“The world is at a freeze. Do what you want” - An Interview With Aman Deol, ‘20
By Ellie Bavier
Like most Middlebury students in quarantine, Aman Deol ‘20 has spent long hours in solitude. However, while the majority of us have spent that time with family and close contacts, Aman purposely isolated himself in a hotel in Boulder, Colorado. This alone time was self-prescribed. The reasoning: Aman wanted to unlock his own artistic creativity and create work that was truly his own. The designs that were born out of his time in Boulder are the potential beginnings of a fashion label that is entirely and utterly true to himself.
When I spoke to Aman, he was in the midst of yet another quarantine period in Milan, Italy. Once he is released, he will attend a year-long intensive clothing design program at the Istituto Marangoni, a top fashion school in the city synonymous with branded luxury. Aman hopes that the program may open doors for him to go on and receive a Masters, or even create his own brand. Aman sent in his application to the Istituto shortly after Middlebury closed campus in the spring of last year. He thought the pandemic might have been a timely wake up call, “It seemed like a good way to spend the year,” he said, “chasing the dream.”
Since he was a child, Aman has always been fascinated by fashion. His first art project was a tie for his father, and is framed in their home in Singapore. At the time, neither his family nor Aman took his artwork as a sign of budding passion. However, later as Aman explained his desire to attend fashion school to his family he chuckled, “did none of you realize that the first thing I made in school was a tie?” He explains that it took him a while for his artistic self-expression to flourish, as growing up in Singapore presented a significant obstacle: the sweltering heat. Typically in Singapore, street style consists of stripping down to as few layers as possible. Not one to be deterred, Aman would don jeans and sweaters, all the while “boiling and sweating”. Middlebury, with its cooler climate, was a welcome reprieve from the tropical weather of his hometown. Now, in his designs, Aman tries to integrate the different styles of these two regions that he called home.
On our Zoom call, Aman was wearing one of his designs. It was a black sweatshirt with the reimagined flags of Japan, Singapore, and Denmark. This amalgamation of Western culture and East Asia is exactly what Aman’s creations are about. He loves Japanese and Chinese fashion, particularly their streetwear. “It’s authentic,” he said, “They wear what they want because they genuinely think it looks cool.” This fusion of styles is also a part of Aman’s inspiration for his brand, Xinful.
Xinful began in the Summer of 2019. Aman worked to create the brand with an art-grant from Middlebury. The name Xinful (pronounced “sinful”) is meant to be a direct representation of his personality and pays homage to his multifaceted history. “My entire life, I got in so much trouble. I made so many stupid and dumb mistakes. That’s where the word “sinful” came into it,” he explained. “I changed the first three letters from sin to xin, because “xin” in Chinese means “new”, and it’s also the first character in the word “Singapore” in Chinese. It was a way to bring it all together. My whole idea was to find a way to merge this idea of the amazing fashion trends of southeast Asia with the Western world.”
Xinful was Aman’s first major dive into the creative process. “It’s been in every piece of art, in some way, that I’ve made in the past couple of years,” he said. The “X” logo is intricately placed in each design, sometimes the main focus, and sometimes so subtle it’s barely recognizable. However, despite the time and energy Aman has dedicated to Xinful, he’s ready to move on. “It’s hard to pronounce” he said with a smile, “and I want to expand my design palette.” Aman is excited to take next steps and move forward with a new theme.
Most of his designs stay within the realm of streetwear. It’s his favorite style because of its endless possibilities. To Aman, anything can be streetwear, and the most enjoyable aspect of it is fusing together different types of garments. “There aren’t any limits to what streetwear can be,” he says, “I love wearing a dumb hypebeast sweatshirt with a peacoat and a beanie. You mix things, and see what you can do.” Each of his piece’s is perfected as a standalone work of art, then it is translated into wearable fashion. To aid this process, Aman has bolstered his graphic design skills. In Boulder, he honed his skills with the Illustrator and Photoshop applications on his iPad. These tools allow him to manipulate and distort images to his liking.
At Middlebury, Aman would opt to stay in on the weekends, and work on his designs. After he finished his work for the day, you could always find Aman stationed at his desk, working on his drawing techniques. He keeps the door open to his room, and is always happy to share his designs or the songs he is listening to. Aman’s conscientiousness for his passion was palpable; his pieces reflected the diligence and meticulous attention to detail he put into them.
While in Colorado, Aman would spend all day working on pieces that were visual representations of his feelings. This was a departure from his past work. Before quarantine, Aman would mainly copy and trace other people’s works in order to learn more about design. Once he got to Colorado, he challenged himself to not use any source material. His rules for the process were, “Think of an idea. Do it. Don’t look at anything while making it.” In the end, he found his new pieces extremely satisfying. They were original, “I knew it came from me,” he said. By the end of his time there, he had made approximately 200 drafts. Pulling inspiration from images found in government archives, NASA records, and other folders of graphics that evoke varied emotions and memories, he either draws what he is feeling, or graphically manipulates an image. Lately, he has been particularly interested in government “flops.” “I love dumb inventions, dumb innovations, things we’ve failed, how we are being stupid in this world,” he says.
When a creative idea hits Aman, he drops everything to make it come to fruition. “Live life normally, and when you have an idea, don’t wait. Do it. Right now,” he said. “I’ve wasted a lot of ideas because even though I’ve written it down and come back to it, when I did, I didn’t have the same feelings anymore, and my mind wasn’t in the same place.” This is what Aman’s designs are all about: feelings, spontaneity, mess ups, and the unexpected. Eventually, this concept will be the theme of his fashion lines. He seeks to merge the unconventional, and document the way humans stumble throughout the world.
As he starts the next phase of his life at Istituto Marangoni, his plan is simple. He will learn as much as he can about the business. Specifically, he’s excited to learn how to sew and to meet really talented people. Along the way, he plans to start developing his art into a more public brand and gain a following through social media. He hopes that this may catapult him into the fashion industry. Though he has no expectations, Aman’s attitude towards climbing the ranks of one of the most competitive industries in the world is quite inspiring. “The world is at a freeze,” he said, “Do what you want.”