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Music

Oak x Liaison Femme: Two Music/Fashion Flicks with an Agenda

Fashion films frequently equate to an extremely attractive empty vessel, but this collaboration between NYC label Oak and all-girl art collective Liaison Femme offers more than just eye candy.

Part I: Alpha. Music by producer Valentino Khan.

“Fashion films” frequently equate to an extremely attractive empty vessel. More often than not they look lovely, mean nothing, and ultimately push a product or hope to leverage some sort of cool cache. Nothing wrong with that, sometimes, we suppose, but occasionally it’s nice to watch a fashion film that looks good, but is also backed by meaning and purpose. When we watched these two shorts—a collaboration between female creative collective Liaison Femme and fashion label Oak—our interest was piqued. For one thing we’re down with Oak, who’ve made their name stocking of-the-moment, minimalist designers alongside their own sleek, modern garments, but we’re also fans of Liaison Femme. For those of you who aren’t familiar, LF was kick-started by Grace Lee, or DJ/musician G*LEE, as “a forward-thinking collective movement comprised of female DJs.” It’s since broadened to embrace women in the arts: musicians, directors, designers, photographers, chefs, etc. Basically, talented girls doing awesome stuff and we’re all for that.

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Part II: Omega. Music by producer Marty Party.

Directed by photographer, filmmaker, and artist Awol Erizku, (he shot A$AP Rocky and A$AP Ferg’s “Get High,” not to mention his recent series reworking classic paintings like Vermeer’s “Girl with a Pearl Earring”), Alpha features DJs Jasmine Solano and Kitty Cash (Kilo Kish’s main girl). Meanwhile, Omega stars Creep’s Lauren Flax, Jubilee (Mixpak), K!O (Kristen Oshiro), and G*LEE herself. We caught up with G*LEE to find out more about Oak’s gender neutral clothes, the responsibility of female DJs making their way in a male-dominated music world, and how this all filters into these short films. It gets kinda complicated so pay attention.

Noisey: What attracted to you to Oak initially?
G*LEE: I grew up in NoHo with Oak as neighbors and their store design, both interior and exterior, had me question if it was gender-marketed or unisex. I was obsessed with the concept that Oak projected on its customers. I remember my first experience walking in the store and I was on the left side shopping for several minutes until the sales associate informed me that the women's section is on the right. That intrigued me.

How do you see Oak fitting in with what Liaison Femme is about?
Oak propels this unisexual energy in their products. Often a woman would buy men's pants or tee at Oak, but still, it comes into form with their own body. That concept spoke so loudly with Liaison Femme. Additionally, we feel a woman is a creator and nurturer of her work and that music is a universal language, where the listener can translate the artist's work in their own lives. Female DJs carry a responsibility in the DJ industry and culture right now. Liaison Femme uses our ideas, such as collaborating with Oak, to showcase that responsibility.

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Top to bottom: Kitty Cash and Jasmine Solano.

Can you explain the concept behind the Alpha / Omega films?
Towards the conclusion of the project, we all decided to go with the concept of Alpha / Omega. The universal philosophies of Marxism and Nietzsche all apply this ultimatum, this "If there is a beginning, there is an end" notion in their work. There I tied the two together and we found a relation to women. The woman is the beginning, in terms of procreation and the gift to give birth. The child later becomes the end of that procreation and reforms itself to become its own. This inspired us to narrow down the DJ casts to "Alpha females" and "Omega females."

How is Kitty an Alpha female?
In Alpha, we were looking for female DJ artists that had this rebirth or reincarnation energy in terms of being born from a certain origin, but later transforming. Kitty Cash is a NY-native—Brooklyn-born and raised—but she’s transformed into this modern city girl and a nomadic traveler touring across the country with Kilo Kish.

What about the Omega end of things?
I wanted the ending to be completely obtuse rather than parallel to Part I. Part II is very minimal. Awol wanted to intentionally show scenes in Part II where it's very candid, and limited because I was the "coup de grace" [meaning “deathblow” or “blow of mercy”] to Part II. He wanted Jubilee, Lauren Flax, and Kristen Oshiro because they represented a more lenient energy. Awol wanted to keep that rawness so he didn't edit or add any layers, like he did for Part I with Jasmine and Kitty. Part II was not about reincarnation, but about capturing the final transformation, the final stage. So Awol and I creatively both felt it made sense to not add any edits to the first three girls. But for my scene he wanted to add that surprise, since compared to all the others I was the youngest, but also the founder of Liaison Femme. It was also because my birth name is Grace, and he felt it made sense to relate it with the "coup de grace" theme.

Clockwise: Jubilee, K!O, Lauren Flax, and G*LEE.

What’s the purpose of these films and this collaboration and what do you hope to achieve?
The Oak x Liaison Femme collaboration's purpose is to introduce a glimpse of our future. This is our debut in terms of projects that we are pushing forth with other creatives and we're hoping to achieve a reaction from the community to understand what our version of fashion x music meets. We see a lot of musical artists and creatives being brand ambassadors and collaborating with designers, but theirs a blurred vision of what the purpose is. It's always either a PR move or paid advertisement deal. But none of that was applied for our collaboration. We had our own DJs feature in the film, addressing a free-spirited collaboration with a brand like Oak.

Style Stage is an ongoing partnership between Noisey & Garnier Fructis celebrating music, hair, and style.