Fashion responds to the unconscious rage in society. I think that everyone feels frustrated with technology and a sense of losing control of their self-image…I find it endlessly fascinating that technology only increases our interest in the things we cannot see.

TESS POLLOK: You’re a model and the founding designer behind All the Rage, a new womenswear brand. You make dresses that are slinky and sexy, but also spiritual and romantic, reminiscent of Alice in Wonderland, a bit. Why did you start All the Rage? Where did the inspiration come from?

AVA PEARLMAN: I’ve always wanted to design clothes, but I went to school for drawing and painting, so I never developed the technical skills necessary to make things myself. But that changed after I built up my modeling career because I was able to work with pattern makers who could realize my ideas for these dresses. The philosophy of the brand revolves around the collective unconscious, karma, reincarnation, past lives–All the Rage responds to the unconscious rage in society. I’m very inspired by David Lynch and Rudolf Steiner, who invented Waldorf schools; I actually learned what the collective unconscious was a few years ago from reading one of David Lynch’s books on transcendental meditation. Aesthetically, I would say the dresses are influenced by fashion and movies I love from the ‘30s and ‘40s.

POLLOK: Rudolf Steiner–he’s such an interesting and bizarre place to draw inspiration from, in terms of design. What do you think about his ideas? Do you believe in karma and past lives?

PEARLMAN: Completely. I’ve personally had very vivid experiences with past lives. I have one friend that I met and I knew immediately that I already knew him and was even able to recall, like, the details of his previous name and life cycle. But it’s extremely rare. It’s not the feeling of meeting a new friend and having a great connection, it’s this incredibly full feeling of, like, knowing another person’s whole being the second that you meet them, or even just see them across a room. Rudolf Steiner intersects with this because he wrote a lot about spirituality in the age of technology–this was a hundred years ago, now, this was back in the 1920s–but he wrote about how, as technology increases, so does the human interest in returning to the soul and these inner journeys. Because there’s actually nothing new that technology can create, there’s just us. I find that so endlessly fascinating–the idea that AI and all these technological advancements only increase our interest in the things we cannot see. Growing up in Manhattan, I was entirely uninterested in anything that didn’t have to do with fashion or art history and my attraction to these things was just magnetic, almost spiritual. I could feel, like, the hum and the draw of creative energy vibrating around me at all times. It made me appreciate the value of the unconscious in creativity, which is something Lynch talks about a lot, as well.

POLLOK: There’s so much fascination in art right now with religion and spiritual beliefs. I find that so interesting as well, that technological improvements might improve the quality of human life, but they don’t change the essential qualities of the human soul.

PEARLMAN: Steiner wrote a book about this exact thing. Thinking about the collective unconscious and all the rage in society, I was also responding to technology and the rage we feel at having to be ourselves but also perform as ourselves, brand ourselves, have these online avatars of ourselves–it generates a huge amount of rage and fatigue in everyone. That was also my experience with modeling, that I experienced a lot of rage and a lot of image loss.

POLLOK: Image loss? Can you elaborate on that?

PEARLMAN: I’ve just felt an intense loss of self-image through modeling. Like, this feeling that being myself and doing what I’m doing is not enough, and that I always have to be performing myself for other people. It was intensified by the actual labor of modeling, by the experience of looking at hundreds of images of myself on a monitor and understanding they were just a part of a brand, and things like seeing my face and body photoshopped–seeing half my face removed for cost reasons, people airbrushing out my birthmarks. But I think many people feel that way. I think everyone is frustrated and full of rage at losing a sense of their self-image.

POLLOK: Did you ever feel depersonalized or dissociated as a model?

PEARLMAN: Yeah, I even had a name for it–”the wall.” When you’re doing e-commerce jobs, there’s always a moment where they have you turn around so they can photograph the back of the garment, and you’re just blankly staring at a wall. That was what it felt like. I think we’re all being faced with the wall right now, it’s just that mine was literal when I was working as a model.

POLLOK: And how did all these concepts inform the All the Rage designs?

PEARLMAN: In a literal, material sense, my time modeling gave me great intuition about the points of the body and how to cover and uncover things. I also studied life drawing in school, which definitely informs my practice now. I think the dresses also show that I’m leaning away from the ready-to-wear trend and I have an interest in good materials and garments that are uncompromising. The quality of the silk is very important to me, the lace, things like that–again, it’s evocative of this old-fashioned movie romanticism that I love. Greta Garbo, Audrey Hepburn, Casablanca. I love the level of tailoring and perfection involved in clothes from that era. You can tell those women love getting ready.

