“The trend is that there is no trend,” Connor McKnight remarks to me, part of the ethos that has driven him towards focusing on a brand centered around the mundane. The DC-born, Brooklyn-based designer has become a fixture of contemporary menswear in the past five years since starting his label. With a career that took him from Kith to Bode and finally to kick-starting his own eponymous brand in his apartment, McKnight boasts a unique perspective on fashion more generally: the desire to create (and wear) something that toes the line between the approachable and the exciting. 

McKnight initially went to school for business, but his trajectory through one of NYC’s best-known streetwear stores (and a lifelong penchant for making clothing) eventually led him to Parsons School of Design to hone his creative vision. The brand he launched at home during the pandemic (“I had publications coming to my apartment, and I didn’t have an apartment that I wanted people to come to,” he jokes to me) quickly became a beloved part of the IYKYK menswear ecosystem in NYC fashion.

A perfectionist, McKnight speaks with VMAN about how his brand’s explosion put him on the fashion industry’s blink-and-you’ll miss it timetable. Five years in, he’s feeling more confident and intentional about producing his clothing than ever before. 

Photography Ethan James Green

VMAN: You’ve talked about the influence of the mundane in your fashion. How do you think about that when you’re designing?

CONNOR MCKNIGHT: A lot of people who have talked to me about my brand over the years have said that I have a very casual essence about me. And I think, as somebody who has been in fashion for so long, there are so many people who are into fashion who dress the part. It’s a whole look every single day of the week. That’s never been me, and I have been interested in finding ways that something that can be everyday can be spectacular or beautiful, because I think that that has the opportunity to touch more people and interact with more people in sort of a more tangible, experiential way. One of the ways that I got started was developing a narrative around home, which at the time was very relevant for everybody. People were stuck in their homes, working from home, doing all these things at home, and it was sort of this unified experience. 

More recently, the unified experience around getting dressed is something that I’ve been really fascinated by. It’s something that I think makes clothing feel a little less trivial, because it’s happening universally for everybody across the entire world, every single day of the week. And I think that opportunity for expression can tell you so much about every individual that you see. There’s so many different things that can be communicated through your clothing. And I think that that’s what’s always driven me to be interested in fashion. As I’ve gotten older, and I have experimented more with my sense of style, I’ve been kind of amazed at how much less luxury I consume. I will have one thing here and there, but there are some things that I wear that are truly just a favorite and super comfortable and functional in a way.

These days, especially with social media and the moment, the thing that people show online is very much seeking out something viral or something that’s a splash, because it gets a certain level of attention. I’ve been noticing a disconnect between that and what I actually see walking around on the streets every day. And I think as I’ve been making the brand, I sort of noticed this trend, and it’s almost like I’m trying to solve that problem. How can something be both things at the same time?

Photography Julius Frazer

VMAN: Yeah, it’s hard to toe the line between capital F Fashion and what people are actually wearing.

CM: What’s fascinating to me as somebody who’s been in the industry now for some time, there’s no avoiding capital F Fashion. It’s almost essential that you understand and can interact with that world as much as possible. That’s what drives me to be more editorial. I love this really boring thing, but how can I also make sure that I’m doing fashion on a greater level some sort of justice? It’s what I think a lot of people expect when they interact with fashion, is a little bit of that editorial flashing lights glamor. It’s exciting, it’s fun when you see it. It’s something that a lot of people seek out in their day-to-day. People do get bored by the mundane. It’s this sort of drag of being stuck and stagnant in your day-to-day life that I think almost everybody feels at some point or another. 

There’s still room for the mundane, but I think that what mundane is and can be is transforming before our very eyes. The question that we’re going to have to answer next is, ‘How can something be challenging but classic?’ It’s something like having your own language, and the self-referential things that become sort of your quote-unquote ethos, or your design DNA. What’s going to make people mainstays is like, you see that walking down the street, you know exactly who made it. I think it’s something that I challenge myself for, even when I’m pushing a boundary in some way or shape or form, I want people to still feel like they can see me in it.

