We met in Barcelona, in June 2013. We made T-shirts for ourselves while being poor students in a fancy fashion school, and friends started to ask us to make some for them; one thing lead to another, and we made a mini sample sale of 30 garments. We didn’t have a name for it or a label, but everything sold out and we got more orders. From there, we named it UY, without imagining that it would become an actual brand. After a while, we noticed that there was demand and we got a lot of support from our amazing surroundings. After two months, we decided to move to Berlin.

UY is a lifestyle, it represents our agenda for living. Fashion is one of its expressions. Our aim is not to be the most futuristic and unique fashion label ever – our aim is to translate our ideas into real life, in every kind of sense: an art project, home décor, video and music... If we don’t have the tools to make our ideas come true, we collaborate with people we find inspiring, and who share our way of seeing beauty. UY is not following the rules of fashion, as we don’t feel we fit in that square.

Advantage on the one hand; because the feeling of being in a trap in-between the fashion rules and trends can very blocking for the inspiration, it makes it difficult to focus in what we really like to make, the things that come out are not as real, they don't feel like us.
But it's also a challenge, as we have to surprise people, and to prove that our say is strong enough without following the latest fashion trends.

You are genderless, you are timeless, you don’t label yourself as anything. You are colourless, you are confident; you do whatever the fuck you want to do. You live the life you want to live in a modern era.

From a rockstar to a homeless, from the red carpet to a funeral – black fits them all. The decision of choosing black as the main element of UY came out of the combination of our cultures, Scandinavia with the Middle East. We've both been wearing black for many years and we feel it totally reflects our background, yet keeping the modernity aspect.

We believe that fashion right now is boring. We believe that the humans are too broad and too smart to truly enjoy a normal catwalk or a normal lookbook. Therefore, we are involving the art into our fashion world, and trying to make it as interesting as possible. From dance performance to artistic photography, music and installation, we are enjoying it even more than the creation of the garments itself! People seem to be appreciating it more, and so do we. We are very lucky to be surrounded by such an amazing, talented crew of people from all around the world.

In one word: techno.

For us, Berlin is a constant source of inspiration. The people, the vibes, the freedom, the acceptance of the other… To be broke is casual and cool, and being weird will attract more people near you. That's where we like to create, in a place where the individuality and the uniqueness are ruling. In the future, we want to expand to other cities, but we know it won’t be the same as here. Sadly, we know that the world is not working as it does here – but we will try to follow this direction and take it to as many other places as we can.

To be honest, we are a bit clueless about others here in the city. We are so into our world that we are bit outsiders, in that aspect. Our social life is based on dinners at our studio, and once every few weeks, Sundays at Berghain.

We have a lot of plans for the upcoming spring/summer season, a capsule collection and some colours are about to come. Hopefully, we will have our new studio by June. Wait and see!