One of our favorite design duos — New York‘s Pleasure Principle — took some time out of their busy schedule to answer a few questions we had for the somewhat enigmatic designers.

Who is Pleasure Principle?
diva pittala adrian cowen

Do you have a back ground in fashion previous to doing the line?
diva studied couture in rome and we collaborated previously on a collection called people used to dream about the future

What inspires your style of design the most?
The biggest influence comes from questioning the relevance and purpose of fashion today, which is a conceptual approach to design and this is the continuous influence on the work. It is an influence from within rather from outside.

And also…our own personal experiences
night life
drug culture
radical left political views

Are there any pop icons, past or present, that influence your design, either with their music or their look?
the fall

What album have you been listening to the most?
all 40 or so of them (fall albums)

Does New York play a role in how you design, or the design choices you make?
definitely, couldn’t live anywhere else but new york

Where do you come up with the ideas for your prints?We like to think that the prints are fragments of a personality, or a glimpse of an imagined life. The references are drawn from the more obscure, dark side of pop culture.

If you had to sum up the line in one sentence, what would it be?
inspired

Has the downswing in the economy played a part in any of the design choices you have made? Has it influenced what materials you use, or pricing of pieces?
pleasure principle was born with the idea that the clothes had to be worn. we always try to give the maximum amount of creativity without alienating or overpowering the wearer

Collaborations between design houses and designers seem to be the increasingly hot thing to do lately. Who, in a perfect world, would you want to collaborate with and why?
we would love to see the old fashion houses desapear and leave space to new creative talent, and perhaps new movement in fashion instead pf perpetuating the old ways. it’s time for a paradigm shift.