The Danish designer Sara Sachs is known for mixing fashion with film, performance art, music and a whole lot of humour. We caught up with her at her new home of LA to find out what makes her universe turn.

In 2008, the Sara Sachs started the now-defunct fashion label Moonspoon Saloon as a line for a family of fictional characters that evolved from season to season. Following a fruitful collaboration with the band We Are the World, she soon found herself setting up a studio in downtown Los Angeles without really having planned anything.

When we spoke with her, she was currently in production with a new Peaches video and had been trying to make a bed out of leather snakes all week. “It’s all about building a universe,” she says. We asked her to tell us a little bit about life in LA and how she finds her inspiration and spirituality…

“Spirituality is something among us, something I think we all feel and react to unconsciously or through intuition. I rarely talk about it, but I’m psychic. Actually, I try to ignore it because I don’t have time to deal with old ghosts, visions and all that heavy mess on the other side, but it’s right there and I can’t escape it. Personally I prefer to see spirit through the eyes of another artist. A personal, emotional view of spirit is more interesting to me than the real thing.

“I have always been fascinated by characters who have created their own culture, either from pure fantasy or by a unique way of interpreting their heritage. I guess this is what brought me to fashion in the first place and also what ultimately attracted me to Los Angeles. Performance art is a field of character exploration that I have an intense interest in. The costume is an expression of a deeper emotion, whether it is in dance, art or real life.

“Everything in LA is rather bizarre. It is hard to sum it up or say anything general, because there is no norm. On the surface the architecture is a big mess of castles, Mayan temples and fake facades. The diversity of cultures is extreme. On the same block there will be an Armenian market, a Cantonese restaurant and a taco shop. Many conflicting ideals are at play at the same time. At least you can say Los Angeles is a city with substance, even if it’s raw, ugly and fake. And then again it is very real.

“When it comes to fashion production here, it is very hands on. The downtown Fashion District is a bizarre place, but you can get almost anything done here. Things actually get done in Los Angeles and there is still production in the heart of the city. It makes the city feel more alive than many other western metropolises.

“If you drive out of LA, you find yourself in a vast desert that feels like another planet. This is the spirit land of the natives. The sky sucks you into space and leaves you searching for answers. The nearest city is Las Vegas. There is nothing really to hold on to. Cults form here because there is a steady supply of people lost in themselves and their dreams.”

Credits:

Photography by Eliot Lee Hazel

Words by Gustav Bagge

All clothes by Sara Sachs