WHO OR WHAT THE HELL IS ANONYMOUS CLUB?

After blurring the lines with Hood by Air, Shayne Oliver and his creative collective are here to test new limits.

To expect a rigid description of Anonymous Club is, ironically, to miss the point entirely. It’s an oasis of the undefinable, which is exactly what Shayne Oliver wants. It’s been 16 years since he launched Hood by Air, the fashion label that would foreshadow (and catalyze) the fusion of streetwear and traditional fashion. Inspired by the New York City club scene where Oliver cut his teeth as a young DJ, HBA kept the fashion world mesmerized while operating totally outside of it. The brand’s gender-bending silhouettes, medium-defying runway presentations, and endlessly cool orbit of cult-famous talent was a celebration of queerness unparalleled within the fashion week schedule.

Unexpectedly, HBA announced a hiatus in 2017. During what would become a four-year break for the brand, Oliver collaborated with other fashion players like Helmut Lang, Diesel, and Longchamp, but more importantly, he planted the seeds of Anonymous Club: a creative studio operating by and for the community values that galvanized HBA. Alongside a core group of members—including Ian Isiah, Izzy Spears, and Thug Pop—Oliver uses Anonymous Club as an incubator for young creatives (“residents”) across fashion, music, nightlife, and art. The collective collaborates across all mediums and genres—from producing the “Prologue” short film that previewed HBA’s 2021 return, to performing a full lineup and designing merch for Boiler Room’s latest Brooklyn festival. So, what is Anonymous Club? It’s the eye of Oliver’s creative hurricane, and the physical manifestation of his career-long values. It’s a ballroom house where Tamagucci and Arca are house mothers, Bushwick warehouse clubs are the ballrooms, and the category is always realness. It’s a collaborative, creative playground of Oliver’s own subconscious—free from job titles, quarterly sales meetings, or a paper trail of public perception. It’s a safe space built to see, hear, and nurture young talent, while establishing an ecosystem around it. It’s a question without an answer—but that doesn’t mean Oliver wants us to stop asking.

HOW DO YOU EXPLAIN WHAT ANONYMOUS CLUB IS?

It’s a studio, now formulating inside a brand, with the premise of the original ethos behind HBA. It’s a statement based on that premise without the nostalgia of the actual brand itself.

HOW DID THE IDEA FOR ANONYMOUS CLUB MATERIALIZE? WAS IT HAND-INHAND WITH THE REVIVAL OF HBA?

With [the HBA] hiatus, I felt a need to establish a playground, a place for ideas to flourish without them being commercialized—or before they are commercialized—allowing them to be a lifestyle before they become part of a brand. With the restructuring of HBA, and the lack of community within those conversations, it became evident that there needed to be a place for that to live. The clubs we had before…there weren’t those spaces anymore. Using the runway as a tool to formalize those expressions wasn’t part of the marketing plan anymore. These are things that felt really fundamental to the initial practice—then it became very evident to me that it wasn’t just about HBA as a brand. It was about the practice, the community, embracing those things.

Since I began referencing them, a lot of things are now flourishing, which I think is great—like the ballroom scene, how far that’s come along. I hope that as time goes on, not just the figureheads, but the ecosystem itself gets more support and more structure.

HOW DOES ANONYMOUS CLUB OPERATE? I’M ENVISIONING IT AS AN ONGOING BRAINSTORM.

It’s collaborating with people that I love, people that I’ve known, but also bringing in new faces. I was very sensitive in making sure it was a collaboration not a brand. This is me working with people. I don’t even give titles. I collaborate with younger talents and I see what they’re interested in, what they’re good at. Then, if it’s a longer-lasting conversation, I allow people to grow into positions, and have a place to to grow their own little kids or mini-houses.

WHO ARE THE KEY FIGURES IN ANONYMOUS CLUB? WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MEMBERS AND RESIDENTS?

Members are people that already did this with me at HBA, and are now overseeing things and acting as a guiding voice. The Ian [Isiah]s, the Arcas, the Yves Tumors. I don’t think it takes that long for me to consider people members, or from residency to membership. Friendship and collaboration has a lot to do with that. It’s how much the person is on their own, but is also able to collaborate. Or it’s about how much we become friends, then I become really like a mother and teach a lot—you’re, like, close to the teat. Those are the two avenues I’ve responded to the most. I’m trying to build a system where people don’t get burned through relationships. It’s like a growing garden—a structural garden, but also a healing one.

I LOVE THAT. THAT IS TRULY LIKE A HOUSE. YOU WERE BORN TO BE A HOUSE MOTHER!

