From Succession to Industry to Severance, culture\u2019s preoccupation with work narratives has been well-documented over the past few years. As it happens, none of these workplace dramas paint rosy pictures of office life, either \u2013 it\u2019s often the depiction of work\u2019s pervasive, sinister nature that seems to be drawing audiences in.<\/p>\n
The perils of work and labour have also been on the mind of Liv Masterson, the 26-year-old designer behind the emerging sustainable label Mortica Studios<\/a>. The brand\u2019s SS26 collection, Follow Suit, which debuts this week, explores the gamification of work. Taking inspiration from the aesthetics of New England, the collection combines the visual codes of both athletic wear (namely baseball) and business attire to make a statement about how work has become sports-like in nature. In the brand\u2019s own words, it\u2019s a meditation on \u201cthe state of our contemporary relationship to work, compliance, and the insatiable demand for performance in the American psyche\u201d.<\/p>\n Masterson, who started the brand as an upcycling project while in college and recently committed to the brand full-time, has been grappling with these themes for a decade. Every aspect of the collection, from the imagery to the materials, is informed by Masterson\u2019s preoccupation with labour. The title itself \u2013 Follow Suit \u2013 is taken from card play terminology, and describes a move in which a player plays the same card as the person before them. \u201cThe concept is not [about] villainising the person \u2018following suit\u2019, but more so confronting that it\u2019s really extreme, and hard to opt out of because it\u2019s so deeply ingrained,\u201d says Masterson.<\/p>\n Below, we spoke to the designer about creating the collection, finding inspiration and unpacking her own relationship to work. <\/p>\n What\u2019s your earliest fashion memory?\u00a0<\/p>\n Liv Masterson: Instead of counting sheep or reading before bed to fall asleep, I would create outfits in my head for the next day. It would be like the Clueless closet. I would just be mixing and matching. It was so fun, coming up with possible combinations in my head just to make myself fall asleep. Looking back, it makes sense that I\u2019m a designer, because now I\u2019m just designing the whole thing. But back then, I was visualising and styling just to pass the time.\u00a0<\/p>\n How would you describe the aesthetic of your brand?\u00a0<\/p>\n Liv Masterson: I would say it\u2019s subversive and deconstructionist. I think it\u2019s an avant-garde ready-to-wear with a focus on artisanal craftsmanship.<\/p>\n What was the inspiration behind this latest collection, Follow Suit?\u00a0<\/p>\n Liv Masterson: Follow Suit is an exploration of our relationship to work, wealth and identity. It explores uniform in the context of both sport and work as these dress codes for high-performance labour. In our language for those two contexts, there\u2019s a lot of overlap in terms of optimisation and efficiency. Specifically in sport, I was looking at baseball, which is known as America\u2019s pastime. I was thinking about how, today, we\u2019re forced to spend most of our time working, and about how the golden era of baseball was parallel to that of Wall Street. The more I got into my research, the more it was this really captivating tunnel that led to more intersections of the two contexts. I was thinking about this golden era \u2013 especially this post-World War II, finance, greed, era of the 1980s \u2013 and about baseball as vignettes of the American dream; its origination, and also now, its brokenness, and the grief within that.\u00a0<\/p>\n What did some of the crossovers look like?\u00a0<\/p>\n Liv Masterson: The original baseball uniforms were wool pinstripe suiting, which is also the same as many classic business suits. And so, most of the collection is made from deadstock pinstripe wool suiting fabric. Also, with the baseball field being kind of this diamond shape, and Argyle being a very classic prep structure, I found that there were so many overlaid motifs and iconography between the two.\u00a0<\/p>\n Where do you think your interest in this tension comes from \u2013 the interest in exploring work and wealth in your designs?\u00a0<\/p>\n Liv Masterson: Part of it was just me being an artist and struggling with the reality of trying to balance being an artist full-time and working. But I think ultimately, what was most formative was that growing up, my dad taught at this prep school, which I went to for high school, and attended since I was, like, 12. I\u2019m entirely grateful for the education, and it was a great experience overall, but it was a very interesting position, because I was being placed in an environment of really extreme wealth and was very proximate to it, but also not really a part of it, kind of feeling alien from it and just observing. A lot of the kids had parents on Wall Street. It was the epitome of, \u201cthere\u2019s a path before you that you should follow\u201d. But it felt very stripped from a lot of the beauty of humanity as well.<\/p>\n I am constantly working, and I think that it\u2019s ironic because part of the narrative for the collection is that we are sacrificing a lot of our lives and humanity to work \u2013 Liv Masterson<\/p>\n After growing up in that environment, studying textiles at Rhode Island School of Design and then moving to New York, what would you say your own relationship to work is now?<\/p>\n Liv Masterson: I confront it a lot. There\u2019s a lot of irony in it, because I care so deeply about my work, my craft and my art. I am constantly working, and I think that it\u2019s ironic because part of the narrative for the collection is that we are sacrificing a lot of our lives and humanity to work. But also, my own work, and this work, is also a huge part of my life; it\u2019s a part of what drives me. When I first developed this idea, I was working in a much more corporate job in fashion. It was like a study of corporate America. That was a very interesting experience just to be able to observe almost as research for this. But it was also this really frustrating time because I really wanted to devote more time to my brand, yet I also needed to work to be able to make ends meet. And so, it\u2019s just a constant navigation of it.<\/p>\n