Badlands 777

Today’s Brand New Art comes in the form of Badlands 777, a blog turned clothing brand turned print magazine run by friends Jade, Lilli and Chloe. Screaming with rock ‘n’ roll and Americana influences, Badlands’ imagery and clothing leaves the kind of burning mark on your memory that can only be relieved by buying your own piece (I’m still saving). If perhaps you don’t have an occasion coming up which calls for skin-tight, star emblazoned, lace-up, leather flares, you can still get your fix with their magazine. This is a hardcopy of everything Badlands, all the better for issue one’s theme ‘Sisterhood’, a concept which the girls state is ‘at the very core of who we are.’ We couldn’t agree more and we can’t wait to see what the girls dream up for their next zine, clothing drop, blog post, or whatever creative endeavour they choose to release into the world. For now we catch up with the girls to discuss the beginnings of Badlands, their inspirations and of course, sisterhood.

Introduce yourselves in three words…

Jade, Lilli and Chloe!

How did you start your business?

We never started up Badlands with the intention or purpose of it being a business, it begun only as a blog in 2010. It was really just an excuse for the three of us to be creative, silly and share ourselves with whoever was interested.

So is this your jobs now or a fun side project?

Badlands is a way of life for us, so definitely not just a side project. Everything we do is 100% self-funded, so we do work other jobs in order to fund our baby.

The clothing on your website is so cool! How did you get a foot in the door with the design and production side of things?

Thank you, we love it. From day one we've always wanted to stay as DIY as possible, so anything that we can do ourselves, we do. None of us have any qualifications in fashion or business - we've just made our ideas happen ourselves, with the help of some great & talented people along the way. We definitely do not look to this as a flaw, but instead celebrate that we didn't come from a 'privileged' place & have just taught ourselves skills over the years.

What was your inspiration for the designs?

Wow, the list is endless - ourselves, each other, our friends, women, our heroes & idols, movies, music, England, American, past decades, the far out future, space…we could go on and on!

There’s quite strong themes that run through your blog posts as well, do you find blogging to be a good source of inspiration?

For sure, blogging can be a great source of inspiration and its the foundations of Badlands.

What made you decide to turn it into a magazine?

It started with us wanting to create a zine to showcase some of our favourite creative talents from around the world. Gradually and organically it grew into a magazine. We just reached out to some of our favourite photographers, whom we never anticipated would actually want to work with us, but they did - so we put the pedal to the metal and thought, fuck it, let's make a magazine.

Your first issue’s theme is ‘Sisterhood’ and you declare feminism as your ‘truest form’ in the blurb, how has feminism influenced you all?

Feminism has influenced us in the same way that being women has influenced us. It's at the very core of who we are.

And finally, do you have a muse? I’d have to guess Joan Jett is an influence based on the names in your collection…

We do not have one specific muse, we just draw our inspiration from everywhere and anywhere.

Check out Badlands on Instagram and Tumblr now.