflect their interpretations. That’s the way fashion should be. That is true creativity.

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Q: Do you feel as street wear has become mainstream? If you see it as a mainstream extension of the fashion industry, is it a positive or negative attribute?

A: Streetwear isn’t necessarily mainstream, it is just serves the current muse for the industry as a whole. If you look at it from a broader standpoint, streatwear influencers like Luka Sabbat and Virigil Abloh has changed the industry by creating an alternative industry that lives on the outskirts of the dominant industry (brands like Gucci, Coach, Balmain), eventually causing the mainstream to assimilate to the minority.

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Q: How do maintain your individuality within an industry that can easily cause someone to become a clone?

A: I think for me it’s just important for me to do things that I genuinely believe in. Once the love for something stops, the work I put into it, becomes mediocre. Fashion runs along the same lines. The moment I begin to make fashion choices based on society, I lose what makes it special for me.

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