Behind the Brand of Visage Clothing
When Bernard Mingo IV started his brand in 2018, it was a casual venture.
He didn’t fancy fashion until college, but then brands like Off-White and Supreme captured the 24-year-old entrepreneur’s spirit. After learning more about other designers, techniques and fabrics, Mingo plummeted into the realm of design, and Visage Clothing was born.
Image Courtesy: Bernard Mingo IV
In marrying his digital arts degree from the University of Florida and his newfound interest in clothes, Mingo cultivated his brand through artificial intelligence (AI) fashion.
Although a seemingly unconventional form of style, Visage Clothing’s AI creations have gripped the attention of tech novices and experts alike.
Before implementing runway models, Mingo traced his design roots to 3D modeling.
“I wanted to make clothes, and at the time I had gotten really good with 3D modeling. I was able to make housing interiors, products and vehicles,” he said. “So, I thought, ‘why can’t I make clothes also?’”
And so, he did.
In describing his “natural progression” to digital fashion, Mingo found himself “addicted to finding out more about clothing,” and utilized his knowledge of programming and design to find the answers.
“The basic idea in digital fashion is that you are creating garments in a virtual setting for the purpose of either animating a character, animating a CGI, or you can even just make clothes for the purpose of making clothes…for the purpose of making art,” he said.
Image Courtesy: Visage Clothing
Mingo discovered that digital fashion dissolved the barriers of the physical world. AI fashion enabled him to exceed the financial and technical limitations of reality, and instead create textures, materials and structures without bounds.
This realization revealed itself while Mingo was designing a fashion line for his senior project at UF. He was tasked with creating leather, a luxurious material most college students do not typically have access to. In digitally designing the fabric, though, Mingo not only saved money but the life of an animal that would have been used to manufacture the material.
After submitting his project and graduating from college in 2021, this process continued to guide his work.
Although the pieces are born as computer-generated designs, Mingo aspires for his garments to become tangible manifestations of his digital dreams.
Image Courtesy: Visage Clothing
In recalling the beauty of making physical clothes that is often overlooked in crafting items for purely programming purposes, Mingo said he, above all, wants to learn.
“I’m very comfortable and confident with the idea that I don’t know a lot,” he said. “I just want to be able to learn everything I can.”
Much of his education and inspiration draws from music, music videos, movies and anime.
“While I’m creating a new collection, I will usually make a list of movies that I’ll watch over and over while I’m working on it,” he said, “or I’ll choose 30 songs and, while I’m working on the project, I’m only allowed to listen to those 30 songs.”
The most influential is undoubtedly “Eyes Without a Face,” better known as “Les yeux sans visage” to its French-based audience and cast. Every time Mingo watches the 1960 horror film, he said he’s enamored by its beauty in a different way, thus breathing life into the name of Visage Clothing.
Music by Kanye West and the movie “Clockwork Orange” are other inspirations on his creative queue. This method to Mingo’s madness keeps him in the zone, a headspace that encourages him to cultivate cohesive ideas.
He currently resides in this space as he works on Guns, Visage Clothing’s second physical clothing collection. When he’s not designing garments, he’s tending to the company’s marketing, photography and logistics alongside his friends Francis and Catherine.
Although Mingo is immersed in the infinite facets that are essential to fueling a fashion brand, he finds the most joy in creating the pieces.
“My favorite part of fashion is definitely making clothes…being able to have ideas become solid and seeing the processes that actually make that happen,” he said.
Image Courtesy: Visage Clothing
Making the garments revolutionized his perspective of the creative process, as he is no longer a customer merely interacting with fabric on a shelf, but a cultivator of ideas from the moment they are born to the second they are sold.
The feel. The fit. The fabric. Mingo relishes in the creation of it all for Visage Clothing.
“When someone buys a part of Visage, I think of it as them buying a part of themselves,” he said, “not to say that something was ever missing, but as we add garments to our closets and our bodies, we’re adding to the idea, the sculpture and the painting that is ourselves.”
Mingo believes he works to enable people to better embrace who they are. This is not only expressed in the brand’s Instagram bio that reads “we make expressions,” but evident in every stitch – whether physical or digital – of the clothes.
For more information on the slow fashion label that consumers are quickly falling for, click here and stay tuned for the release of Prisoner of Love, the brand’s next clothing drop, on May 13.
For more information on the slow fashion label that consumers are quickly falling for, click here and stay tuned for the release of Prisoner of Love, the brand’s next clothing drop, on May 13.
If you can’t wait until then to immerse in Mingo’s genius, check out Visage Clothing’s creations showcased at Strike Magazine GNV’s spring runway event.
While Mingo’s striking designs were complete with all things punk and chic, he said, “your work really begins when you’re done making your clothes.”
And, with that, Visage Clothing has just commenced its takeover of the physical and digital realms of fashion.
Strike Out,
Writer: Hannah Shelton
Gainesville
