Maggie Barry – Punk's Not Dead

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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…

Don’t miss part 2 of our interview with Maggie Barry in our next issue.


www.maggiebarry.com

© The Hollywood Sentinel ®, 2009.