by Lorelei Marfil
Elizabeth in the Pop-Up Shop
Wanderlust, a popular shopping hotspot in Cambodia set foot in Williamsburg, Brooklyn with its first pop-up shop. From cool retro Cambodian pop music to Wanderlust staples, shoppers experienced a little taste of Southeast Asian culture. No passport required!
Before setting up shop in Siem Riep, Cambodia, the store’s owner, Elizabeth Kiester, made her mark in fashion. A former fashion director and editor for magazines like YM, Jane and Marie Claire, she was tapped to be the global trend/concept director for Abercrombie and Fitch and then the global creative director for LeSportsac where she developed the Stella McCartney for LeSportsac collaboration.
Her fashion credentials also include a stylist and brand consultant to brands like BCBG Max Azria, Gap and J. Crew. We asked Keister about her daily routine, her career in fashion and what’s on her inspiration board. Here’s what she had to say.
Blush: Take us through a day in the life of Elizabeth Kiester.
Elizabeth Kiester: Cambodia is a land of opportunities–it’s a big, wide open world there–but you must remember that this country has suffered through decades of wars, strife and serious hardships and is just getting back on their collective feet. So everything is new, never been done before, an awakening, which is extraordinary and illuminating and thrilling but can also present enormous challenges and obstacles us westerners never ever could anticipate. So every day is a brand new day for me–no routines, no lunch at 1pm, no real plan. I have learned–and still am–how to be nimble, patient and reactive. You can’t be proactive, necessarily! There are days when we have power outages for no explainable reason, days when I cannot navigate through the language or cultural barriers and have to start all over again. And we are a very small team, so we all do everything. No divas, no ‘that’s not my job.’ One minute I am training my shop girls on new styles and how to wear them, and one second later I am writing copy for the website, and in a flash I am reviewing fabrics and buttons and then I find myself in a tuk-tuk going out to see the new scarves that are being woven 10k away in the middle of the rice paddy only to come back and start packing boxes to be shipped for the U.S. The phone never stops ringing, the inbox is never empty. I work at minimum six days a week, at least 12 hours a day. I am trying to give myself Sundays off, to sit by the pool at my friend’s glorious boutique hotel and regroup and refresh! But this is what it’s like owning and starting your own business. You do it all.
BM: Take us through your illustrious fashion career.
Selections from Wanderlust's Pop-Up Store
EK: In the late ’80s, I got very, very lucky and landed a job as an assistant at Mademoiselle magazine, and while I was extremely intimidated, I am also a voracious learner, and absorbed everything I could very quickly. I later became known as the “fashion encyclopedia” because I really studied and read and listened to everyone and everything, and absorbed all of this info! From there, I moved around to a lot of amazing magazines, and got the extraordinary opportunity to work on the launches of two phenomenal and influential magazines–Marie Claire and JANE. Working at JANE was really one of the highlights of my career–I actually tap into that experience often now at Wanderlust, because there, we had a very small launch staff and we were empowered–and it was essential!–that regardless of your title, you pitch in and do everything. I recall delivering samples to showrooms myself because we had no messenger service, and technically, I was a senior fashion editor! But I didn’t care! It was amazing to participate in every corner of that magazine and help develop its voice and vibe in a 360 degree way. And Jane Pratt herself helped me find my own personal voice, my own personal fashion perspective and encouraged me to let it grow and develop. It was awesome. After a long time in mags, I jumped to the other side of the fence, and became the global trend/concept director for Abercrombie & Fitch, and led the women’s team to tap into burgeoning trends and ideas and concepts. I traveled extensively and loved the search, the hunt I was doing all over the world. From there, I became the global creative director for LeSportsac, and developed the Stella McCartney for LeSportsac collaboration, and that was amazing and so much fun, and Stella was incredible and so inspiring. and now, here I am.
BM: What inspires you and what is on your inspiration board?
EK: My inspiration board is a hodgepodge of dark and moody things and bright and sunny things! I love words, I love typography, I love graphic design, I love strength in messages–messages of both words and non verbal messages of feelings and emotions. I am in love with the work of sister Corita Kent–she is absolutely the most inspiring artist I’ve ever seen and her work can drive me to tears!; I find the strength of sharpness of marrimekko prints and patterns astonishing and moving; the passion of color usage from people like Mark Rothko and Yves Klein; the graphic designer David Carson; fashion photographers like Tim Walker, who kills me with his incredible whimsy and sprit and love of the extraordinary; to war photographers like James Natchwey, Robert Capa and Larry Burrows for their courageous grace and ability to find art in the darkness. it sounds corny, but Cambodia inspires me–the blazing sunsets, the bougainvillea growing everywhere, the energetic colors of the Buddhist robes and the spices and the foliage and the paddies. Travel inspires me and fuels me and gets me moving inside!
Get your own taste of Wanderlust:
May 7-16, from 11am-8pm
439 Metropolitan Avenue, Brooklyn, New York.
Visit wanderlustcambodia.com
Follow Elizabeth Kiester on Twitter @wanderlustbodge
http://twitter.com/wanderlustbodge
Become a fan on Facebook!
See Elizabeth Kiester’s Closet!
Lorelei Marfil is an editor and style maven based in New York City and is the creative force behind InsideMyCloset.
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Great post! Would love to check it out!
Hi there, just doing some browsing for my BCBG site. Can’t believe the amount of information out there. Not quite what i was looking for, but good site. Cya later.