Midnight Studios’ Shane Gonzales on Rave, Art Department and L.A. Show
Midnight Studios founder Shane Gonzales is limitless.
Gonzales and his partner, Dre Hayes of The Foundation, have created a three-headed beast for Gonzales to express his creativity to its fullest extent.
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It breaks down this way: Midnight Studios is Gonzales’ top-tier luxury label, Midnight Art Department is the collaborative arm that partners with companies, brands and musicians on projects, and Midnight Rave is a massive hip-hop and electronic music party and experience.
Gonzales, a Southern California native, relaunched his Midnight Rave party experience last fall; debuted his first designer collection under Midnight Studios at the El Rey Theatre in Los Angeles in February, and on Friday launched a collaboration with “The Batman” under Midnight Art Department to support the new Warner Bros. film. His next project, a collaboration with English rock band Mötorhead under Midnight Art Department, launches on March 11.
Garrison Carrasco
“This partnership allows me to be the designer I’ve always wanted to be,” Gonzales said about working with Hayes and The Foundation.
Gonzales established Midnight Studios in 2014 while interning for Ssur. At the time, it simply produced and sold printed T-shirts and hoodies, but he never lost sight of his dream, which centered around rock ‘n’ roll and music references.
“My love for music comes from my parents primarily listening to 1980s and new wave rock,” he added. “The decade has so many sounds and my parents explored all of them growing up. Hip-hop, punk, reggae. Growing up in SoCal, rock came from my love for surf and skate. I couldn’t escape it. I ran with that my whole life.”
A year after launch, he met A$AP Rocky, who took to the designer and wanted to partner with him to help grow the brand with resources and a bigger team. That led to the birth of Midnight Rave in 2018.
“Rave was created by [Rocky’s] influences like hip-hop. Those two lived next to each other until the pandemic started. Once the raves could no longer be held, Rocky’s involvement slowed down,” Gonzalez said.
Although A$AP Rocky continues to be a partner, Gonzales began to rethink the Midnight umbrella. “I thought where would Midnight be five, 10, 20 years from now and the direction it was in wasn’t where I wanted it to be in the future,” he said. So together with Hayes, they teamed to reestablish the Midnight Studios brand.
“I met Shane years ago in Paris back when Midnight Studios showed at Capsule,” Hayes said. “I moved to Los Angeles in 2017 and I wanted to get closer to people like Shane who were really talented. We met at SoHo House in February 2020 before the world shut down.” And together, they built the three arms of the company.
Rave was the first to relaunch in October 2021 in partnership with Ntwrk as the official after party for the Transfer Festival. Gonzales created a fall collection inspired by the high-energy, hip-hop and electronic music events and opened a pop-up where product purchases allowed one entry into the rave. “This was Rocky’s idea from the start,” Gonzales said. “This allows us to do something that’s not a strict guest list.”
The second Rave event was held with Rolling Loud in December 2021 and the next is slated for New York City in April, followed by London in June to coincide with an exhibit Gonzales is curating at the Museum of Youth Culture.
“We view this as something that lives on its own,” Gonzales explained. “It’s not necessary that we tie the event to anything.”
In February, Gonzales debuted the Midnight Studios Season 0 and Season 1 collections together in Los Angeles, which comprised of cut-and-sewn basics, denim, outerwear, suits and accessories made in the U.S., Italy and Japan.
He decided to show both collections together to catch up to the fashion calendar that was thrown into flux due to COVID-19. “We originally didn’t plan to do a fashion show with Studios off the bat,” Gonzales said, preferring to build direct-to-consumer and relationships with retailers, but changed his mind when fans, friends, followers and business descended into Los Angeles for the Super Bowl LVI.
Music references are littered through both collections. The phrase “Welcome to the Machine,” appears on numerous styles and nods to the Pink Floyd song off of album “Wish You Were Here.” Parade hoodies bear a marching band design, skinny suits are fit for a retro rock band or The Killers’ frontman Brandon Flowers, who favored Hedi Slimane-era Dior Homme suits. The brand logo mashes the letter “M” for Midnight with a music note, and standout leather bags are shaped like boomboxes and vinyl records. The new offering expands on Gonzales’ ode to rock music that first began in 2014.
Though Midnight Studios is Gonzales’ elevated design approach, he still communicates his ideas through printed products with the Art Department. Their first collaboration, a license with the “The Batman” film, offers apparel featuring promotional artwork from the film, including a portrait of actor Robert Pattinson as Bruce Wayne; a question mark for the film’s villain, The Riddler; the signature Batman logo, and phrases like “I am the shadows.”
Courtesy Photo
Beyond that, Gonzales said he plans to continue producing collaborations once or twice a month in the same vein as previous collaborations with musicians like the Rolling Stones, Sex Pistols and Courtney Love.
Beyond Midnight Studios, Gonzales will also continue to work with companies as a solo act to express his ideas without parameters, similar to jackets he produced with Buchanan’s Whiskey and events he hosts as a DJ. In addition, he is launching a capsule this year with Vans inspired by his personal wardrobe.
“This is similar to when you see someone like Virgil doing his art projects that didn’t reflect Off-White or Louis Vuitton,” he said. “What he was doing really inspired me to take on projects in other platforms.”
Gonzales paid tribute to Abloh after his passing in late November, thanking the multihyphenate for collaborating with him at an early point in his career. The post said Abloh visited Gonzales in his apartment in Downtown Los Angeles after first speaking over Twitter direct messages about what a proposed Off-White x Midnight Studios collaboration would look like. Abloh took the samples to Paris, and asked Gonzales if he could visit with his family. They went and saw the concepts materialized and on the runway that same season. Model Cindy Crawford wore one of the collaboration T-shirts at the Off-White show on March 1.
“The ideas that he comes up with and the level of detail is mind-blowing,” Hayes said. “There are two board members: me and him. And my job is to help get his ideas out. I’m excited for everyone to see what I see every day.”
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