Par­a­digme Mode was found­ed upon a string of real­iza­tions. These real­iza­tions came slow­ly yet force­ful­ly, as if what had been a slight­ly blur­ry image of real­i­ty was at once vibrant­ly clear. This clear image which I now see, the real truth of the fash­ion indus­try, is com­mu­ni­cat­ing one thing: an urgent need for change.

“Art imitates art in all facets.”

The sto­ry starts with a love for art, as many great sto­ries do. Music and fash­ion have always been my two great­est pas­sions, and I feel that they influ­ence and affect one anoth­er great­ly. Art imi­tates art in all facets. It was this love for art and cre­ativ­i­ty that first led me to Par­sons school of Design in New York City in 2016. It was also here that the blur­ry image first began to clear.

Dur­ing my time at Par­sons, I began to uncov­er the secrets that the fash­ion indus­try hides in the shad­ows. The harsh truths hid­den in coun­tries far from our con­sumer bub­bles, where pol­lu­tion, mis­treat­ment, and dehu­man­iza­tion fes­ter on and on, large­ly over­looked. These were the glimpses into real­i­ty that first root­ed in me the desire to make a change.

Short­ly after my time at Parson’s, I relo­cat­ed to Lon­don where I con­tin­ued my edu­ca­tion at Cen­tral Saint Mar­tins in the areas of pho­tog­ra­phy and cre­ative direc­tion. As I was deeply pas­sion­ate about sus­tain­abil­i­ty, for my final project I want­ed to find a way to pro­duce fab­ric from recy­cled bot­tles. After count­less weeks of research and gath­er­ing of mate­ri­als, I had every­thing ready, but was dis­ap­point­ed by how dif­fi­cult the final step– the actu­al man­u­fac­tur­ing of the col­lec­tion– tru­ly was.

My dream post-stud­ies had always been to launch my own brand, as was the dream of many of my fel­low stu­dents, but we all quick­ly dis­cov­ered that we lacked the kind of mon­ey and con­nec­tions it took to make this dream a real­i­ty. That was anoth­er part of the blur­ry image that became clear to me– the seem­ing­ly insur­mount­able obsta­cles that stood between a creator’s vision and the actu­al mate­r­i­al fruition of it. Some­thing many peo­ple out­side the indus­try may be unaware of.

With my dream of launch­ing a brand on the back burn­er, I instead accept­ed a job at Indi­tex, where I fes­tered uncom­fort­ably for almost two years, know­ing that my visions for a more sus­tain­able future were being wast­ed. How­ev­er, my options seemed lim­it­ed. I had so many ideas, so much pas­sion and knowl­edge and con­vic­tion to change the indus­try, but I still faced the daunt­ing bar­ri­ers that stood in front of all young cre­ators.

That was when my dream began to change.

I won­dered if there could be a way to rip away these bar­ri­ers. There were so many bright young cre­ators out there like myself who want­ed to make a dif­fer­ence, and yet, the ones who actu­al­ly had access to the indus­try were only seem­ing to pol­lute and cor­rupt it all the more. We need­ed a way for these reform-seek­ing vision­ar­ies to bring their cre­ations into the world. I was over­whelmed by the con­vic­tion that some­one need­ed to make a way.

The blur­ry pic­ture in that moment became vibrant­ly clear. The indus­try didn’t need sim­ply anoth­er sus­tain­able cre­ator, they need­ed some­one to rip down these bar­ri­ers, some­one to pave a new road to acces­si­bil­i­ty in fash­ion, to not only pro­vide a space for those who were dis­ap­point­ed in the indus­try but oppor­tu­ni­ty for those who sought to change it.

 “We have to do this.
We have to change the industry.”

I took a trip through the north of France with a mutu­al friend– Guil­laume Lelasseur, and I shared these goals with him, many con­vic­tions which he shared as well. It was there, in Rouen, where Guil­laume first turned to me and said: “we have to do this. We have to change the indus­try.”

It all sort of fell togeth­er. Guil­laume and I com­ple­ment­ed each oth­er well, shared many of the same visions and pas­sions, and yet brought diverse skillsets to the table. In a way you could say it was des­tiny. That was the trip that gave birth to Par­a­digme Mode.

Par•a•digm; Noun:  

1. An out­stand­ing­ly clear exam­ple or arche­type.

It felt fit­ting. The Mer­ri­am Web­ster Eng­lish Dic­tio­nary defines a par­a­digm as “an out­stand­ing­ly clear exam­ple or arche­type.” In the midst of bro­ken­ness, chaos or con­fu­sion, a par­a­digm emerges to shift the nar­ra­tive. To prove that all hope is not lost. To offer a glimpse of light in a time when light is des­per­ate­ly need­ed.

Our intentions are clear:

To estab­lish a new par­a­digm in the fash­ion indus­try by sim­pli­fy­ing the process of sus­tain­able pro­duc­tion for cre­ators across the world. We will achieve this through the dual­i­ty of our two cre­ative enti­ties: Par­a­digme Mode Stu­dio and Par­a­digme Mag­a­zine (today rebrand­ed as VISION MODE).

Through Par­a­digme Mode Stu­dio, we offer guid­ance and resources to flour­ish­ing fash­ion brands with­in any stage of their devel­op­ment by pro­vid­ing a vari­ety of ser­vices, includ­ing mar­ket­ing, pho­tog­ra­phy, web design, con­sult­ing, and man­u­fac­tur­ing.

Par­a­digme Mag­a­zine (today rebrand­ed as VISION MODE) was estab­lished in sup­port of these process­es, as a safe space and relief from the con­stant noise around fash­ion con­sumers. We hope that those who are dis­ap­point­ed in the indus­try can turn to this com­mu­ni­ty and trust that change is com­ing. Take our words as inspi­ra­tion, edu­ca­tion, relief, and com­fort. We har­bor a move­ment with­in these pages.

“We are living in a time where we need to make a choice, and half of  humanity has not done it yet.”

− Vivi­enne West­wood

This is our choice. This is our com­mit­ment to do bet­ter, and be bet­ter, because our earth, fel­low human beings and future gen­er­a­tions deserve it.

We are hap­py to intro­duce our­selves as Par­a­digme Mode, and we sin­cere­ly hope you make the choice along with us.