Bless, the brand founded by Desiree Heiss and Ines Kaag, celebrated 25 years of trading on its own terms last year. It’s a major milestone for any brand, let alone an independent label operating between Paris and Berlin. To mark the occasion, the pair invited the more than 400 interns they’ve worked with (who change every three months) to celebrate. “That number was accumulated over many years,” said Heiss, wearing cat tapestry pants at the brand’s unmarked store in Paris. “My guess is that our oldest former intern is 69 and the youngest is 14, the age of our children, and they’re doing internships at school.” The latest Blessings bags represent different pages of the book.
Hayes and Kaag do not appear in its pages. The designers’ refusal to be photographed has not slowed them down, as evidenced by the Bless x Supreme collaboration for Fall 2023 and the Bless x Fendi collar at the Design Miami show. The latter includes a peek-a-boo bag from Bless alongside a tool that resembles an airline package. The brand’s collection of “denim-ified objects,” such as a denim-wrapped broom, is a great example of the designer’s focus on everyday life. Before the designer launched Bless, Martin Margiela used his “Every Style” wig made from vintage fur coats on the fall 1997 runway. Reuse and refactoring are pillars of Bless’s interdisciplinary practice. In Bless’s world, a chair works equally well with customizable shoes, double-waisted trousers (circa 2010), or a scarf cut from a toggle coat.
As you can imagine, Blass has a rather unconventional way of presenting its work. Hayes said the designer will turn the store into a small movie theater on October 1st, where people can buy slots (only 10 to 15) and watch the films in peace. They will also be displayed outside the store so people passing by can see them. The inspiration behind this was the film shown at MACRO last year. “We haven’t done a demo in a while and people keep contacting us asking if we would play all the videos because a new generation is interested in Blass, so that’s what we’re going to do now,” he explained. The brand gave Eskume Runway a sneak peek of a film that will be shown in Paris. Hayes also reflected on the brand’s origins and its latest projects.
Once upon a time…
“When we started, we were two fashion students… From the beginning we only knew that we didn’t want to do fashion shows, but that was really the only configuration. Then we started trying to define our vision of what life means as a fashion designer, having kids and this and that. We’ve evolved into this specific brand that now suits our needs, it’s a very personal model. The reason for this interest is that we work like artists – but we don’t consider ourselves artists, nor do we really consider ourselves designers, because we’re not the ones creating new volumes and shapes. And that; like we’re working with what we have, what’s around us, and we’re clearly defining each moment over and over again, we’re shaping the current generation in some way, and that feels really good; especially as we get older. Because we actively shape [things], we’re not in a group of complainers, that we can complain about.” But of course, we never reach a state of complete satisfaction even after 25 years of working together. We are like a couple, not divorced.
Sand clock and library
“I think the most interesting thing is our website; our whole archive is online, so people can actually find anything. You can click on any collection and you can see the first time we made a piece, the exhibitions and publications we held over the period. [The collection is numbered and stored] from the beginning. The latest series is 79, and it ends with 99, because that’s when we’ve actively curated the end or let it continue [without us], but how we establish our rhythm is completely in our hands. We can do three numbers a year and progress very quickly, or as we get bigger, we can decide to do just one number a year, we were really focused on, ‘Okay, we only have 20 numbers left, what else do we want to say,’ it’s not random, it’s like, ‘Let’s do another series.’
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
