Eli Russell Linnetz doesn’t think of himself as a fashion designer. Instead, the founder of the buzzy ERL brand sees himself more as a storyteller who just happens to create an in-demand collection of quirky, cool updated American classics.
But while he may prefer to focus more on his creative side, it’s hard to ignore the fact that ERL operates under the umbrella of Dover Street Market Paris, the wholly owned subsidiary of Comme des Garçons, and that Linnetz won a Karl Lagerfeld Special Jury Prize at the 2022 LVMH Prize for Young Designers last June.
Now Linnetz has been selected to be the featured designer at the upcoming Pitti Uomo show.
“People like to say I’m a fashion designer, but really I’m a filmmaker and screenwriter,” he said.
Linnetz, a Venice Beach, California, native, studied screenwriting at USC, which landed him a role as an assistant to David Mamet on Broadway for five years. He also worked for Woody Allen.
“While I was at USC, I was always interested in costume design,” he said. “So to pay for my tuition, I worked in the opera costume shop. That’s where I learned a lot of sewing and my taste for theatrics.”
But instead of fashion, Linnetz switched his focus to directing music videos, working with megastars such as Kanye West, who ultimately brought him on to direct his tours and serve as creative director for him and his ex-wife Kim Kardashian. He was also hired by Lady Gaga to design and direct her Las Vegas residency.
But it was when Ronnie Newhouse, owner and creative director of the London-based House + Holme, a luxury fashion advertising agency, hired him to create a fragrance campaign for Comme des Garçons, that his life took another twist. Through that campaign, he met Adrian Joffe, chief executive officer of CDG, who asked him to create an apparel collection.
Fast forward to today, and ERL is now carried in more than 300 stores globally at retailers including Ssense, Mr Porter, Bergdorf Goodman, Matchesfashion, Net-a-porter and Saks Fifth Avenue and operates its own shops in Japan. But perhaps the ultimate tribute was when Kim Jones, men’s artistic director of Dior, tapped him as guest designer for a spring capsule.
“Kim Jones and I connected over Instagram,” Linnetz said. “It was really just two to three sentences. I said, ‘I like your work,’ and he said, ‘I like your work. Can you speak next week?’ Then a week later, the whole design team was at my studio in Venice. It’s one of those things you can only hope for.”
He said working with someone he admired so much was hard to believe. He was given free rein to pore though the brand archives, “tear them apart, and really express myself and what I was feeling,” he said. “I was the first guest designer they ever had. He was in such a position of power, and to give me so much freedom to express myself was a really big risk on his part.”
But it paid off and help put ERL on the map.
Even so, Linnetz still has a hard time wrapping his head around his success in fashion. “As corny as it may sound, I really just feel like I’m an artist, expressing myself in whatever the medium may be,” he said.
But he acknowledges that moving into fashion came at the right time for him professionally. “I was leaving the music industry behind because it was difficult working for other people,” he said. “At some point you have to compromise on your vision, because it’s ultimately for them. But after working with Ronnie Newhouse, I felt empowered by a new venture where I could express myself and the way I saw the world coming from Venice Beach as a surfer.”
With ERL, he was able to embrace all sides of his personality and skill set. “I’m really interested in creating a 360-degree world that I think is similar to creating a film where every single prop is placed on screen for a purpose,” he said. “It’s designed to sell a story. It’s not designed to make a profit. Most people who have a strict fashion background see the world through commerce and art, but for me, it’s purely art. There was no pressure for me to even have a business. The pressure is to be honest and authentic. I’m just a storyteller who happens to be making clothes.”
But those clothes are now sold worldwide and the collection is in high demand — which is tough for this storytelling artist to fathom. “Yeah, I created a monster,” he said with a laugh.
That monster will be on full view at Pitti Uomo when he will create an installation and stage a fashion show inside the Fortezza.
“I naively reached out to them two or three years ago, before COVID[-19] happened,” Linnetz said. “And then I got an e-mail asking if I was interested.”
As an artist, showing in Florence is going to be especially poignant. “Florence is the place of the Renaissance. So there’s a weird connection to the arts and where our understanding of art has even come from.”
Without giving away too much, Linnetz said he will use the show to introduce his new tailoring collection that is handmade in Italy, as well as footwear, eyewear and a fragrance.
And some of the artisan pieces in the collection will sport the name Eli Russell. “When I started ERL, using my initials was a way for me to hide a bit,” he said. “Even some of my friends didn’t know the stuff I was making because I was so shy and timid about it. But I feel like this is a new chapter where I’m really proud of the work I created. And I’m excited to share this other part of my fantasy world so I’ll be using my full name as opposed to the initials.”
The collection is “like my take on couture,” he said. “I’ve been working with the L.A. opera and the Florence opera, who will be contributing pieces for the collection. I want to show something that really pays homage to the Renaissance and the craft of Pitti Uomo, and what couture from Los Angeles would be.”
Turning back to his storytelling, Linnetz said the collection he will present at Pitti is just “a different character” created by this “Venice Beach guy. Maybe he’s a world traveler, maybe he’s going to prom — this is a different aspect of the same person.”
The show itself will also be centered around a story. In this case, the storyline takes place around 100 years in the future when these young Americans sneak into a masquerade ball at an ambassador’s house trying on things they find in his closet, pretending to be emperors and kings, and just playing dress-up.
In addition to the clothing, Linnetz will debut eyewear and footwear, both of which are made out of rubber in sculptural silhouettes so they’re safe to wear at the beach or surfing.
As far as the installation is concerned, he hinted that it will reference the Statue of Liberty and “Planet of the Apes,” which featured the statue in that iconic final scene of the original film starring Charlton Heston. “Hopefully it’ll beg a lot of questions when people see it,” he said.
After he returns from Florence, Linnetz will double down on expanding the reach of his collection by opening more physical stores and launching e-commerce.
But he’s not convinced if a store in the States is in the cards, at least not immediately.
“I’m so particular that it would have to be the exact right space that represents truly Americana in an authentic way, not just like a storefront,” he said. “I never really saw myself as someone as a brand or even a clothing designer. So for me, it would have to tell the story in a really particular way.”
And his long-term goal? “I’d love to design for a big house.”