No, totally. There are so many queer conversations happening; it’s about us saying that we can be a part of all of these things without being ostracized. We can be considered for the talents and sheer dopeness and design aesthetics that we’re bringing to the forefront.

HOW DO YOU FIND NEW RESIDENTS? DO THEY COME TO YOU, OR DO YOU SEEK THEM OUT?

It’s a bit of both. Kids seek it out. People send out calling cards; you can see people doing things that are familiar, and using things that you’ve done as jumping off points. And you just pay attention to the culture that surrounds you, the people that are paying homage or even revolting against things that you’ve done. Hopefully, the future of Anonymous is rooted within that: we know kids because the kids are coming to us, and they want to be around people that genuinely uphold them to an elite level—not through separation, but because their ideas are fucking incredible.

“WE KNOW KIDS BECAUSE THE KIDS ARE COMING TO US, AND THEY WANT TO BE AROUND PEOPLE THAT GENUINELY UPHOLD THEM TO AN ELITE LEVEL—NOT THROUGH SEPARATION, BUT BECAUSE THEIR IDEAS ARE FUCKING INCREDIBLE.”

WHAT’S THE DYNAMIC BETWEEN MEMBERS AND YOURSELF? IN A GROUP OF HEAVILY CREATIVE PERSONALITIES THE MOMENTUM CAN BE INCREDIBLE, BUT IT CAN ALSO EASILY BE STUNTED BY EGOS. HOW DOES THE MIX OF PERSONALITIES ENCOURAGE CREATIVE STRETCHING AND DISRUPTING?

Disrupting is highly proactive. Disruption between the different, clashing personalities forces the work to always take a new shape. When you have a collection, it grounds all of that creativity. It gives a bottom line: there’s a T-shirt, there’s a hoodie, there’s this denim. Then, the free-for-all is the demonstrations we come out of those things with.

WHAT ROLE DOES NEW YORK CITY PLAY IN ANONYMOUS CLUB’S IDENTITY?

It plays a huge role. When I was doing the projects that began to grow roots for this conversation, and the collective, I had to come back here to figure it out. [New York] is an ecosystem that eats off legacy and aesthetic; I’m trying to find the through line of what it really means to be a brand that represents something. New York culture had a lot to do with me refining what I wanted to be known as, or representative of. I came back to break down those walls, and break down myself.

[HBA] made me a renowned designer, you know? I’m trying to figure out ways of becoming that by, in a way, disconnecting myself from it. Even though I created that house, I’m like the first child of that house—going out and venturing into the world.

WHAT WAS IT LIKE RETURNING TO NEW YORK AFTER EUROPE?

It was harsh, coming back with this energy back in 2019, wanting to rebuild things, then COVID happened. That’s when Anonymous became even more important, and the music became really important. I leaned into creating more music and finding an ecosystem. You have to create new systems and ways for people to enjoy themselves. Fighting for that is very hard when people are like, “Your thing is THIS thing.” But, it’s not really that thing, it’s the culture that people are creating from that thing. It really is about nurturing these core people, and actually making these people superstars.

FROM ITS LAUNCH IN 2006, HBA EXISTED IN THE REALM BETWEEN STREETWEAR AND TRADITIONAL FASHION—NOT JUST THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX, BUT COMPLETELY IGNORING IT. ANONYMOUS CLUB IS REFLECTING THAT AMBIGUITY, ALMOST 16 YEARS LATER—IS THERE MORE SPACE FOR THE UNDEFINABLE AT THIS POINT IN CULTURE, AS STREETWEAR AND HIGH FASHION BECOME INCREASINGLY BLURRED?

It’s actually a very special thing, ambiguity. Virgil [Abloh] could play around with that because he came from those realms: music and culture first, and then going into fashion. It’s sort of the same with myself—being a DJ, being known for creating culture, and then proposing myself as someone that’s focusing on a fashion brand. That was the whole point of HBA, creating a formality for those kinds of creatives to exist within fashion.

It’s hard, because streetwear has traditionally been so specific to certain aspects of the culture, that the aspects brought to the table—which were way more sociopolitical, you know, queer—don’t have funding. Just because my inspiration comes from [queer] places doesn’t mean that I’m making “gay” designs. I’m just trying to open these conversations up, for the perspective of myself and the people around me to flourish. That’s what Anonymous is there for: to give a name to that space. I’m collaborating with my home base. I’m doing artwork for my home base, making music for my home base. It’s more of a timepiece for me, HBA, and Anonymous is the active practice of moving forward.