How did Rotsaniyom start?
Gift: My love for fashion drove me to open a clothes shop. My parents owned a small children’s clothes factory. But that’s not my thing. So I finally asked my boyfriend, Off, who worked as an exhibition designer, to open a shop with me. We started selling T-shirts at Fat Fest before opening Rotsaniyom at Chatuchak Market in 2007.
Who are your inspirations?
Gift: We really admire the way Thai designers built their brands in the old days. We were never interested in the foreign brand names; we’d always go to Siam Center to check out Thai designers like Greyhound, It’s Happening and Theoddyssee. Their designs and displays were so cool; it lit up our imagination.
Off: We want our clothes to be seen as art pieces. It’s always been our passion to cultivate Rotsaniyom as a fashion brand, not just a shop selling clothes. Our sales at Chatuchak were better than in the mall. But good sales don’t always mean good design. We chose to make art and we’re proud of it.
What’s your proudest moment?
Gift: Our dream came true when we opened our flagship store in Siam Center last year. Everything since then has been a bonus. I’m not even sure we want to grow beyond this. We love the way we are now. If 10 out of 100 customers understand the message in our design, we’re already a success.
How do you combine design and business?
Off: To make design and business go together, you need to fix problems at the right point. As we are a designfirst brand, if we have problems with sales, we won’t change our business by churning out mass products. We once tried to do trendy stuff while at Chatuchak and it made us feel worse than if we didn’t have money.
How do you spend your down-time?
Gift: We love vintage stuff. Items that have stories. Some things need time to make them valuable. The oldest piece I’ve bought is a 1920s dress from Japan. We also love living in the Old Town. Living near Thewet, there are no flashy crowds. You don’t feel the need to dress up to match the upscale vibe like in Ekkamai or Thonglor. We’d rather go to Khao San Road for drinks and people- watching. It’s like we’re in another city.
Off: We also love renting movies, and actually still do it. We love going to Frame, a movie shop at Tha Pharchan. They have every movie we can think of. We want to support this kind of business.
Gift: I love watching movies and studying the female characters. Mae Ploy in Four Reigns is my favorite character. I love the historic detail. It also makes me admire our royal family, too.
How do you incorporate your loveof tradition in modern clothing?
Off: I’m so patriotic. I have a very high opinion about Thai culture. Mae Ploy is like our muse. She accepts change even though she is pretty conservative. But as a designer, I accept that times have changed, and we try to interpret Thai things to match the present-day. It’s frustrating that when we add Western touches to our design, it’s considered Western design. But when we do something with a Thai touch some people get outraged. A lot of Thai people got mad about our Malai [garland] collection because we used garlands in our shoe design, when garlands are normally used to pay respect to revered things like Buddha images or elders. Sometimes it seems there is no meeting point between traditional Thai and new design. We, designers, don’t have a duty to preserve everything exactly the way it used to be. We have a duty to create something new. We can showcase the unique creativity of Thais on the global stage without sacrificing our precious culture.
What do you think of the Thai fashion scene right now?
Off: It’s so boring. People like wearing the same thing because it’s celebrity-endorsed. I’m not totally against this kind of marketing. Hollywood also does it. But in the long term, I want to see brands in it for the design, not the fame. Don’t damage the fashion industry just because you want to be famous. I preferred our fashion scene in the old days when we loved brands for the overall design and quality, not for the celebrities.
What advice do you have for those starting out in fashion?
Off: The main asset of a fashion brand is ideas, not money. You don’t have to be a rich kid or borrow lots of money to create a brand. You just need passion, ideas and a good business plan to make it work. We first started out with just B7,000.
