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With a cool collectsion of genderless, unisex separates, New York–based brand Persona encapsulates the fresh, vibrant feeling of fashion using tactile techniques like handpainting, bleaching, spray painting, and garment dyeing. Founder and designer Danny Young showcased the brand’s vibe in a recent short film shot in Southern California. We caught up with him about Persona’s origins and future, below.
How did Persona get started?
I always loved making art and defined myself with it, but it wasn’t until I saw Martin Margiela’s retrospective in 2018 that I became obsessed with creating clothing. About a year in, the brand was crystalizing and the name Persona came to me. Persona is the Latin word for mask, and I thought it was an apt metaphor for the pursuit of fashion. It was also a fitting name because masks, mirrors, and duality were already recurring themes in what I was making.
Describe the brand in three words.
Reaching for timelessness.
What most inspires you?
Music. But that aside, I’ve been designing more formal wear and fleshing out the Persona universe, which have both proved to be generative pursuits for my imagination.
Down the line, my first runway collectsion will be an exploration of my family heritage in NYC. My family on my dad’s side were Jewish immigrants to the city, and many of them were garmentos–– factory workers and tailors. I’ve been seeing myself as another chapter in that story lately, and my research has been giving direct inspiration for pieces.
If you weren’t working in fashion, what would you be doing?
I also do photography, filmmaking, and music, so I’d probably just focus a bit more on those.
Tell us about your short film.
Persona is a New York brand (overtly, personanyc.co and @persona_nyc) but the Pluto Returns collectsion was inspired by the color palettes in and around Los Angeles. I wanted the film to be an ode to LA.
How do you know Jorge and how does he embody Persona?
Jorge, as well as Carter (the other model and creative force in the film) are my friends from college. Jorge is born and raised in LA and it runs deep in his heart—so I knew his perspective would be scintillating. Jorge’s words resonate with Persona in several ways; his imagistic poem gives me the transcendent feeling I yearn for in art, and his dialogue about exploring LA further and feeling the world open around speaks to the beauty of discovery and growth.
What’s next on the horizon for you?
The next drop (out November ’22) explores deconstruction—with split colorway tees, reversed crewnecks, quilted skirts, and hand-painted workwear. Then, further down the line, we’ll have a F/W23 collectsion debuting at NYFW in February.
