I was working as a stylist and needed some accessories for a shooting, so I made myself some wild stitched leather cuffs. Everyone on the set was hooked up. We got orders and Kai helped sewing about nine hundred pieces for our first Starstyling wholesale order ever. Then, a crazy journey followed. We sent samples of these cuffs to Colette and Dutch, and both reacted. A friend of mine had a showroom, he was our agent at the time and asked us if we could do T-shirts with prints. We did because Kai had learnt how to do screen-print before.
The next agent asked if we could do collections, so we did too, but the first patterns were awful (laughs). Then, we opened our first shop in 2003. Shop floor in the front, studio in the back, all handmade. Berlin times! Now, we are dealing with business and sometimes feel lost in professionalism. Dealing with employees, contributors, money, expectations, responsibility, etc. makes it feel more like real work and less fun and money. We still aren’t a big commercial business, we’re always a little bit on a side, which is outstanding and obstructive at the same time.