We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful LIZ CASELLA. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with LIZ below.

LIZ , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Earning a full time living from one’s creative career can be incredibly difficult. Have you been able to do so and if so, can you share some of the key parts of your journey and any important advice or lessons that might help creatives who haven’t been able to yet?

I started my first print studio in 2005 in Sydney Australia with a friend from design school. It was started with a couple of hundred dollars, some markers and paints and silk and we’d draw directly onto the fabric. We started cold calling brands and got some business cards made. We’d go meet with designers and we’d be wearing these bold printed vintage dresses, anything to get their attention.
We worked day jobs and designed at night for about the first year and by 2 years were employing designers.
A big break came for us when an LA based brand Whitley Kros reached out for prints and soon enough we were selling our designs in America.
In 2012 my husband I relocated to LA, I left the Australian studio I started and overnight the LA team and I transitioned to the new studio. Using my name made it easier and we just continued business as usual. This July will be 10 years of Liz Casella.

I’ve worked with so many talented artists and we’ve made beautiful designs (prints) for brands world wide.
The team is spread across The States, England and Australia and we have studio’s in LA and New York.

Thinking back to how we started it was very naive and we didn’t have anything to loose. I think this is the best way to learn and it really wasn’t much risk. When I started the 2nd studio i was well established, so again there wasn’t a lot of risk but throughout almost 20 years its taken huge dedication and time.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

All of our designs come in repeat so they are production ready for brands to use. Majority are hand painted, sometimes we re work vintage and I have days of tie dying fabrics in my kitchen. It’s a hugely creative process with alot of freedom. We set our own briefs and essentially design what we want. The team and I are obviously very aware of trends but also love to look beyond what you’ll find online and are most often inspired by other artists, street style and vintage references. It’s a huge compliment that people buy what we create.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

Pivoting from hand drawing onto silk to learning photoshop, designing in repeat and printing digitally was a huge adjustment. More importantly being able to combine hand painting with computer manipulation made designing endless. I still get wowed by learning new tricks in photoshop and love the endless options for coloring work.

Covid and lock down also really changed our industry. Pre covid we’d meet with clients and sell our collection in person. Now we have a big online business and are able to access more brands in different locations. We still love seeing our clients but the online has definitely expanded our reach.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

The most rewarding part of the part of them job is seeing the collection and our designers evolve. You can never say never when it comes to fashion and there is never downtime, we constantly create and it is all about color and being fresh and reinventing the wheel.

All of our designs are one off’s so we have to constantly be thinking how can we make something different, it is often changing up floral shapes and the mediums we create with.
Right now Poppies, anything red and oversized are huge looks.

I also really love when we receive the designs back from our printer, seeing the transition from computer to silk and then trying to guess which ones designers will be drawn to.
Seeing our prints in high end editorial is also a huge buzz!

Contact Info:

• Website: lizcasella.com
• Instagram: lizcasella_lc.studio
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/liz-casella-llc

Image Credits
IMAGE CREDITS AMANDA AUSTIN PHOTO SILENT OPUS ACLER