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GlobalGrind caught up with 20-year-old Minnesota twin designers Coco and Breezy earlier this week when they stopped by our offices to clue us in on what they’ve been up to.

We were really excited to shoot the breeze with the gorgeous and talented women who, over the last two years and within days of moving to New York, reinvigorated lifestyle fashion with their use of metal studs as the default material for dressing up our favorite accessories, particularly eyewear.

The Black and Puerto Rican twins run on making the ordinary extraordinary and are associated with style and innovation: music, fashion, art, runways, print, toys and everything in between. They have been borrowed from high end brands like Marc Jacobs and Ann Taylor and their unique perspective have taken them internationally to Europe as recently as this past winter where they participated in the Born Designers project with noted designer and genius Jean Charles de Castelbajac.

The ladies, who finished high school at 17 and are now living in Brooklyn, arrived at GlobalGrind wearing their latest creation. We weren’t allowed to photograph it, due to restrictions, but it takes their design game, as far as production, to another level.

Fans of the duo will not be disappointed. 

After some tea and chatting, we talked about their inspiration, their success and how their parents encouraged their freedom. Check out their site here.

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GlobalGrind: So you came to New York; drove a car; sold it…

Coco & Breezy: Nuh uh. We actually came to New York to visit, we flew here just to visit. And we loved it. We thought it was like so amazing; people were loving our eyewear. So we just went back; we were just out here for two weeks for our nineteenth birthday. And when we went back to Minnesota we said, ‘mom and Dad, we’re going to move to New York.’ Then we sold our car to get extra money. We sold clothes, we quit our jobs (we were working at the mall, we quit those). And my mom and dad said, ‘Go for it.’ So we went to NY.

Wow.

B: Yep, the rest is history.

What’s your favorite material to work with and why?

B: Um, what’s your favorite material to work with Coco? 

C: I’ll have to say … we love working with different metals.

B: Yes, we love working with metals. A lot of designers, they sketch before they make. But my favorite materials are my hands actually. Because I like to create first. I’m a visual person so I can visualize what I want to create. I’ll visualize it, I’ll create and then I’ll sketch it afterwards.

C: Yeah.

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You were introduced to art at an early age. Who introduced you to art, was it your parents, or was it school?

B: You know what, it was ourselves that introduced us to art. It was our mom and dad that let us actually go for it. ‘Cause a lot of people’s parents don’t support them doing art. So I really thank my mom and dad. They’d buy us all the new coloring crayons, all the new pens, all the new fabrics and got us a sewing machine at such a young age. They always told us we could do anything we wanted to do when we get older. We didn’t have to do it all traditional. They didn’t say, ‘Be a doctor.’ We can do whatever we want to do, as long as we can make a career out of it. They supported anything that we wanted to do.

So you had a lot of freedom growing up?

B&C: Yeah. 

B: And you know what’s crazy? We actually did have a lot of freedom and our parents talked about that everyday almost. They always say they gave us a lot of freedom because we were such good girls and we never took advantage of it. A lot of kids that don’t have freedom at a young age, when they get older, they go wild because they didn’t have freedom. Our parents always say, ‘We always cut you girls slack.’ Because they trusted our judgment, they trusted us. At the end of the day, we have to grow up and we have to learn not to depend on our parents, you know? 

C: They didn’t let us run buck wild…

B: Yeah, they didn’t.

C: We were antisocial, artsy, loners that we didn’t have a lot of chances to go wild anyway. So, basically, we got in trouble for cutting up my mom’s sheets and making them into dresses, using her make up and those were the only times we got in trouble. But other than that, we didn’t really do anything that was out the ordinary. We were never really partiers. And we were never like, I don’t know … What other crazy stuff do kids do? 

B: We were just art girls in school.

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Did you grow up in a small town in Minnesota?

B: I wouldn’t say it was a small town, but we grew up in the suburbs. 

B: It wasn’t really a small town but it was very suburban. So everybody wore like jeans and a T-shirt, Abercrombie, Hollister, that style. While we came in in high heels in the ninth grade. [People] were always like, what’s up with your outfit?

What age were you when you got your first tattoo?  

C: We actually started getting tattoos when we moved out here. When we first moved out here, we had no tattoos.

