Karmine Bevacqua

First one, softball. Tell me a little bit about yourself and what you do.

My name is Karmine Edward Bevacqua. I'm an 18 year old designer from Canada. I'm half Chinese, quarter French, quarter Italian.

That's cool, are you bilingual?

Not really. I only speak English and a little bit of French that I learned in school. When I was very young my family tried to put me in Chinese school, but I never wanted to go.

What are some other vivid memories you have from your childhood?

One memory from my childhood that's super important to me is when I won this Lego competition when I was six years old, where you had to make your own custom build. I remember being super young... and being really into Legos. But I would never follow the instructions. I would always make my own stuff. Winning that competition was a super big accomplishment for me. It showed me that my ideas could be good if I put them to use.

That's one thing that I think is really cool about looking into people's early lives. You can see traits beginning to form and it's interesting to see how that develops as a person gets older. When did you get into designing and what made you start?

I started designing clothes and graphics in 2022. I took two sewing classes in high school. I remember I made a bunch of random different things but then one day I made a pair of jeans... and they were terrible. But I remember the feeling of making the jeans, even though they weren't good, I was happy that I was able to do that.

So, since 2022, has the inspiration always been the same? What were some of the early pieces you were making?

So, I took two sewing classes in high school. Kind of just for fun. And I never really thought about, you know, starting a brand with it or anything. I just had the knowledge of how to sew and make clothes. Around the same time, I remember seeing the bloodluster tee by Hedi Slimane that I fell in love with. It's just vampire lips with upside down heart shaped blood dripping from the fangs. I've owned 2 of the tees and the satin jacket now. So, I downloaded Adobe, bought a subscription and started designing on my computer for fun. The first thing I made on Adobe was a vampire tee.

Then it was around this time in 2022 that I decided that I wanted to start a brand. So then I started designing a bunch of different things. None of it was really that good. It was a lot of stuff that was made just for fun.

With graphic design, I'm fully self-taught. And I took the knowledge from both sewing classes and what I learned from making stuff on Adobe... and I was like "Wow, I can really start a brand with this. I just have to bring my ideas to life somehow."

After 2023, I designed a bunch of stuff, made some clothes. But nothing was really that good. So I kind of just took a little break from all of that. Then around the start of this year, when I was about to graduate high school, I picked it all up again. And I decided that I wanted to launch my brand this year.

Yeah, that's awesome. And I could see, just from looking at your story. Well, there are several stories every week of someone wearing a KBC shirt. Are those all your friends or do you have some sort of, I don't know, secret marketing pipeline... How is this all blowing up so quickly?

I remember, recently after I found you on Instagram... I believe it was the week right after that where I saw a post on Twitter with people wearing KBC shirts and this shit had thousands of likes. I think I sent you the post.

I'm honestly not sure because it's definitely not marketing that I'm doing. You know what I mean? The only people that I pay for marketing are my photographers, Yu and Johan. Shout out to them, I couldn't ask for anyone better. I think my favorite thing about having a brand is just seeing people wear the clothes. I always smile when I see someone post a nice outfit with the brand. There've been a handful of people who I've been fans of at one point tap in as well. The first one was Crybynoon, I remember seeing a pair of Rick boots that I wanted on his page in 2023. He's a great guy, definitely a style inspiration of mine.

Is there a specific type of person you make your clothing for? Is your clothing just what you like and people wear it because it's cool or are you designing for a certain audience?

Okay, so here's the thing. I have two ways to go about this question. The first way is kind of like... the general answer, like anyone can wear the clothes. The other way is the more honest, sort of dickhead answer.

Let's hear the dickhead answer.

I would definitely say my clothes don't cater to everyone. When I design clothes I don't really have anyone in mind besides me. Every piece that I've made and every piece that I'm going to make pertains to myself in one way or another. Just stuff that I like. I'd say so far in terms of "target audience" it's been spot on, I don't think I've seen a bad outfit with KBC on. For example, the guy who bought the Burtonesque Blazer dressed up as Edward Scissorhands for Halloween this year, I don't think that piece could've gone to a better home than that.

I'd say the person that I envision wearing my clothes, or the consumer that I try to cater for would be someone that's slimmer, who actually cares about fashion and how the clothes fit them. The way that I price my clothes, I try to filter out any of these Instagram brand consumers because they're just buying cheap shit. Cheap, ugly clothes. Versus mine. I think my clothes are very attractive. They're made and presented very well. Craftsmanship, material, aesthetics, everything.

