July 21, 2020
If you live on an island you know one thing is true: an arsenal of well cut swimsuits is essential. Whether it’s a family beach run (phase 4, please come soon), JAVA boat ride (yes, that term is here to stay), or, more recently, at home trying to survive the heat, there are a plethora of events that require your swim wardrobe remain at the ready.
Cue KASS. The two-time ‘Sports Illustrated’-featured brainchild of Keiann Corlise understands that a bikini is more than an article of clothing- it’s a lifestyle. The vibrant resort wear brand caters to every woman with versatile and timeless silhouettes made in New York, but inspired solely by the warmth of the Caribbean and the memories of an island-hopping girlhood.
In May, Keiann warmly (albeit virtually) welcomed us into her Harlem apartment. Much like her description of the KASS woman, she is bold, she radiates, and she is everything. Sat on a chic velvet couch Keiann tells us how she’s coping in quarantine, how her time at Agent Provocateur moulded her, and why taking a step back was crucial to building a brand that will stand the test of time.
How are you (honestly), and what are your thoughts and feelings on the current global pandemic as it relates to your life and work?
KEIANN: Good question. As it relates to my life I am obviously very lonely. I like being alone but I really miss my family- even my grandmother that’s 15 minutes away in the Bronx- but as far as work, it’s a really good place for me to reevaluate my thoughts, my beliefs, where I see myself in the future where I see my business, and what our beliefs are as a brand. It’s a good time to look at my finances as a business owner, an entrepreneur. It’s really a very melancholy feeling because it’s great on one end as far as work and growing and being an entrepreneur but also it’s sad in real life because clearly people are dying and others are risking their lives to save others, so it’s really a toss up.
How are you adjusting to this ‘new normal’?
KEIANN: I’ve really always been at home and I’ve worked at home a lot. Any of my gigs or hustles usually would have me outside of the house for a few hours out of the day, so I am used to that. What I’m not used to is remembering to stay protected every time I leave the house. I’m not used to making sure I have my Lysol, I’m not used to making sure my face is covered, I’m not used to making sure I have backup gloves and stuff like that. So that’s very stressful and it gives me a little bit of anxiety because you move to New York to be free and to have a little bit of carefreeness. I do definitely miss my friends, and this usually is the place where we all gather and we all have a good time and we eat and we drink and we laugh and we create memories in my apartment here in Harlem so that is definitely putting a little toll on my adjustment.
Let’s go back to the beginning: who is Keiann? Tell us about yourself.
KEIANN: Keiann is a very soft person. Very soft, very willing to adapt, very creative, I’ve had a large imagination ever since I was little. I don’t know if it’s because I spent so much time by myself- cause me and my sister are 10 years apart- so I had a lot of time to be alone. I was around adults a lot so whatever I was doing with an adult basically my imagination would be an escape. So whether it’s leaving my Catholic school and going to sit in the jewelry store that my mom and my grandmother owned, there’s not much for a little girl to do in a jewelry store besides going to get an Archie comic or something like that. My imagination is where I played. Envisioning wearing jewelry, envisioning clothes other than my school uniform that’s basically how I spent my afternoons as a child, and on the weekend, we live on an island, so I would be on boats and I would always be on the beach. Every Sunday I was on a boat, every Sunday I was island hopping with my uncles, my great uncles and that’s basically how I grew up. This island life is really a part of me no matter where I go ‘cause it’s really in my DNA.
You attended the International Academy of Design and Technology to study Fashion Design and Marketing. Was studying fashion always a dream growing up?
KEIANN: Studying fashion wasn’t always a dream growing up. My main dream growing up was just to move to New York and be some sort of artist. Whether it be with my body, as far as dancing or whatever the case was, but I realized in middle school and in high school that I was really taking a liking to bleaching my denim and cutting up my jeans. I would do that for everybody in high school just cut their jeans up, bleach them, and give them their signature jean, I would paint their white t-shirts, especially when we had like these days where, wait what was it called?