B: Yeah, then when we went back home to visit our parents we had tons of tattoos. And we started getting our piercings at like 13/14.

What was the first piercing? 

B: The first one we got done was our nose. And then we got our Monroe piercing. And then we started getting tons of piercings. But yeah, mom and dad let us get those.

What was the attraction to piercing? 

B&C: We wanted something different.

C: Like, it’s so funny that the image, our crazy tattoos, our crazy piercings, it’s like these crazy, wild party girls. But really we’re like low-key, shy people; people just don’t know.

Can we find stuff from the project you did with CASONOVA online? What should we Google?

B: Born Designers. B-o-r-n Designers… We did a fashion show but it wasn’t really like a fashion show. [French designer Jean Charles de Castelbajac] did an event where he showed his new winter collection. It was cool because he had us and all the people that worked at the event wearing his new jackets and snowsuits. But the way he did it, he’s so crazy! It was like we were in the mountains. He came out in snowmobiles with colors he always uses. So all the snowmobiles had like crazy colors shooting out the front.

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It’s almost like you were raving in the mountains or something?

B: It was definitely fun. He’s so inspiring too.

What music are you listening to now?

B&C: Oh my gosh, The Weeknd. 

B: Every day.

C: Yeah. I listen to all new music, I’m not really [into] mainstream. I listen to a lot of like, DUMB SET OR EPSIN music,  classical, Mozart. We like the old school artists from the ’90s, too.

B: We like the old school R&B music.

C: Like all the old cuts from back-in-the day.

C: Yeah. I love singing. (Well I can’t sing but, I love singing) but I love like signing along, jamming. But The Weeknd is what we listen to right now. Their music is like R&B, it’s like dark R&B.

B: Yeah. I think they’re from where Drake is from. Toronto.

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In high school, who were your favorite designers, who were you looking at?

B: We actually didn’t look at designers. 

C: Yeah, we really didn’t.

B: I don’t get inspired by anyone else’s work. We get more so inspired by knowing that people started it. And so, a lot of people, when they’re looking at designers, they’re just looking at other people’s work. 

C: We actually didn’t get started in design until we moved to NY. Being from Minnesota, I didn’t really get the big designer names until we came out here. It’s still, I mean, it’s cool, but it’s not important to me. 

B: I like Karl Lagerfeld and the story of who he is. 

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B: I don’t really look at other designer’s designs, but I look at their stories. And we love Karl Lagerfield and Jean Charles de Castelbajac. Those are two people we love. We look up to their work ethic, look up to their art and creativity. And, of course, McQueen because he’s amazing.

Have you seen the Savage Beauty show at the Met?

B: Not yet.

It’s been extended through August.

C: Oh really? I heard it was amazing, I though it was supposed to end like July something.

Ok, so last question. Both of you have met a young, Black or Latina girl who wants to be a designer, what do you say to her?

C: Well, I would say that … I can’t, I can’t, you go.

B: I think skin color and your nationality shouldn’t [matter to ] you as a designer or what type of artist you are. And so I would just say that any young man or any young woman, whoever wants to be a designer or young entrepreneur, that you have to just work hard. And if you’re gonna do something, go for it!

C: Just because you’re a person of color, does not mean you have to design for people of color. You know? Of course I love my people and stuff, I’m universal. I’m not only designing for just my race. Being universal, you don’t design for a race, you design for a personality. And so, a lot of people act like when you mix it up, that’s racist … I’m not designing for one race.

I think that if someone were to be a creator, if you’re a music artist,  a designer, just anything in general … the trade-marking, the financials, the taxes, just knowing all that stuff is super important. A lot of people don’t think about that as [they start] a new business. The flashing lights aren’t what’s important. The flashing lights are numbers. What’s important about being a designer is having your product and just knowing, ‘Well this piece right here costs XYZ dollars.’  Know. Every. Single. Thing. about your business, have a business [mind…]. When we started, we didn’t know anything about business. We thought we were just making things for fun and people were buying them. And then we got a business manager. And now I could talk about business all day. I could talk to business people … I would feel bad if I have a boyfriend. We’ve talked to people who’ve been in business for like 30 years and they’re like, ‘how do you know this stuff?’ It’s all trial and error.