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Joe Day, the founder of Dayware Clothing, said that he first became interested in disciplines other than architecture by getting involved with his own collaborative practice. After completing his master's degree at the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc), he and several of his fellow graduates decided to form the Hedge Design Collaborative. "There were at least four or five of us from SCI-Arc that wanted to do something in addition to architecture or even in lieu of it. Hedge began to take shape from that idea and now consists of four architectural practices and three or four independent design offices. Dayware is one of them."
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Day admits that parts of the office grew out of the earlier days when work was scarce and many were surviving on graphic design. However, today he believes it's an asset to the practice, allowing for a free flow of ideas between disciplines.
Day's sister was actually the inspiration for Dayware. Her work in the garment industry got Day interested in clothing design. "I saw so many young architects getting their first paycheck and immediately blowing it on a suit, perhaps to impress their clients. The rest of the time, I noticed them coming to work in jeans and a hat. I thought it we could just clean up that look, that we may find a style that works both ways." For inspiration, Day looked at the way local clothing companies related to action sports, surfing and skateboarding, had targeted their clothes to a particular sub-culture and made their clothing interesting enough for a larger audience. He envisions Dayware along those lines, but for artists and designers,
The design process, he admits, is quite similar to that of architecture, "The idea of tailoring and enveloping the body in a way that fulfils people's needs is like architecture at a smaller scale. Clothing is made through a process of pattern making where you take all the piecework and lay it out like a set of blueprints. The flat profiles of all the pieces became a way of looking at both the exterior and interior cladding of houses. "
Among some of his influences are architects like Adolf Loos. In grad school, Day had become interested in Loos' idea of discussing architecture in terms of clothing, "The idea of clothing as an anonymous architecture that fits its client the way a good suit fits a person brings a certain level of urbanity and anonymity to design." He now tries to incorporate that approach in his own design process, using simple color palettes and delicate gestures of cut and style. Although he admits, tailoring clothes to fit properly can be tricky then it seems, "Lately, the design for this pair of slim-fit pants has been giving me quite a bit of trouble."
Despite his venture into the fashion industry, Day is still very much involved with his architectural practice. Currently, he is designing several residences in the Los Angeles area. In fact, he says, the two complement each other rather nicely. "There were several months when I was working on a coat and a set for a house at the same time, and what really surprised me were similarities in the function of interior and exterior surfaces. In both disciplines, the exterior often has to do much more with presentation while the interior is often associated with comfort. My challenge for both became the distinction of how one wraps into the other."
Where the two design disciplines differ, of course, is in production. Clothing design has more to do with replication than scale. "Instead of scaling up one design to full size as is the case with architecture," says Day, "you're trying to replicate something a hundred times over. Once it is in production, it is sometimes difficult to go back and change things."
This year, Day hopes to expand the line to about twenty pieces, which includes clothing for both men and women. He admits that it can be dizzying at times, trying to keep track of all the details, but he plans to continue doing both. "I actually don't feel like I'm involved in fashion," says Day. "I feel more like a spectator. There are a number of interesting topics for architects to talk about in fashion but it has been kind of discredited on a populist level. Practically, I think there is a lot we can learn from fashion, and I hope that my work will help accelerate that discourse."
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