Details from Azrouël’s studio.
“I couldn’t afford to go to design school, and no one would hire me because I had no papers,” Azrouël says, shaking his head at the memory. Of course, he also had no experience or formal training. Squeezed with four friends into a cramped basement apartment in Queens, Azrouël would escape to the Garment District, where he rented a 300-square-foot studio. Scooping up black matte jersey from fabric stores—again, it was cheap—he went to work on his initial designs, which were draped dresses with wide armholes, fitted at the hips. Yet his sewing still wasn’t quite up to par. Early one morning, on the corner of 38th Street and Eighth Avenue, just a stone’s throw from his current studio, Azrouël met a woman who was looking for work as a seamstress. He motions back to his sewing room, where, at 7:30 on a recent cold winter evening, his entire factory staff, now numbering 22, is unfurling fabric rolls and clucking over draft boards. “Carolina is still back there,” Azrouël says, laughing. “They’re all my family.”
The transition from that little studio, from which he churned out a 12-piece lineup consisting entirely of black matte jersey dresses (he sold the collection to Fred Segal), has been calculated and steady; Azrouël is uninterested in trends or, worse, flash-in-the-pan status. He now has two retail stores, in the Meatpacking District and East Hampton; a men’s wear line; and a brisk accessories business (he is rarely without a wrapped scarf—not the ascot type—and he designs several styles each season, explaining that “both boys and girls like them”). Using funds from the sales of his first collection, Azrouël held an ambitious, exhausting 80-look show in 2000, adding chiffons and cotton voiles to his repertoire, silk dresses in burn-out prints, and those distressed, practically lived-in leather jackets (best-sellers, he’s quick to note). But when asked to describe his design philosophy—given that he never took needle to thread at any of those fancy fashion schools—Azrouël leans forward. “Not having training made me stronger,” he says, almost conspiratorially. “I think you really have to do something with your life. I just really believe in myself.”
The answer speaks to Azrouël’s unrelenting drive—the Queens days behind him, “I have a nice loft in Chelsea now,” he says—but neglects one very important sleight of hand: He is a born draper. He uses mannequins for every piece he designs, often leaving a swath of silk or jersey on a form for several days, circling and examining it before deciding on a specific pleat or zipper placement. “It is a big part of how I work,” Azrouël remarks. “I like to have surprises. I am always touching the dress or shirt, seeing how it works in a couple of shapes.”
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