Music evokes memory with a potency that few other things can, and that’s something Emily Bode understands better than most. With naked bulbs hanging from the ceiling and vinyl records scattered on the floor, the Bode presentation in Soho today suggested a makeshift rehearsal space of a very specific milieu. If the band of long-haired boys playing soft-rock tunes wasn’t a dead giveaway, then the memorabilia plastered on the walls—posters of alt-rock pioneers The Replacements—spoke to a distinctly 1980s New England experience. “Todd Alden and I share a similar affection for ephemera,” said Bode, referring to the New York historian and gallerist who inspired her collection. “I remember showing him my mother’s penny collection soon after we first met.” Bode’s longtime art collaborator, Aaron Aujla, introduced Bode to Alden. “I think being a collector isn’t something you realize you are as a kid, and we have that in common,” the designer said.
Bode’s magpie instincts are the beating heart of her brand. Her relentless quest for antique fabrics has led her to exquisite places in the past: last season she set about unraveling the origins of khadi, the hand-woven cotton fabric first made popular in Gandhi-era India. Each new research project is threaded through the tapestry of a larger personal narrative, one that is also an ongoing conversation with a friend—in this case, Alden.
Their shared love of ephemera came through in charming workwear jackets printed with baseball cards and transparent PVC raincoats embedded with pennies and milk bottle caps, which Bode fastidiously sourced on eBay. Her commitment to making one-of-a-kind pieces that are truly unique is unwavering; she takes pains to incorporate the tastes of each client in the brand’s hand-drawn senior cords, be it a favorite fruit or cartoon character. This season the furniture pieces she produced in collaboration with Aujla came with doodles of Alden’s favorite things, including Picasso plates.
Bode is something of an old soul—the 28-year-old designer was born years after Alden graduated from Williams College in the ’80s—and her ability to follow her instincts is a testament to her creative maturity. In a relatively short time, she has taken her love of the handmade and the weather-worn and turned it into a thriving, CVFF award-winning business. In fact, you’ll be surprised to hear that, save for a few special pieces—the quilted jackets and dead-stock denim, for example—the majority of her new clothes are being reproduced in quantities that will more than satisfy her 40-plus stockists, including checkerboard knits, adorable logo scarves and hats, and even the patchwork velvet suiting. Music to the ears of fashion collectors everywhere.
