She may be a successful business woman, a zeitgeist designer who knows what women really want, a wife and mother of two, but New York-born, LA-based Andrea Lieberman is a traveller at heart. ‘I was 24 and I’d spent so much time in New York,’ she says, justifying the two years she spent travelling between Kenya, Malawi, Tanzania and Uganda. ‘Parsons [art and design college] was a lot of work and I’d been so focused on my fashion degree, I just felt like I needed to experience something completely different.’ It might have been a time of personal discovery, but never one to miss a trick, Lieberman would ship back tribal jewellery to a friend. For two years in the mid-1990s they ran a shop, Culture & Reality, in SoHo, New York.
The stylish set soon picked up on her eye for out-of-the-ordinary pieces. Before long, Lieberman was forging a career as a stylist, working for musicians, including Jennifer Lopez and Gwen Stefani, and later Hollywood stars such as Gwyneth Paltrow, Drew Barrymore and Cameron Diaz. Today, this experience plays into A.L.C., her own line of cool, contemporary separates. ‘I understand the emotion of clothing and how it feels when it’s on,’ she explains. We meet her to hear more...
‘In the late 1990s, styling was a really new concept. It was organic and exciting and spontaneous. Relationships weren’t forged for commercial reasons, but because people really belonged together. Versace and Jennifer [Lopez] belonged together. It was really natural, and very special to play a part in creating those relationships, making special those moments. When I put Jennifer in that green Versace dress, it was definitely a game changer for both of us.
‘Working as a stylist at the end of that decade was a crazy time. It was this period where people realised and understood the power of dressing a personality – the right dress, the right venue, the right girl. Through my music styling I did a wonderful shoot in Paris with Annie Leibovitz and Kate Moss for Vogue.
‘As a stylist, I worked mostly with musicians – that’s the world I entered. I had a good friend who was an executive producer for videos and I got involved with the world of hip-hop. It was really fun and I did something for Fun Lovin' Criminals. The photographer on that job asked me to work on another shoot for Vibe magazine and it turned out it was for Puffy [Sean Combs, aka Puff Daddy] and 13 other rappers. First, I thought, “Are you kidding me?” but then I realised, “Why not?” I hit the ground running. I knew Puffy from the scene in New York – it’s small world – so when I saw him on the shoot he was like, “Heeeeey!”
‘I got a sewing machine for my 16th birthday and started making my own clothes. I didn’t have a uniform at school but we had a very strict dress code, which I pushed to the limits. It was the 1980s and I always wore head-to-toe black: Dr. Martens with leggings, a pleated skirt and a Rifat Özbek overcoat. I had my head shaved on the side. I was really into that whole new wave. I knew I’d discovered my anchor in life.
‘Starting my own line was always on the cards for me because of my fashion training. I felt the mood shifting in music and styling. The internet, the weekly magazines and the gossip blogs arrived with such full force that they changed the dynamics of what we did. I think whatever you do in life, it’s important to always look around the corner and see what’s next otherwise you risk getting stuck. On a personal note, I wanted to have a family. I had started spending a lot of time in LA with my then boyfriend (now husband) Vince. And now here I am, five years later with two kids, Paloma and Leonardo, who are just delicious, and a company to run.
‘I want every piece to feel like a favourite. I know that when I dressed all these incredibly famous people that they have moments where they’re like, “I just need my security blanket” so they will always go and put that one thing on. If they’re having a panic before they go on stage, or go on a talk show, or just step outside the house, they have something they can throw on and they’re like, “OK, I feel like me.” And that’s what I wanted to do with the collection.
‘What we do is not about super-flashy pieces, but about the finishing. We take a detail-oriented approach. I think that’s the best way because I’m a female designer and, having worked with so many women, I understand the emotion attached to clothing and how it feels when it’s on. I think of everything as having pedigree with an edge.
‘I like the evolution of where we started and where we are. I always need to be challenged and I find that I always need to be learning. I felt like I stopped being challenged with styling, stopped learning. I feel incredibly challenged with this business.’
