An Interview with Garments of Eden: Quality Design that Amplifies Personal Style as a Sustainable Fashion Revolution

Garments of Eden is a slow fashion brand from Jakarta, Indonesia. Run by Aydin W and Elbert Patric, the brand introduces high-quality designs that are not only durable but also versatile. Several pieces in their collection consist of many parts that can be built up or dressed down with unconventional button placement on their seams. 

For example, their Rouge Shape-Shifting Top from the QUIN OF HEARTS collection, which resembles a turtleneck top, can be worn without sleeves. Furthermore, the piece’s sleeves can be repurposed as leg warmers, and its collars can unlatch and be worn like a necklace on its own. Doing this also means the top can be worn as a regular shirt and an off-shoulder top.

This approach encourages Garments of Eden clients to explore their own personal sense of style, all while fostering a deeper sense of ownership between them and their pieces, making sure the piece has a longer life than most garments because of its versatility. This is why Garments of Eden is aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal of Responsible Consumption and Production. To understand their practice better, Arts Help writer Pia Diamandis, sat down with their Co-Creative Directors, Aydin W and Elbert Patric, to dive deeper into their experiences and future plans.

Pia Diamandis (PD): Can you tell me a little bit about how the brand came to be? What was the initial concept or story behind it?

Elbert Patric (EP): Okay, so before we started, she [AW] had her own accessories brand, and around the same time I was working in a production house, yet I always loved the history of fashion, clothes, and all that. That is my joy in life. Anyways, I wanted to jump in on her brand because, at the time, I really wanted to make hats.

Aydin W. (AW): But then I told him, why don't we just make a new brand together? Because that will be in line with what we have, together, as a vision. We wanted to make hats, but we also wanted to make clothes together.

EP: Yeah, but initially there was some hesitation. Because it is kind of difficult to make clothes, right? Anyways, we braved it and we started the brand, we made it for ourselves first because we like to dress up. We make stuff that we want to wear because to be honest, back then, I struggled to find clothes from local brands that suit my personal style. And Aydin and I, together, do have shared values when it comes to style, and also when it comes to things like ideologies and concepts. 

So we decided to make up our own clothes. And that's also why we are super happy whenever people tell us that the brand does not look like it is from Indonesia. We take that as a compliment and an acknowledgement of the versatility and universal design values that are contained in our pieces. For us, this means that our pieces are able to relate with people from all over the world and not just with Indonesians. Still, this doesn’t mean that our brand is devoid of its Indonesian-ness. 

Indonesia is a tropical country with a hot and humid climate, which means that layers aren’t the most comfortable to wear here, still we do enjoy the look of winter-wear. So some of our pieces, such as the Summer Coat, are meant to resemble winter-wear, when they are actually light enough to wear at the beach. These pieces are either made of linen or are only half-lined with a butterfly-shaped lining, one that only covers a third of the full piece.

Meanwhile, the brand’s name ‘Garments of Eden’ is a nod to her [AW] name, Aydin, as the brand’s principal designer. It is a wordplay since I do love to write. At first we toyed with the idea of naming it something like Studio Aydin or Aydin Atelier, but then Aydin herself suggested ‘Gardens of Aydin’ and I thought well while not go all the way and name it ‘Garments of Eden’. 

PD: That is great! Hopping on to the next question, was it a conscious decision to make the brand something more unisex or gender neutral? Or was it something that just happened?

EP: Actually, it is really just a natural thing that emerged from our already existing styles. Back then, I was also working frequently as a model and people would always cast me as an androgynous model. In reality, I do like to wear women’s wear because I prefer the way that it fits my figure more than men’s wear does. But yes, it was definitely not a conscious thing at first when it came to building the brand, even though we were aware of the gender neutral-ness of our own personal style.

PD: That is definitely interesting, now I do want to ask more questions about the designs themselves. From your last two collections that I have seen, Cloned Couture and QUIN OF HEARTS, I see that there is a heavy emphasis on asking people to style and modify these pieces by themselves. It almost feels like you are encouraging your clients to create a sort of DIY project with them where they can really turn these pieces into something that is theirs. Can you elaborate a little bit more on this decision?

AW: Honestly, it came from my observation of how people in general tend to dress like other people instead of letting their own personal style and tastes shine. Which is why each piece takes us a very long time to design, we want to give people the option to be different, to feel free, and to be themselves. People do tend to describe the pieces as ‘versatile’ because some of them come with buttoned seams that encourages and allows people to completely transform a piece, say a turtleneck, into something else entirely. This is actually something that we have done all the way back to when we first did our first collection named Don’t Let the Clothes Wear You.

EP: Yes, and to add to that, while it is true that the brand started because we wanted to make clothes that we personally want to wear, we then began to think about what clothes would other people like to wear? So our pieces become a sort of collaboration with people who purchase them. We have even seen people style our garments in a way that we didn’t even think was possible. If anything, we are excited to help people discover their own personal sense of style.