POLLOK: I love Casablanca. It’s the most romantic thing I’ve ever seen. I’ve never been good with fashion or getting ready, but I admire those women so much. Is getting ready an important ritual for you?

PEARLMAN: Yeah. I’m constantly trying to validate myself by loving myself and I think the ritual of getting ready taps into, like, an almost spiritual or a make believe energy inherent in life. It’s fun forever and you just have to tap into it. That potential energy really informs All the Rage. That feeling of spirituality and playfulness–I think of that as the religion of the brand, the art history behind the brand. I’m obviously Jewish, but the religion of the brand is art history and reincarnation. There’s some Byzantine and medieval inspirations, as well.

POLLOK: I also associate past lives with children, innocence, and imagination. Like, I think one of life’s biggest tragedies is that our imaginations deteriorate over time. At least for some people. Daydreaming and imagination are two of the things that I find most fulfilling about life and it’s sad to watch that fade away in certain people.

PEARLMAN: Absolutely. I think people can feel emotionally or spiritually stranded if they don’t have a solid base of spirituality from childhood to build on. I’ve been very lucky to have that kept alive in me by my Jewish family, especially by my grandfather, who’s a very spiritual and almost supernatural person. I look at him and realize that if he’s still having spiritual experiences in his 80s then it’s not abnormal at all for me to still be having them when I’m 24. My childhood experiences with Judaism are definitely a big part of my spirituality, thinking, and creative process now. But I always wanted more language to express spirituality–more angles than just the yeshiva angle.

POLLOK: How do you feel about contemporary fashion?

PEARLMAN: I’m not pleased with the way people are expressing themselves through fashion these days. I think that the birth of ready-to-wear in the ‘40s blurred the lines between a genuine display of the collective unconscious through fashion and a sort of monoculture. Like, people used to have their clothing made, but after ready-to-wear they wore clothes that didn’t express their inner selves. We’ve gone through a very long cycle of industrial harm relating to the waste and excess of the fast fashion industry and to me that’s what fashion revolves around currently. Capitalism and greed. It’s no longer about the essence of how you want to dress and express yourself.

POLLOK: How do you style yourself when you’re getting ready? What do you like to wear?

PEARLMAN: I have a polar mix of, like, manly and feminine. Right now I have on basketball shorts and a vintage Japanese tank top–I tend to be the girliest girl or really manly and ambiguous.

POLLOK: Who are some designers you admire right now? Where do you shop?

PEARLMAN: I actually don’t buy any new clothes. Not on principle, but just because I don’t love anything new that’s been coming out. There are some designers I really admire, like Rick Owens. Galliano. My favorite designer of all time is Madame Grès, who was French and did the first kind of draped silk dresses that I’m doing. She’s definitely my favorite designer of all time. Other than that, there’s almost no one. Frankly, I think there’s a lot of fear in fashion right now and people are scared to, like, turn over their empires. Anna Wintour has it. Hedi Slimane, Ralph Lauren–it’s absolutely time for them to hand the trust over to a younger designer. I think the internet has caused a lot of confusion in fashion because it tricks them into thinking they’re still in touch with people’s tastes. This isn’t a criticism because I think all of them are iconic. It’s just that aging is a natural part of the life cycle and they won’t let go and accept, like, where they are in their lives, which is toxic.

POLLOK: Who are some of your biggest artistic inspirations outside the world of fashion?

PEARLMAN: Lautrec, Monet. I love Impressionism as a whole. Honestly, he’s in fashion, but Lee [Alexander] McQueen is a huge inspiration to me, his ghost. Whatever he left unfinished artistically is something I’m hoping to collect with my work. I think he’s watching over fashion and everything that’s happening right now, definitely.

POLLOK: It’s really refreshing that you’ve talked so much about your beliefs and family and religious values in this interview. It’s always so boring when all someone wants to do is self-promotion.

PEARLMAN: For me, self-promotion in terms of a brand is a hard thing to do and it feels a little grotesque. I want All the Rage to be a living and breathing thing. That’s why it’s made to order. It’s not a commercial enterprise, it’s my belief system materialized. It’s a physical manifestation of all these schools of thought that interest me. I’m not after the end goal of having a ton of employees and the brand going on without me. I want to cultivate something that’s more maternal and more about sharing wisdom. Yeah. I enjoy having a system that allows me to do that.

Ava Pearlman is a model and the designer and founder of All the Rage. She is based in New York City.

Tess Pollok is a writer and the editor-in-chief of Animal Blood.