A Spirit Day where we would spend half the day outside and everybody wanted to be cool and have their own custom stuff, so I would have to go by the house and bring in the white tees- and guys used to wear tall tees then- so I would just splatter their tees with paint. Me and a couple friends did that actually. We were the girls who were creative and we would just come to school with something that we made ourselves: whether it be putting rhinestones on our converse sneakers, or painting our Air Force 1’s, we would always try to come fresh because it’s not like we would shop every week, so you really had to keep it funky.
Give us a quick recap on your journey from Agent Provocateur Shop Girl to featured swimwear designer in Sports Illustrated two years in a row and the birth story of KASS.
KEIANN: KASS started as just a way for me to exercise my skills. I did not leave the Academy of Design with any wish to start my own brand at all, but once I created these little pieces that people took a liking to, and when my dad photographed it back home, I realized that I could really have something. As a shop girl I was building who I was- I was separating myself from my swimwear. At Agent Provocateur I learned a lot of culture, I learned about how they operated, I learned about production. Their production is very different and the items they put out, it’s not like 30 new pieces every season, they really pick and choose. What’s the new print to be? What is the new color to be? What is the new silhouette to be? So I learned a lot at Agent and I’m grateful for my career there because even down to the customer service, like knowing your client from front to back, they really cater to all of their clients. KASS was really born as I was a shop girl and I was figuring out who KASS was and who Keiann was.
This (referring to KASS) is really a niche where I understand your body because I’m a woman too and my body changes just like yours, so I definitely know the things that you want to hide, the things that you want to show off, the things that change with life and age- that’s what I’m trying to build. And when you make Sports Illustrated twice, two years in a row, people think you have to be that type of girl, ‘The Model’. It was really just reassurance that you are way bigger than this so take a step back, whether it be 2 years, 3 years, don’t be quiet but take a step back and really build on this because you could go up from here or you could stay right here at this level. That’s what Sports Illustrated was for me and it’s been a blessing. It’s something that I can be proud of for the rest of my life. It is a huge accomplishment.
What inspired the expansion of the brand from swimwear only to resortwear?
KEIANN: Oh well I just explained that! I could be a swimwear brand or I could be a lifestyle brand, and the lifestyle that I grew up in we definitely island hopped, we definitely go from the boat to the restaurant, we definitely go from the boat to the grocery store, or to the beach house. So I am just basically designing from the life that I lived, that I grew up in, but elevated. It’s my life just on a larger scale.
What are some challenges you’ve faced in developing the brand and how have you overcome them?
KEIANN: I face a lot of challenges ‘cause you always wonder if you’re doing the right thing. Is it shallow? You know, am I delusional? But all of those things come with making something that only you believe in for the time being.
I am taking on everything that comes along with it and before you know it so many accolades have stacked up because I’m enjoying the journey. So yeah, those are some challenges that I face and I don’t let any of my challenges defeat me. They may slow me down or I may stop to think about it but I don’t let any of my challenges defeat me.
Who is the KASS woman?
KEIANN: So the KASS woman is a lot of women because I am a lot of women. I often like to think about the song, “I’m every woman it’s all in me,” because it is and I think that as women we evolve or change depending on the environment that we’re in. If we are with our children of course we’re a little bit reserved. If we are with our husband, depending on the environment we may be a little bit more sexy or we may be, you know, a little bit more submissive. I think that we have every woman inside of us and the KASS woman is every woman. She is a woman who does things for herself before she does things for anyone else. I mean that in a sense… even your body, the KASS woman takes care of her body first before she does it for anyone else. So that’s as far as your diet, as far as you working out; you do it because it makes you feel good and that’s why you wear a swimsuit like mine, is because it makes you feel good before you put it on for anyone else. So no matter what age you’re at, if you are working out to make yourself feel good and you feel that, “I am sexy in this cut,” you are the KASS woman. If you are traveling to see the world for yourself, if you are just filling yourself up first, you are the KASS woman. She is just bold and she radiates and she is just everything. There’s everything inside of her and she picks and chooses what side she wants to give to the world depending on the setting. If we’re at a pool we have a certain setting, if you’re on the beach there’s a certain setting, if you’re on the yacht there’s a certain setting and the KASS woman can definitely accommodate all those spaces.