At the end of the day, I think it also stems from our identity as a slow fashion brand that wants to create timeless pieces. Actually this inadvertently means that we are creating less and less fashion waste. Because we want our pieces to last in our clients closets for a very long time. We want people to be able to customize it by themselves to the point where they will never get sick of it 

PD: That is amazing! Hopping off on that last remark, coming from Indonesia, what are your thoughts on the current state of fashion waste here? Especially of those generated by fast fashion brands.

AW: At the top of my head, I think about how fashion trends come-and-go. When a trend comes, it hits like an avalanche. Everyone wants to hop on board, everyone wants to be a part of that trend, so they have to acquire a certain piece that comes with that trend. However, when something is no longer trendy, people tend to stop wearing that piece and soon enough it will find its way out of people’s closets and into landfills. So we thought about what we can do about that and came to the conclusion that instead of focusing on recycling old clothes, we can focus on creating pieces that people will not throw out. Hence, the decision to create pieces that people can wear in a lot of different ways.

One example of this is our Re-thread-ed <3 Trousers, the pants that have become the base for these pieces actually came from our second ever collection. For its reintroduction into our QUIN OF HEARTS collection, we added hems and a waist-coat type of accessories, so that people who have bought these pants in our second collection can update it by simply buying the add-on hems and skirt-like addition. We believe this is definitely something that we are going to pursue in the future, this introduction of additional apparels and accessories to let people update our old collections.

EP: It is true that this means our pieces are slightly more expensive than others in the market, but it is a type of investment. Where for a higher cost, people can get a garment that will last them for a lifetime.

PD: I totally agree with your messages. I also love how you ended the catalogue of your latest collection, Cloned Couture, with a quote that states “No-brainer products are merely fashion waste, f*ck the copycats.” Can you elaborate more on why that is?

AW: Again, this is something that relates to our perception of fashion trends. As creatives we could also easily follow trends and perhaps make easy money out of it, but we don’t want to copy. We want to reference and we want to explore our own creativity, which is why we included that quote, because we want to find our own voice and chart our own path as fashion designers.

EP: That’s true, and to emphasize, we are also inspired by many other designers, but we don’t want to copy their designs. We want to put our own thoughts and emotions out there. We put our hearts and souls into our designs, because at the end of the day, we want to have a brand that is truly our own. It is like the 3 percent rule by Virgil Abloh, the former Creative Director of Louis Voutton, who said that yes, you can technically copy something, use it as a reference, but try to include only 3 percent of it in your final design. 

PD: Those are indeed very important points! Moving on to my next question, do you have any future plans to add more sustainable fashion elements to your brand? Perhaps something from your production end?

EP: To be honest, sustainability was never really the focus, but we did happen to create a brand that aligns with those values. And definitely, yes, we are going to still continue doing what we are currently doing, to create timeless and well-designed pieces that focus on helping people uncover their personal styles.

AW: Yes, and that way we are already reducing fashion waste. Our brand is only one and a half years old, so definitely there is room to grow. One thing we would like to do more of is to add separate accessories or additional apparels to our already existing collections, as we did with the trousers from QUIN OF HEARTS. For other brands, pieces from previous collections might be considered dead stock and thrown away, but we see it as creative opportunities. As an example we recently created a custom Noir Backbone Summercoat piece, which came from one of our older collections but we added beading and sequins details to it to create an entirely new piece. We also do a lot of rework when it comes to custom pieces, buying second-hand and using it as materials for new pieces. An example of this is a shirt from our third collection that was made by combining two different secondhand shirts.

EP: Another side to it is the fact that we are not mass producing our pieces, so if we do get to that point, there will be further concerns. But also it boils down to the fact that instead of focusing on how to recycle pieces, we create pieces that people will not want to discard or rework in the first place. We want to create pieces that people will love, because if you love something, you will not want to let go of it. So it is our own take on sustainability, it is one that focuses on creating long-lasting and well-loved pieces, tackling it at the source so to speak.

AW: Exactly, but also I think sustainability is something that is naturally at the back of our minds. Even when we chose our packaging, we made a conscious decision to avoid plastic. We use cloth, cassava, and paper bags instead. The only time we use plastic is when we hold our products in storage, because plastic containers do help keep their longevity.

EP: I think as designers we do have one too many thoughts, which is why each collection takes such a long time to produce. Our Rouge Shape-Shifting Top from the QUIN OF HEARTS collection, a top that can transform into over 40 different styles, took us months just to design.

PD: Is that something you want to focus on? Designing faster?

EP: Not necessarily, I think if we do want to churn out something quicker, it would be smaller pieces, or the accessories and additional apparels that people can add onto our existing collections which would be less complicated to think of.

AW: Definitely, I think we do want to focus more on designing accessories and jewelries in the future. We have also been experimenting with creating designs out of unconventional antiques. We have a personal collection of antique silver spoons and we’ve been trying to create necklaces out of them or sewing them onto clothes, so definitely a lot of exciting and sustainable experiments to come.

PD: And I definitely look forward to seeing them!

Find out more about fashion design by Garments of Eden and their other initiatives by checking their Instagram on @garmentsof.eden, Aydin W’s Instagram @eyedinn, and Elbert Patric’s Instagram @elbert.patric.