Meet Remy Driscoll | Accessories & Clothing Designer

We had the good fortune of connecting with Remy Driscoll and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Remy, can you share the most important lesson you’ve learned over the course of your career?
The most important lesson I’ve learned from being a creative professional and owning a small business is don’t be afraid to start over, to shift focus, or to try new things. During 2020/2021 I spent a lot of time evaluating my life, my career, and what I wanted those to look like, as I’m sure lots of people did. I wasn’t feeling excited or fulfilled by the work I was creating anymore, and it was starting to just feel like work. In February of 2021 I worked on a new series of pieces that were very different both aesthetically and content-wise from what I usually made. I designed a series of collectible, one of a kind leather keychains— 28 of them, one for each day of the month. Each week had a new theme: animals, nature, food, and objects. I ditched my usual dark, monochromatic palette for bright, fun colors. It ended up being one of the most fun projects I had worked on in quite some time, and was the best received project as well. Since I was posting them on social media each day in February, after about a week I had people reaching out to tell me that they were excited to check Instagram each day to see what keychain was next.

After the success of the keychain series, I thought a lot about how I could take what I learned from that project and apply it to the rest of my business. The thought of doing something new after spending so much time building up what I already was doing business-wise was super intimidating and scary, but it felt like the step I needed to take. I’ve spent the past few months working on transitioning my current brand, VOID Atelier to it’s next phase: VOIDLAB, which be officially launching before the end of summer. I’m very happy I committed to rebranding and reworking my business to better suit me and what I want to be designing and creating.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
I first became interested in leather, my primary medium/material, during college. I attended Columbus College of Art & Design for fashion design, and one of my classes was focused on specialty materials, in which we had a project to create a garment or accessory out of leather. I decided to make a corset, which is a difficult project in and of itself, let alone out of leather! Despite the difficulty, I had a fantastic time with the project and was definitely hooked on leather as a material from then on. Later, I did an independent study for a semester based on continuing to work more with leather and to explore designing bags and accessories. I’ve always been drawn to the technical aspects of fashion design, and working with leather as well as designing items like bags has tons of technical and almost puzzle-like elements.

After college, beginning to work on starting my own business just sort of fell into place. It took me many years, and working many random jobs/gigs while also balancing making progress on my business goals, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. Many of my teachers encouraged me to pursue jobs in the corporate fashion world, because of my interest and skills in the technical elements of fashion design. But, I still had the itch and drive to create something of my own. I’ve recently renamed and rebranded my business, a decision that came out of lots of time spent thinking about my business and my life in general, after the last couple years of uncertainty and chaos. I wasn’t having fun with what I was creating and designing anymore. I wanted to have fun again, and feel fulfilled with what I was creating, and I think a lot of people are feeling that way too— the desire to just have fun and express that to others. Previously VOID Atelier, I am transitioning to VOIDLAB, a space to create, experiment, and most importantly have fun.

I love the challenge of working with leather as a material— it is quite similar to fabric but with a couple key differences, like having to get things like stitching seams right the first time. You can’t undo a misplaced stitch in leather like you can in fabric, the holes will remain. Due to these differences, leather has really taught me to slow down, enjoy the process, and spend the necessary time doing the prep work like making mockups/prototypes, and testing stitches and other finishing techniques beforehand instead of jumping straight into working on the final piece. Sometimes it feels counterproductive and wasteful to spend so much time working on the testing phase, but it’s always resulted in a better final piece.

Another aspect of the testing phase comes after the piece is finished. Since I mostly design and create products, I want to ensure the piece functions as I originally envisioned before releasing it into the world. Often I will either personally use or enlist the help of friends to test new designs. Sometimes that takes months! There’s been several bags I’ve designed and used, only to discover months later that something is wearing out quicker than it should, or that a certain element or component isn’t functioning smoothly. Lots of the products I design are items you would use on a daily basis, like a bag or a wallet, so if they don’t function well it can ruin your whole day! Everybody’s had a bag that was awkward to wear, or difficult to open, or had weird pockets that made you lose things rather than find them easier. I want my products to not only look good, but make going about your day a little bit easier.

Visual design-wise, I’m actually in a little bit of a transition period. For a long time I used a lot of design elements that I personally like wearing: monochromatic dark colors, minimalist shapes, lots of metal hardware accents. In more recent years I’ve grown as an artist and designer, and started thinking a lot more about what do I want to design? What feels fulfilling and fun to design, rather than just focusing on the familiar and comfortable. I’m having a lot more fun playing with colors and new shapes, which plays back into my interest in the problem solving aspect of designing products that I love. Some of the new shapes and bag styles I am designing, while at first glance appear quite simple, are actually very complicated and require a high degree of precision. One new style I am working on that I’ve named Aurora required many iterations where certain elements were only changed by millimeters each time, but those millimeters made a huge difference in the final design appearing effortless and simple.

Being a creative small business owner and freelancer definitely isn’t easy, and there’s been what feels like a million challenges along the way. From figuring out the answer to the question every college grad asks themselves: what do I want to do with my life? To balancing making money to support yourself and invest in your business, balancing your work and life in general, to asking yourself is what I’m doing right now working, is this what I want to be doing? Answering those questions and finding solutions is never easy, but things always work out in the end. Maybe not how you envisioned, maybe it didn’t go as smoothly as you wanted, but it always works out.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
Being an artist and designer, I always gravitate towards taking friends to all the hidden gems of the art community in Columbus. I usually start with the not-so hidden things first, like a visit to the Columbus Museum of Art, the Wexner Center, or Otherworld, an interactive art installation. From there, visiting the many galleries and art spaces in Columbus— like the galleries of the Short North neighborhood, galleries that are more off the beaten path like 934 Gallery, and visiting art spaces like Blockfort Studios and 400 West Rich. Especially in the spring and summer, there’s events happening nearly every weekend! From big events like the Columbus Arts Festival, to smaller events like Franklinton Fridays or the many art marketplace pop-ups like Columbus Flea, Front Street Flea, and the German Village Maker’s Markets.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I would not be where I am today without the support and encouragement of my fellow artists and creatives I spend my days with at Blockfort Studios & Gallery, where my workspace is located at in Columbus, Ohio. I’ll never underestimate the power of community and being surrounded by people pursing the same type of dream you are.

Website: http://www.shopvoidlab.com

Instagram: @shopvoidlab and @voidatelier

Image Credits
Personal Photo Credit: Alex Lefebvre