Artist in residence

In STEVE O SMITH'S hands, evocative sketches spring to life as dreamy, sculptural garments that are poetry in motion.

- PRIYANKA PATEL

For Steve O Smith, a garment begins with the stroke of a brush.

Every collection starts as a drawing—hundreds of them, in fact. “Probably 0.1 percent of the drawings I do ever get made,” he laughs. “I have boxes and boxes of them.” It’s this obsessive commitment to drawing that defines Smith. “I was always sort of drawing when I was a kid—as soon as I could—from two to three years old,” he recalls. He was also extremely interested in drawing figures, which led to his love for fashion.