REECE WAKELY
REECE WAKELY IS A NEW YORK CITY-BASED ARTIST SPECIALIZING IN GARMENT-MAKING. LCD SAT DOWN WITH HIM AT HIS BROOKLYN STUDIO TO TALK ABOUT HIS ONGOING PROJECT “SYNTHESIS”.
ALL CLOTHING MADE AND STYLED BY REECE WAKELY. PHOTOS BY LCD.
FROM
LCD MAGAZINE ISSUE 3
DECEMBER 2025, BUSHWICK NYC
Who are you?
My name is ReeCe Wakely, human being
What is synthesis? How would you describe it?
Yeah, so Synthesis to me, is the act of creating, and it’s the act of creating within all mediums. So it’s not limited just to clothing. It extends to community building and just like, any form of art.
Right now, it’s kind of transcribed into doing purely clothing, but yeah, it’s just any medium at all. I started doing cut and sew, and then it turns into screen printing, and then you learn things like dye sublimation and embroidery, and then you’re sculpting, and then you’re making stained glass, and then you’re painting. It’s all.
What power do you think clothes have?
I think the power that clothes have is to immediately show character. humans are prone to judgment. AS a human, the first thing you have is your sense of sight. Your sense of sight is immediately judging everything that you’re doing. whether or not you actually interact with people, you’re seeing everything around you. [Clothing] just immediately sets the tone for who you are as a human [AND] the values you represent. you know what you want to display to other people. It’s like, essentially your own calling card. And to have [my] calling card, at least for me, be my clothing. It’s just immediately recognizable, and just can be perceived by every human regardless if you see it in my way or not like you’re going to see it in your own way. And like that’s just what it is a calling card.
Where do you think that comes from, the idea of clothing as a “calling card”?
Probably just being a kid and seeing uniqueness. I remember always telling my parents I wanted to buy certain shoes, and it wasn’t just about even having the shoes. It was also about tying them in a certain way, keeping them loose at the time was a certain way of differentiating yourself from everybody else.
It’s a pretty cliche saying, but there’s wearing, and there’s styling. Like when you’re talking about lacing your shoes in a certain way, wearing a hat in a certain way, it’s more than just putting on a piece of clothing. It’s about making it “you”. I think the people who are conscious about that, especially when they then start making clothes, I feel like that translates into a kind of very purposeful creation.
“[People] can just like, put their own twist on it and make it feel like it’s a video game. Which it is. Life is a video game.”
What to you is important in a garment?
I think the number one thing I’m looking for at the moment is how the garment fits on the body. I think at this point it has probably been emphasized a lot by other people.
But I think clothing is a lot about the volume rather than the specific type of fabric. When I’m designing, when I’m sourcing fabrics like, I do the best to go by feel, to go by weights, you know what feels good on skin, but I think at the end of the day, what’s most interesting to me is just like, how the proportions are interacting with each other.
It might not even be like the single garment’s volume, but it’s how you’re placing that amongst another garment. You don’t want to look like the fucking Michelin Man, you know, if you do something baggy, you might want to do something else to contradict that. Juxtapose it.
Do you think there’s any real standouts or All-Stars of people who have been able to play with like, shape, silhouette, volume, that type of thing? People who either consciously or subconsciously inspire your work?
Definitely. I think the first thing for me and one of the first ways I got introduced to designer clothes was Rick Owens, and I think Rick Owens does a lot of beautiful work, especially with shoes. I think the Geobaskets are a hilariously like, chunky Item that like somehow goes well with anything that somebody wears
Yeah, I think he said in an interview [about the Geobaskets], “like a monster truck for your feet”
Yeah, Yeah, definitely. I’m thinking a lot of him, at least specifically with his footwear.
But again, it’s watching how he uses [things] like shoulder pads, the same [kind of] thing with more recent Balenciaga, it’s a lot about distorting the body. I think anything of that nature has been vastly interesting to me, because you can turn yourself almost into a superhero just by putting yourself within certain clothes.
And then the other one, I’m thinking of is whoever the fuck made the the red cartoon boots. Oh yeah the MSCHF Big Red Boots Yeah like those, at least in recent memory, are incredibly hilarious. Because it’s not only volume distorting the body, but it’s also been starting to warp realities. And it’s not just what seems to be like normal, everyday life on earth. It’s like you’re now bringing a cartoon dimension into clothing. I think to be able to bring in your own world, [something that] is so starkly contrasting to everything that the “norm” has going on. [People] can just like, put their own twist on it and make it feel like it’s a video game. Which it is. Life is a video game.
Do you have any favorites when it comes to a type of garment to make, or a type of textile, or maybe something you haven’t yet made that you’re trying to experiment with more?
