Media for Change
Molly Apple and Léa Germano in conversation
In a world where sustainability remains a challenge, it is important to highlight the initiatives that help make it easier. Molly Apple is the founder of MERDE magazine, a publication that covers sustainable fashion practices, such as upcycling and vintage shopping, and upcoming designers. Léa Germano is the co-founder of Studio Paillette, a fashion renting company accessible to everyone. I brought them together to discuss ways of consuming fashion sustainably, and the importance of media coverage of sustainable fashion practices, and to give us insights about their respective projects.
BY GIULIA TACCHI
MOLLY: I’m excited to hear more about the origins of Studio Paillette!
LÉA: MERDE is so cool! I love what it looks like: the layout, the typography, everything; it’s visually very impactful. When did you start your own magazine?
MOLLY: I went to Parsons Paris in 2018 for the Fashion Studies program. And I was taking this course with Justin Morin, who is a teacher there, and the Editor-in-Chief of Revue magazine. I’ve always been obsessed with fashion magazines since I was a kid, so it was my favorite class. Initially, it was a fun project for me, but I always dreamed of starting my own magazine. After the class ended, I talked to Justin, and he helped me develop the concept for MERDE. He asked me, “Where do you see a gap in fashion publishing, and what frustrates you about magazines that you don’t see?” I replied, “I don’t think there’s enough humor. People take themselves too seriously in this industry. And there’s still a lot to say about vintage and upcycled clothes, young designers, and those on the fringe of the industry who don’t get much media attention.” My thesis ended up centering around this project, and after I finished it, I couldn’t stop because I was so addicted to the process. It’s addicting. [laughs]
LÉA: It’s super cool.
MOLLY: I wanna know about you, when did you start your own business?
LÉA: I studied fashion design at Parsons in New York, but I did one semester in Paris when the school opened in 2013. I also went to Central Saint Martins for six months after that. And I graduated in New York, started working there—I was a designer at Marc Jacobs. And then I came back to Paris, and designed at Balmain for a few years. Two luxury houses, that was the beginning of my career.
MOLLY: Wow!
LÉA: I started Studio Paillette because I wanted to create an access to fashion. I realized that most people don’t know a lot of emerging designers, and don’t think of high fashion brands as something they can actually wear. It feels like those clothes are only for Vogue’s glossy spreads.
Another need I had was to revalue products from past collections. In the design industry, we’re expected to create new products each season that update the previous ones. However, I believe that styling is the core of everything. When you style a product in a new way, it changes its story. It’s not about which season the product comes from, but how you style it and present it visually.
Studio Paillette started with the idea of creating multi-brand looks, which is the essence of what I do. It begins with my personal aesthetic and brings together specific luxury brands, premium brands, emerging designers, and streetwear brands. Mixing them creates something much closer to what people actually wear, and it’s about having fun with fashion.
LÉA: Definitely!
MOLLY: Who you see is interacting with Studio Paillette?
LÉA: Studio Paillette is targeted at two types of clients. The first one are the pro clients who came to us very easily (stylists, content creators, artists, agents…). But I didn’t wanna make it just a service for people that are already in fashion. I really wanna create a new way of consuming, and the end consumer to be a part of it, to touch a much larger audience. So, apart from those pro clients, we have two targets: people 25 to 40 that have a reason to get dressed, and wanna have fun with their outfits, but that are not necessarily fashion insiders. The other half is more Gen-Z, 18 to 25 years old, that consume a lot of content on TikTok, on Instagram; they wanna access high fashion and renting is an affordable option for them. A lot of our pieces are around 15 to 20 euros per month, and the price includes delivery back and forth, and cleaning. We want to replace the idea that fast fashion is the only option if you wanna wear fun, cheap pieces that go with your outfits, or follow trends. We make the pricing so accessible that financially, it makes a lot of sense to rent with us.
MOLLY: I love that! A lot of businesses that are in the same lane of Studio Paillette, are either marketed toward a rental program for regular consumers, or it’s a fashion insider showroom for stylists and celebrities. So it’s cool that you’re blending the two, and making it accessible to anyone, because the way we consume fashion is changing. I know I look at my closet differently than I used to. I try to think of it as this rotation: if I buy something new I have to rotate something out, and bring it and sell it, or give it to a charity shop or something. So I’m trying to be more thoughtful about that.
LÉA: I’m curious, do you think magazines should only feature sustainable brands? I was gonna say no, but you tell me.
MOLLY: I agree, I don’t also think that featuring only sustainable brands is showing the whole story. I think part of being a responsible brand is that you are different. Dressing sustainably is about mixing, or at least being thoughtful. When people talk about sustainability they say “oh, it’s all about the planet,” but it’s about the sustainability of the industry in general. How we produce and consume things and be thoughtful about the world that we’re in makes us sustainable. It can feel like an oxymoron when we’re trying to save the planet but also produce things. But the future is knowing what makes you feel good, and having a clear conscience at the same time. I don’t know if that makes sense.
LÉA: Yes, it does. On my side of things, one of the answers is to create very sustainable access into optimizing the products of brands that are not necessarily sustainable brands. So I’d rather rent one beautiful product that people love and dream of wearing, worn by sixty people, instead of having it bought by one person who would wear it three times. Because at the end the consumer is consuming brands and products, and what is exciting for them comes priority from the visuals. You can track down what brands do well or not, and I think it’s starting to be more transparent; you can read online about it, soon it will be on the label a lot more… There’s a lot being done to make the whole chain fully transparent, but it’s not up to the consumer yet to make that choice.
MOLLY: In our last publications we had a lot of these young showrooms with very cool aesthetics, and something that I do in MERDE to support them is, when I did the credits I didn’t just list all those things, but I also said from which showroom they were from, because I think that having this transparency is another core pillar of MERDE. We like to be super transparent, and giving full credits helps the reader shop those products. An example of fashion credits is: vintage Marc Jacobs boots from Lidow Archive in Los Angeles. And sometimes even adding little notes like, “biggest collection of vintage Marc Jacobs boots in the world.” So it’s kind of giving free publicity to these people who are doing a really good job at these things.
LÉA: It’s very cool that you guys do that. I’m always very curious when I read an editorial to know where the actually clothes come from. Because often it is just the brand that’s credited, and it makes it look very unattainable. Sometimes the PR agency of the brand just sent over the products, but sometimes the ones sending the proiducts are showrooms and renting services like Studio Paillette. And, if credited, after seeing the editorial, the reader can actually rent and wear the look. And that was one of the goals of Studio Paillette when it was created.
MOLLY: I love that!
We have to wrap up and I wanna say that I would love to work for you and I think we should produce a story together for MERDE!
LÉA: Yeah! I would love to! That’s an amazing idea, let’s keep in touch. Thank you Giulia for introducing us! ■
This story is from the first issue of Later, the alumni magazine.
Editor & Photographer: Giulia Tacchi @giulytacchi
Stylists: Léa Germano @lea_germano & Molly Apple @mollyroseapple
Model: Joelle Rodriguez @joellerodriguez
Clothes: Studio Paillette @studio_paillette
