Profile | Joann Berman

You might call her a fashion renegade, a designer with a spasmodic style borne out of the New York and London punk rock scenes. Joann Berman has been creating fashion on her own terms for nearly 30 years - decades before the North American public embraced the notion of “vintage chic."

"I lived in San Francisco from 1976-79 and there were a ton of second hand shops there, but nobody went to them except for poor people because it wasn't fashionable," she says. "There was one thrift store where we could get the craziest outfits for, like, a dollar. We would dress up every night to go to the club. We would get these outfits and take them apart reconstruct them … taking things apart and mixing things up – that’s just what punk rockers did."

Touted as the "Queen of (Re)construction" by Treehugger, Berman's garments are flawless in their design. Her clothing and headpieces are 99% recycled, comprised of vintage, faux and thrift store fabrics. The bright colours and flowing designs that define her collections have garnered a celebrity clientele that includes Cher, Bette Midler and Madonna, and costume designs for Michael Jackson, Salt N' Peppa and, most recently, Rihanna.

The Berman design studio, located in Brooklyn, is fully-loaded: "I have a mountain of stuff and it's not categorized or organized. When I create something, I don't always plan ahead. Sometimes I really want to rock out and I just let things flow organically. I'll go into this pit in my studio and pull out whatever seems appropriate and I just go for it."

As a child, Berman would de-construct and re-purpose her mother's wardrobe: a J. Mendel sweater was once transformed into a canvas - "I was really into art," she says - and girdles would be taken apart and re-stitched. "My mother was my role model … I got started in fashion because my mother was a fashion lady. She got married in an Emilio Pucci dress and when I was little she would take me to the department stores and say, 'this is a good sweater, this is a good bracelet, that’s a good necklace. You have to learn these things because when you're older you can't dress badly.'"

Berman married a British punk rocker and ran away to England at the age of nineteen. Her formal training in fashion began there, at St. Martins College of Art and Design. "Every afternoon I would plant myself at Vivienne Westwood’s store. I had found a cheap sewing machine and I started making punk rock clothes for people." Berman had been working for a fashion designer at the time but when the job fizzled up she returned to New York and enrolled in Parson's School of Fashion.

"They hated me," she says, referring to her professors at Parson's. "They hated my colours. They said, 'you are Texas. You put purple and green together and that’s wrong' … so I said, 'well, I’m Texas then, and screw you.'”

It’s interesting that the design practices that garnered criticism have become the most celebrated aspects of her work. Described as "kitschy", "non-linear" and "spontaneous", Berman's garments are the epitome of free-form fashion, but with a stringent attention to detail. This can be credited, in part at least, to the tutelage of acclaimed hat designer Maeve Carr, with whom Berman worked as an assistant.

To this day, hats are prominent in Berman's collections. Her Spring 2010 ensemble for example, features an array of stunning headpieces that bear exotic influences.

Berman will be unveiling her Spring 2011 collection on September 13th at The GreenShows, a New York Fashion Week exhibit. She has some "top secrets" that she will be unveiling and, based on what I’ve been told, they sound divine. If you’re in the New York area, Joann’s garments can be found at Patricia Fields NYC, and online at Smashing Darling. For more information or to view her past collections, visit Joann Berman.com. :)