In terms of trying to experiment more, I [want to] start with heavy jackets. I’ve definitely been putting it off relative to a lot of other stuff I’m working on.
Especially just because it’s New York, it’s cold. You want to have that statement type of jacket that can still be worn with a lot of things underneath. When you’re outside, you know, that’s your first fit, and then you go inside – you go to the club, you go to the bar, you go to the restaurant, it’s time for your second fit. I think to have something that’s versatile enough, where to have it as an outer shell and then still allow for yourself to wear things underneath is something I want to experiment with.
I’ve been making a lot of pants. I think playing with volume on pants has been super interesting for me. That’s probably one of the first reasons I actually got into [making] clothes, is that me being a very tall individual, I couldn’t find anything that ever fit. That was definitely one of the reasons I got into clothes heavily, because as much as I love Japanese denim, I do not have the build for it.
So I mean, that’s just been like a huge interest of mine lately. I’ve been making denim non-stop, specifically. So yeah, I guess like, denim and pants.
Do you have a favourite thing you’ve made? Doesn’t have to be a garment, could be anything.
I feel my favorite thing that I’ve made was like, a robot. Like a walking robot. I had done it as a senior design project in school. And I just felt it combined a lot of interests for me, with computing, and design work, you know, using digital design, computer system design. That was just such a weird random thing to integrate [with] coding, and 3D printing.
“Different lives. Different wants. Different, like, needs of integrating.”
I’m more iN to displaying art on an everyday like, purposeful level, rather than specifically trying to engineer. Different lives. Different wants. Different, like, needs of integrating. But [as a] totality of a project, that has to be my favorite.
What do you do when you need to feel inspired?
I don’t need to feel inspired. I have a vision for where I want my soul and my human being to go towards.
I think inspiration and motivation are like fleeting human emotions that are really fun to grasp onto when they’re there, but it’s not something to look towards, because again, these are fleeting things with an existence. What I think matters a lot more, is sticking to being what you want to become.
Instilling a discipline. I think that discipline’s the most important aspect to creating the person and creating that soul. The golden garment that we’re all creating is individuals. That’s the most important thing, because [when] you’re trying to express something artistically, especially within making clothes, it’s an incredibly time consuming act.
And I mean, I can be incredibly inspired to make a garment for an hour, but the garment’s gonna take maybe like 10 days because I do all the cut and sew myself. I mean, I have like one person right now that’s helping me here and there. But something takes 10 days, and you’re only inspired for an hour. You can’t look for inspiration. You just have to commit to the fact that this is something you want to do with your life. And you just have to keep choosing that, and I think the balance for me more so at this point is to not overwork. Because I think you can get lost within discipline. Within everything I think there’s a balance to attain.
But I think you have to start more rigidly adhering to the fact that you want something out of life. And that means you have to fight through a lot more negative emotions that you feel, regardless of how good it has been. It’s going to be negative and it will continue to be negative, but you have to fight through that.
What do you think is the future for synthesis?
It’s gonna be fucking crazy. I’m going to Paris in like three weeks to do a showroom. I’ve been working on this Paris showroom for 3 months and maybe a little more.
To be able to display clothes internationally, to get to a new audience, I think just to prove to myself that I can really do this day in and day out. It just shows me like, you know, the tenacity that I have for it, the fact that there’s always more visions, there’s more ideas and it’s just simply about executing.I think it puts into perspective of how much it means for me to make clothes and where I actually want to go with making garments.
I’ve never done a runway. I think that’s definitely next up. I’m probably gonna just start sending that right after the showroom and do an entirely new collection. I already have ideas for that.
But yeah, [the future] is definitely gonna be about continuing to evolve and continuing to grow as an artist in many ways. Whether it be going to school for it, because I’ve never gone to school for fashion in specific. I just kind of picked it up as a hobby and then just recently dedicated my whole existence towards it.
I wouldn’t mind making my work life and my, I guess, hobby life, if you can call it a hobby, kind of blend into one. So just more merging Synthesis into my actual life and just keep pursuing clothing and just keep pursuing all the ideas that I’m blessed to have.
What do you want people to take away from your work?
Anything can be done by yourself, and there’s really no limit to existence. You’re only confined to as small of a box that you put yourself within. I think the larger that you realize your box is, you realize that you can have the potential to do absolutely anything you want.
I do all the cut and sew myself, I do pattern-making myself, any material experimentation,I do myself, any print-making, I send to my friends that have [access] to the machine.
I can have these ideas, but [I] don’t need to go to manufacturers. I don’t look down upon manufacturing in any way, because I understand what it has done for others. I just know that right now, I’m within a phase that you can do absolutely everything yourself. And it’s been a beautiful thing to do it myself, and then see others follow suit.
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