How did the Adam Kimmel line start?

I started out making clothes for friends around 2002. I was studying architecture at NYU, but I had always paid attention to clothes. I went to grad school, but I dropped out after three months.

Did you suck at architecture?

Totally sucked. (Laughs.) No, I loved it and I still think about it often, but I enjoy creating clothing a lot more. There comes a time in everyone's life when he has to take the plunge. I just finished reading a book called "Dialogues with Marcel Duchamp." It was an interview given at the end of his life. He said when you're a kid you go through life and you just do whatever feels good, but when you get to a certain point you start asking questions. That's the point I'd reached.

How did that go down with the folks?

They were supportive. My mom is a painter. She always gave the family a proper sense of aesthetics—actually forced it on us. It was a retinal upbringing that way.

Any fashion training?

No. I went right into designing. I put together a collection and a portfolio, and tried to make it happen. After nine months of taking around my portfolio I met [former VP of Calvin Klein menswear] Joe Serino. I got a call from him two weeks later and he said, "Alright, kid. I'm going to make this happen for you." So he brought me to Italy and put me in the factories with the tailors and patternmakers. I spent a lot of time there studying the process.

Can you speak Italian?

Yes, shittily.

Shitaly? You speak Shitalian?

(Laughs.)

Did you have any designers in mind as you began building your brand?

I think it's important to design with a fresh perspective, to express something that's truly yours, but there are definitely brands I love. I've always paid attention to Rei Kawakubo and Yohji Yamamoto.

Your first collection was spring '05?

Yeah, to get my company up and running I sold a very small spring '05 collection to colette, which was great. It allowed me to get my production ready. I still sell there, proudly.

Tell me about your next collection, the one based on Willem de Kooning.

Willem used to wear overalls in worker fabrics when he painted. So I went around the corner from my studio where there's a warehouse that supplies cotton to blue-collar uniform companies. I bought their cottons and took them to Italy where a high tailor made the collection. I was really into Clement Greenberg, an art critic from the '40s, '50s, and '60s, and his thoughts on abstract expressionism. And I had an art history professor at NYU, Kenneth Silver, who wrote about how the abstract expressionists really lived by a code, not just in their art, but in their lifestyle. I think about that when I make my collections.

Do you do everything yourself?

Pretty much. I do all the designing, the fittings, the edits. Everything comes out of my head, every stitch. I also do all the sales. A little while ago, Rei Kawakubo and [her husband] Adrian Joffe came to my studio to buy for Dover Street Market. She ripped right through it; there was no fooling around. They knew what the fuck they were doing. It was great.

What kind of person do you want to buy your clothes?

Well, I think something interesting happened to menswear a few years ago. It took a strange turn. All of a sudden everything started looking very avant-garde. I thought it was interesting that my friends who never shopped started shopping. In order for guys to get that perfect pant or jacket they were forced to go out and really search for it. That's the customer I want.

Do you want to be famous?

No, absolutely not. Whatever happens, my goal is not to be famous or fabulous.

Let's talk about the models in your look books, because they're not really models. They're friends of yours, downtown types like Michael Pitt, Mark Ronson, Casey Spooner, Donovan Leitch...

I have one model model, Mike Gunther, who's totally amazing. But I also like to have friends model because they know the clothing better and they have strong personalities that come through. Who better than friends and friends of friends?

What's your earliest fashion memory?

Wearing jumpsuits with my grandfather, who used to wear them all the time.

What's been the highest point so far?

Probably working with my brother, Alexei [Hay]. When I finished my first collection, he said he would photograph it. I couldn't believe it. I'd never seen him work before. It was an amazing moment to have him try stuff on and want to photograph it. When we did that first look book it was pure electricity. We didn't do fittings. We just called people up and they came in randomly. The floors weren't even coated, just raw concrete. The shit was so dusty we were all coughing, but everyone wanted to work with Alexei. He shoots all my look books.

I hope that's not your cologne I'm smelling.

No, it's awful.

Would you ever create a cologne?

Definitely, but a good one. I would do something subtle and very human, probably related to New York. New York is fucking great. I love foreign cities, too, but this is where I was born and raised, and where I feel at home. In Paris, when I look around, I don't really know where people are coming from, or what their socio-whatever background is. But in New York I can tell what's going on.

What's the future of menswear?

The future is in comfort, in beautiful fabrics and, for me, American fits.

Do you want to lead fashion?

Every day. (Laughs.)

Really?

Wait, leave or lead?

Lead.

Oh. No. Leading is dangerous. One of things I like about Duchamp is he didn't ascribe to art having a social role. He didn't believe he had an obligation to serve the public with his art. In fact, he took a ten-year hiatus to work in a library. It's nice to think that you could take a break and not have any consequences. God, what am I talking about?

You hate this, don't you?

Well, not as much as I thought I would.