We recently connected with Ren Barker and have shared our conversation below.

Ren, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Do you feel you or your work has ever been misunderstood or mischaracterized? If so, tell us the story and how/why it happened and if there are any interesting learnings or insights you took from the experience?

As someone who identifies outside of the gender binary, I am frequently mischaracterized and misunderstood. Even when people know I am nonbinary, it’s still viewed as some amorphous third gender that should be void of any gender identifying attributes. The clothes I make often suffer the same fate. They are an extension of myself in that they are whimsical and colorful and not what most people would characterize as genderless clothing, so it often gets brushed off at a glance as “women’s clothing”.

Ren, 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?

I have either studied or worked in the fashion industry for almost 10 years, and throughout my journey I have been consistently disappointed. Disappointed by fashion’s environmental impact, it’s lack of inclusivity, and mainstream fashion’s obsession with same-ness. Wanting everyone to look the same and be a part of the status quo. My own style had evolved, during this time, to reject so much of what was considered “in-fashion”. A part of that evolution was coming out as nonbinary, and feeling the pressure to dress in a way completely void of gender to make myself palatable to the outside world. Eventually, I pushed away from that ideology and began fully embracing the idea that if clothing has no gender that means genderless fashion is whatever I wanted to wear.

Thus, I started Ren B Designs. I founded the brand on the belief that all clothes have no gender, in response to an overwhelming amount of unisex clothing lacking any excitement and anything with even the slightest personality having the gender binary thrust upon it. The brand utilizes preloved materials to produce one-of-a-kind, chaotically colorful pieces that prioritize the needs of nonbinary and trans shoppers through thoughtful design. It’s about providing the pieces for people to play with color and proportion, take up space, and express their identity.

In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?

The best way to support creatives is by investing in their work. We are at a point where we expect instant gratification from a product at a barebones price as a result of over consumption and big business. With a little bit of patience and research, you could make an individual artist happier than you could imagine by supporting them instead of clicking ‘add to cart’ from a major retailer because you know it will arrive tomorrow.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

Before starting my brand, I spent almost 10 years either studying or working in the fashion industry. Both my education and work experience were corporate centric. This meant a big part of the design process was learning to design for the masses, sacrificing design intent in favor of budget, and watching your creative vision go through the hierarchical meat grinder. Design was all about watering down any artistic flavor in order to sell as much as possible. When I started making clothing for my own brand, I would constantly find myself compromising my own ideas in order to appease some nebulous other. I would fuss over whether something was “sale-able” instead of if it was what excited me artistically. Once I was able to un-train that way of thinking, not only was I having more fun with my art, but that joy transfer to the people around me who shopped the brand.

Contact Info:

• Website: renbdesigns.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/renb.designs/