Myah Hasbany is the Texan designer crash-landing a fashion UFO

Myah Hasbany was just 17 years old when they became Erykah Badu’s go-to designer. A student at Dallas’ Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing Arts, Hasbany met Badu when the musician, an alumnus of the school, returned to Texas for her annual birthday show. “She came to my school looking for dancers to be in the show. I knew I couldn’t dance, but I had to get in the room with her,” Hasbany tells me. “My friend and I dressed up in two massive knit pieces and we decided to freestyle to Aphex Twin.” It was a dicey venture that clearly paid off: Badu was impressed, at the very least by their enthusiasm and fashion, and cast the two in the show. Their relationship flourished from then, with the designer and musician collaborating on various creative projects over the years.

However, Hasbany has reentered fashion’s collective consciousness in two prominent ways this year. Firstly, designing for Badu once again, who wore an oat-coloured, hemp bodysuit with exaggerated hips, thighs and bum at the Billboard Women in Music Awards in late March. The look was widely discussed online, with many suggesting its form was a reference to Sarah Baartman, a Khoekhoe woman from southern Africa who was exhibited as a freak show in 19th-century Europe, while others suggested it could be referring to some kind of abundant femininity.

Then in June, Hasbany was reintroduced to us as the winner of the L’Oréal Professionnel Young Talent Award at their Central Saint Martins graduate show. Inspired by a UFO crash in their native Texas, Hasbany’s spectacular collection closed the show, which included identical twins separated by some ghostly defects, knitted plushies come to life, and a final look consisting of room-swalling helium balloons tied around a model’s waist, a look so big it had to have a separate entrance onto the catwalk.

Scroll through the gallery above to see the behind-the-scenes process of Hasbany making their BA collection, and read the conversation below to find out more about their fashion journey so far.

Hey Myah! What was the inspiration behind your BA collection?

Myah Hasbany: It was based on a folk legend of a UFO crash that happened in Aurora, Texas. As the town describes it, a UFO crashed into a windmill and killed the alien inside. The town decided the best course of action would be to bury it and pretend the whole thing never happened. I thought it was a great allegory for the treatment of anyone different from the status quo in the American South. I wanted to reimagine this story and propose that the consequence of this town burying this thing they didn’t understand would be that they become the thing they fear. Over the course of the collection, the looks go from relatively recognisable, slowly transforming into otherworldly creatures.

You’ve made a number of custom looks for Erykah Badu – how did that collaboration come about? 

Myah Hasbany: I was 17 when we started working together, and we met at my high school. My school was a performing and visual arts magnet, which Erykah also attended. She does a birthday show every year in Dallas, so she came to my school looking for dancers to be in the show. I knew I couldn’t dance, but I had to get in the room with her. My friend and I dressed up in two massive knit pieces and we decided to freestyle to Aphex Twin. In the end, we got a solo in the show and we’ve been working together ever since.

We work very collaboratively together. Erykah is a hugely talented designer in her own right. Oftentimes, I’m just the engineer who executes her vision. Other times, she trusts me to run wild with a vague concept.

“I don’t want to say where the exact reference came from for Erykah’s look. I’m much more interested in other people’s speculations” – Myah Hasbany

What was the reference for Erykah’s Billboard Women in Music look earlier this year? A lot of people online were drawing connections to Sarah Baartman.

Myah Hasbany: I don’t want to say where the exact reference came from. I’m much more interested in other people’s speculations. Erykah is a performer and artist, and she chose that moment to make that statement. I’d rather leave it up to her to define the messaging.

How is your queerness and non-binary identity reflected in your work?

Myah Hasbany: I think my work is a safe space where I can explore how I feel about my body and gender, which almost became another ‘body’. The shapes I create are extensions of the way I feel about myself and how I perceive my body taking up space. Even the hyper-feminine looks in this collection were my way of exploring that element of myself, without having to experience it directly.

So what was it like growing up as a queer fashion designer in Texas?

Myah Hasbany: Alienating. I think that was what a lot of my collection was reflecting on. There was always a sense that there was something different about me, and people treated me differently, but I wasn’t able to identify why. For lack of better phrasing, there were many times I felt like an alien that had crash-landed in Texas. My collection was a way to work through those feelings and feel less isolated by that experience.

Who were your fashion icons growing up?

Myah Hasbany: Probably anyone from Adventure Time. I also had a massive Riot Grrrl phase in middle school.

What fictional character do you most relate to and why?

Myah Hasbany: I would say Ash from Fantastic Mr. Fox. I think he’s also a fashion icon in his own right.

Time travel has been perfected – which famous fashion show are you beaming into the front row?

Myah Hasbany: Yohji Yamamoto SS99 without a doubt. It was perfection.

What is your earliest fashion memory?

Myah Hasbany: Being really young and seeing my grandmother’s collection of Bob Mackie Barbies. They were incredibly camp, and now looking at them again after all this time I can say they’ve influenced me even more than I remembered.

You encounter a hostile alien race and fashion is their only mechanism for communication. What would you make them to inspire them to spare you and the rest of the human race?

Myah Hasbany: I would definitely make another version of my red embroidered coat. Selfishly, because I’d also like to see it in another colorway and I’ll never have an excuse to make it again.

Money is no object – where are you staging your next catwalk show?

Myah Hasbany: Probably at the State Fair of Texas. I’d have to dress Big Tex though, that would be part of the deal.

What’s a fashion holy grail you’re yet to get your hands on?

Myah Hasbany: I’d love to get my hands on an original 1947 Dior bar jacket. It’s been an obsession of mine for years, and I tried to replicate a version of it in my collection. My interpretation was an attempt to create tailoring with knit, but almost if you saw it at a distance it would read as a wool blazer. Despite it being hand crochet, both of the twin sweaters were actually made of tailored panels, bias bound together and with a waist stay.

What’s the worst advice you’ve ever been given for your brand?

Myah Hasbany: Probably to make more of my pieces in a sample size. I understand why someone would say that, because it’s been the norm. For me though, as someone who isn’t a standard size, there’s been such a lack of fabulous pieces to wear – and there’s such a huge demand. I think people haven’t prioritised sizing for bodies like mine because people don’t think we can be good models, but almost no one has even tried yet. The reality is, we are fabulous models and we deserve fabulous clothes! I want to keep that as part of my mission, because it’s been so rewarding hearing feedback about how my pieces make people feel comfortable, or that it’s the first creative brand they’ve come across that has size options for them.

What’s the soundtrack for your next show?

Myah Hasbany: Definitely something by Clyde Crooks. He wrote a beautiful waltz based off my collection that brought me to tears. He’s sensationally talented.