We were lucky to catch up with Coco and Ilia recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Coco and Ilia thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

Coco: I knew at a very early age that I wanted to be in the arts. I thought that path was going to be through music, I LOVED to sing when I was a little kid. I used to hold “rehearsals” at my house where my brother would have to listen to me belt out various songs, I was really only comfortable singing in front of him.

When Thats So Raven and Bratz Dolls hit the scene I really tapped into the desire to become a clothing designer. My brother and I would play with my Barbies and Bratz making up different plots and characters, and dressing them in their own unique styles. We would also have drawing seasons where we would indulge in various character creations. We would imagine and create their personalities, back stories and their styles. My brother was the one who introduced me to comic books and video games, places we also pulled inspiration from. I truly was surrounded by artists.

My mama used to sing when she was young with her sisters in talent shows, and she had the ability to draw a talent and skill she inherited from her father to which was passed down to my brother, who is a phenomenal artist himself. Every art class I took I would get so excited for the projects and would literally try my very best because of my excitement to take it home and show my brother. He was the pinnacle of an artist to me.

Growing up in a smaller town with a single parent home, we didn’t have a lot of disposable income so my mama and I would go thrifting. We would attend garage sales which made me grow an appreciation for vintage pieces, quality leathers, good denim and fabric content. I had to get creative with my outfits, don’t get me wrong we had access to name brand clothing but it was more fun to create a style verses just wearing logos. Most of the clothing in my town was boring af to me, I would always see something and imagine if they had just done it this way or added this detail it would’ve made that piece that girl!

Once college rolled around is when I feel like I made the choice to go into fashion professionally studying fashion design and product development. I had taken textile classes in high school to learn how to operate a sewing machine and to learn more about fabric. Upon graduation, Ilia and I were so close and our styles complimented each other so well that I made a suggestion that we should start a brand together. I knew we had something great that no one had seen yet. A missing piece to fashions puzzle.

Ilia: I first knew I wanted to pursue something in fashion at a pretty young age as well. I grew up in a small town with limited income and stores that excited me, so I would always imagine myself in clothes I would want or I would design them in my head. Eventually, I just started drawing them out more and more and I fell in love with drawing clothes. I would trace little bodies and put clothes on top of them, I would make little stories in my head for them sometimes even.

When it came time to decide what I wanted to pursue in college, there was really no competition for fashion design. I went back and forth between costume design and fashion design because I desperately wanted to be able to tell stories through clothing. I did complete the fashion design degree and ended up being able to incorporate storytelling into my collections anyway. When Coco and I started “coco and ilia” we also made sure that was a big component of what we wanted to do. I’m always texting Coco like, “Okay, what if the girls started here and then this inciting incident happened and now they have to go do this? They could take fabric from these curtains and from these bedsheets and utilize such and such materials to make their garments.” and it just…works. We both love comics and video games so it really feels like a no-brainer to us to incorporate that type of work into our design aesthetic.

Coco and Ilia, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Coco and Ilia officially became a high end streetwear brand summer of 2016 created for the unapologetic, motivated & empowered reject.

One thing we’re most proud of is the sense of community that runs parallel with our clothing. Every time we design a collection and our models get decked out in our looks they instantly become a girl gang. They are united in a unique way taking picture, cracking jokes and complimenting each other. The vibes are truly unmatched.

Are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

The information age that is so prevalent today was not as abundant when we first started out. There are a variety resources, guides, content, videos, warehouses that were not available or as popular when we first started out. It would have been amazing to know a lot of the information we know now.

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

For us, the most rewarding aspect of being an artist is staying true to our creative core and having others who simultaneously resonate with our vision, concepts, and our core. There’s nothing that beats seeing our vision coming down the runway.

Contact Info:

• Website: cocoandilia.com
• Instagram: cocoandilia

Image Credits
Photographer: Ryan Swartzlander