“My soul is imprinted with 1972,” says designer Adam Arnold. “I feel like rather than a certain aspect of the ’60s and ’70s, it’s more about embodying that period of time to just do your thing. You mix all that and magically, it turns into clothes.”
Arnold began making pop-up books, putting on plays and designing clothes when he was a child “living in the woods” in southwest Washington. He couldn’t wait to flee the Pacific Northwest and landed at the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandise in San Francisco.
Immersing himself in old photos and magazines, Arnold describes his aesthetic as “anachronistic,” a synthesis of the past, present and future. “The future will look familiar—maybe more familiar, but there will be something different about it,” he says.
Though his whims change every few years, Arnold currently has a “crush” on wool. Wool fits nicely into his synthesis of past and present as fabric that is timeless yet modern.
“My whole design career is run purely by intuition,” he observes, “from having an idea, designing it, making it, and when it’s done, getting that complete feeling of satisfaction.