Photography Julius Frazer

VMAN: Are there any designers that inspire you right now?

CM: It’s gonna sound really obvious, but I feel like what Miuccia [Prada] does has always been incredible. What’s been so nice to watch from her is, she is getting to this point where she’s literally referencing herself. It’s interesting to think about just because, now more than ever, we have so much information. The trend is that there is no trend. You can reference, literally, whatever the hell you want on a daily basis. The expectation is that you can create your own rules. And what I’m starting to feel as a designer is that it’s almost more your restraint and your decision to not do certain things that creates the bounds that are your world and your brand.

VMAN: What are you working on right now?

CM: I am working on Spring/Summer. I’ve been showing in Paris, but I think that next season I’m really interested in doing it [in NYC]. I have been living here for so long, and I think that I very much am a New York brand. I started this collection a couple months ago, and I’m just gonna keep making all the way up until September, challenging myself. I think that my work, and my perspective on my work has started to evolve recently, in that I’m trying to make things that feel exactly like what I want them to be. I think a lot of the time in this industry, one of the pitfalls of the pace and the calendar, you’re working against this deadline, and you really have no choice but to just put it out at some point or another. And when you’re a smaller brand, you don’t have the resources of Prada or one of the big houses. You end up sacrificing things, just so that you can make sure that you’re keeping up. Over the years, I’ve gotten so much better at not missing my own perspective, feeling like I’m putting out the things that I really feel strongly about, but I do wonder what it would be like, just for once, to slowly develop over the course of a long period of time, and start to have that opportunity for editing that some of the houses get because they’re working with so many different factories, so many different makers and so many different sources. And I think that you’re almost giving yourself the opportunity to make mistakes and fix them before anybody gets to see anything. 

Your average customer consuming your ideas is smarter than ever. They see the best right alongside with the stuff that is held together with staples and glue, you know. And I think that the problem with that is that you have this ability to compare the two on the same exact platform. And at the end of the day, I don’t think people care that much if you’re not perfect. So I am curious to see what happens if I take my time and allow myself to go through that editing process, because most small brands, emerging brands, don’t have time to edit.

Photography Julius Frazer

VMAN: You’re also releasing a bag soon. Can you tell me about that?

CM: We’re pretty close to being done right now. In the same way that I’m approaching the collection, I’m also just trying to make this bag absolutely perfect. Over the years, my leather goods and the jackets and vests that I made out of leather have sort of become a staple in the collection. There is something that’s immediately luxury about anything that’s leather. I’m hoping that basically anybody can wear it. That’s been my main goal.

VMAN: What are some themes or things that you’re focusing on for this collection?

CM: I don’t want to say too much, but every collection had an emotional or experiential theme to it. And this collection is on gaze, what it means to be seen. It also has to do with almost being an outsider looking into the industry. That’s the theme that I’m floating around in my head right now. 

Photography Julius Frazer

VMAN: This will be the most time you’ve gotten to spend on a collection?

CM: Yeah, for sure. For the first time, I feel like I have a lot more bandwidth and focus to just be put towards the collection. And it feels like sort of a transitionary moment in the brand. What was so interesting about [the brand] taking off so quickly was that I very much did make that first collection myself, and it did feel really good, but it felt like a thesis. A lot of the time your thesis isn’t exactly what you want it to be, like the one that explodes. I was very much trying to reel things in. I honestly feel like, up until now, I’m just starting to feel like the work that I’m showing is exactly what I want to be showing. You don’t realize it, but a lot of mistakes go into figuring out exactly what you like, and it is very much a feeling like, you’re making something that maybe you had an idea for. Sometimes you fucking hate it. Sometimes people love those ideas. And you feel like it’s not quite there. What’s been so amazing is that I have gotten opportunity after opportunity after opportunity to just keep going. I’m just incredibly grateful to be doing what it is I’m doing now.