Your designs strike the right balance between sexy and timeless; you’re not a designer of fads. When did you discover that this was your niche?
KEIANN: Definitely during Sports illustrated. I realized that trends did not matter to me because of the deadlines they were giving me and because of the moods they were giving me. I could pick and choose and pull what was good to me and what I feel like I would wear forever so I definitely learned that between those years, or between those deadlines. I like to follow trend when it comes to color because color definitely has something to do with seasons and where you are but as far as silhouette I believe that the biggest trend is that the body changes and swimwear is very, very intimate it’s just like your lingerie, so that’s where my focus goes rather than what’s the next best thing.
“Swimwear is very, very intimate it’s just like your lingerie.”
Has the difference between New York and St Croix influenced your designs?
KEIANN: No. I don’t think so no. I don’t think that it’s influenced my designs. I think what New York gives to me is the convenience of being able to create my designs. When I’m creating and designing and feeling and thinking and, you know, putting the notes together, my heart and my mind are in the Caribbean. My imagination, everything, is in the Caribbean. New York makes me want to speed it up. New York makes me want to go get it right now. New York makes me want to gather all of my supplies and get to it. New York definitely gives me the hustle and bustle, because the Caribbean is very laid back, on my time, I’ll get it when I get it. So that’s the only thing that I feel like influences anything that has to do with work as far as New York but with my designs they are strictly Caribbean and how I grew up.
Switching gears a little, photography is another way in which your creativity manifests itself. In fact, if I am correct, you are the photographer for your brand- what led you to pick up the camera?
KEIANN: Um the fact that I was broke led to picking up the camera. I’ve always been the person who looks at the bigger picture, so to me, instead of hiring a photographer every time I came up with a style, or something I thought was neat, or an idea, it made more sense for me to just get a camera and shoot it myself. It was cost efficient and in the end I picked up a new skill. My dad is a photographer so I had someone to teach me and I basically let him know that if he invested in a camera for me that it would be one of the best investments for my creativity, which he did, and then I outgrew that camera very fast and then he got me another one- he upgraded me. So I would say the demand for having the content made me pick up the camera, the fact that I already had a teacher in my household made me pick up the camera, and just executing what I saw in my head made me pick up the camera because I just felt, at that moment, that nobody could capture it like me. In the last few months I’ve definitely grown from that mentality and I can definitely trust and delegate specific visions for the brand that other people can execute.
I know you’ve designed swimwear for other brands. Is design, outside of swim/resort wear, in the cards for you?
KEIANN: Yes, actually I’m already working on designs outside of swimwear. First thing is tech. I’ve gone into basically hand rendering the way the user interface should look and the colors that should be in a user interface of an application. Tech has really pushed me and challenged me because really, there’s a lot of communication. With swimwear it’s just from me to me, to me; and tech, building an app, it’s from me to the paper, to someone who’s gonna make it digital, to the actual coder, and it’s a whole new world. I really appreciate it and I love it that I get to expand where the world is going. I’m growing with the world and everything to come, so it’s truly a blessing to be able to design functionality in other aspects beyond the body.
What’s next for Kass?
KEIANN: For KASS we are in the season of delivering. We’ve collected the data of what people need. We’ve collected the ‘where you’re going, who you are, what you do, what you want’. We know exactly what you’re looking for, we know exactly who we are, and what we bring to the table from today to 10 years from now. So what’s next for us is basically giving you guys what you’ve been asking for. We paid attention to every comment on every post. We paid attention to who loves what silhouette and why. We paid attention to which colors you love more than the others. We’ve paid attention to what works, what doesn’t work, so basically it’s just delivering, and we don’t want to give you too much. We literally want to give you exactly what works for you and for your body.
Interviewer: Amalda Quong Sing. all photos by: Keiann Corlise
