Bruce Edwin: I got in to the so the called
new wave scene and then punk rock at an early age, when I first
heard Blondie and then the Sex Pistols…
Maggie Barry: Great!
Bruce Edwin: Yeah, then I learned about the Sex
Shoppe (the clothing store) by designer Malcom McClaren and
Vivienne Westwood. Did that whole scene influence you a
lot?
Maggie Barry: Absolutely. I went to school in
New York at the FIT. At that time, much stuff was going on, and
Madonna was an elevator operator, and punk and new wave were
there, all of that, in a weird way I guess, my first influence
was, coming from upstate New York, suburban rock, and how that
looked, and then I moved to New York, and it was disco, and then
it went new wave to punk, and then there was a weird little club
out in Queens called La More East, and I discovered hair bands,
and I was just like, ‘That’s it! I want to know about
that,’ You know, I mean I was totally in to fashion, but
you know, fashion’s so boring, and hair bands are so
interesting. So I moved to L.A., to follow blue hair basically,
and came out here, and my first client was Poision.
The Hollywood
Sentinel: Cool...
Maggie Barry: And so, it was kind of funny
because I came out here, and I think I had a zebra fur motorcycle
jacket, and I was rock and roll just out here, and Brett
(Michaels of Poison) turned around and walked by me and goes,
‘Do you want to sell your jacket?’ And I said,
‘I’m not gonna sell my jacket, but I’ll make
one for you. And I didn’t really know who Poison was at
this time. Again, I’m coming from New York disco, and new
wave and punk, and hair bands were a whole brand new thing, and
it was all about Van Halen and what not (in L.A.), and I was
like, look how cool this is, it was just great. I mean,
everything that I do is from experiences that I have. So with
this collection, we weren’t really designing, I was having
a memory flashback of the integrity of the look, that’s why
it had to look a certain way. So there is fashion, but then there
are things that make it pure, those elements, so you know, that
makes it rock and roll. Some things are very expensive, and some
things are cheap crap, and if you put it all together, its
fabulous. So that’s kind of how we work…