What do the images in your head look like when you think about the aesthetic of your clothing? You mentioned slimmer... Also let's talk about The Bling Ring and how it fits into this aesthetic because I really enjoyed the story you posted where you had your shirt in front of the TV while The Bling Ring was playing and Emma Watson walks in with this look on her face. Peak aesthetics, by the way.

The images in my head... I'm going to come back to that question. I'm going to answer The Bling Ring question right now because that's my favorite question.

So, The Bling Ring is about these teen girls who are obsessed with fashion. And their obsession takes them so far to the point where they end up robbing Paris Hilton's house. The fashion in the Bling Ring is a mix of flashy luxury and designer, so I guess you could say my brand could've been something the characters would wear in the movie.

Even with the gold belt that I just did, I will be using gold in most pieces where I can down the line. I see gold as very elegant, especially in Chinese culture. You know, Chinese people love gold, as it represents good fortune.

So, the stress tee graphic is from The Bling Ring. I'll tell you the story about how the stress tee came about. So back in high school, I think this was English class, my friend Ian came to class wearing a Dior shirt. The Dior Pete Doherty tee by Hedi Slimane. And I just really really liked it. The same night, I remember going home and watching The Bling Ring again. The scene came on where Emma Watson says, "You're stressing me out." And she's wearing this fur vest, a red crop top shirt, skinny jeans, and she's got all this jewelry and a cigarette in her hand. I just really like this scene. For some reason I related to it a lot. Like you said, stressed and well-dressed.

So, that night I came up with the idea. The day after that happened, I designed the stress tee graphic with "You're stressing me out" and "Karmine Bevacqua" on it. I showed it to a couple friends and they loved it, Ian was one of them. That was the first thing that I designed for KBC. Everything before that point was just for fun. There was no intent of putting it in a brand or anything like that. So, the stress tee was the first thing that was made for KBC.

Your two main color schemes also go well together with your name and that scene. Doesn't your name also mean the color red?

Yeah. My name, Karmine, is of Italian origin and it means crimson red. It derives from the Latin word carminium. I did an English write-up about this in high school not too long before I started the brand, so I really thought about it. When you start a brand, you have to think about a bunch of different things when it comes to aesthetics. Color scheme, what kind of look you're going for, et cetera. So I had already decided pretty early on that I want the whole color scheme to be red.

Let's also talk about the other movie it seems like you like: The Corpse Bride, and how it ties in with Lust At First Bite.

So, The Corpse Bride is a movie by Tim Burton. And I've been a fan of Tim Burton my entire life, I think he's the best movie director of all time. He has this really dark fantasy style that I really love called burtonesque. I get inspired by him a lot when it comes to my brand.

So, I watched Corpse Bride when I was very young. It's about this guy named Victor. Long story short, he ends up accidentally marrying a corpse who comes back to life. The "Lust at first bite" design is very clearly inspired by it. Art style... but also meaning. The moral of the story that I got from watching Corpse Bride was about not getting into the wrong kind of relationship. Sort of a lesson about getting attached to the wrong person.

Lust At First Bite, which is my personal favorite, is inspired both by the art and the meaning of The Corpse Bride. The design itself is self explanatory, but the trailer isn't the full story. There is a sequel to Lust At First Bite that I've been sitting on. A couple of my friends already know. Maybe it will be released on the anniversary, May 3rd.

The trailers that I do for the drops are also heavily influenced by Tim Burton. Specifically, one of his short films called Vincent. That short film also inspired the smoking kills tee. All the trailers are going to tie into one chronological story too, it's all going to come together. It's like one big movie, that's almost how I see the brand. And everyone wearing the clothes is like the movie characters.

Since we're on the topic of getting inspired by movies, I really want to ask. This is one of my favorite questions. When it comes to being in a creative field, is anything original or is everything a copy of a copy?

I think the answer to this question is something that's very complex. To me, I don't think everything is a copy of a copy. I know my clothes are original. But, I do get heavily inspired by several different people, so some people can interpret that as copying, but I know it isn't.

There's a big difference between copying and being inspired by someone. Everything that I've done is inspired. I don't really copy anyone. People have already copied me, stolen my designs.

When I look at the people that I'm inspired by, I look at what inspired them to see if they ever copied anybody. For example, Tim Burton was a really big fan of Edgar Allan Poe, another artist who was really heavy into that dark fantasy style. Even when I look at Hedi Slimane... Hedi Slimane's design philosophy was slim tailoring. That's why all of his jeans in the Dior era have a clasp closure instead of a button closure, they were inspired by dress pants. That was his way of showing that his jeans weren't inspired by workwear. They were inspired by tailoring, right? And the reason that they had the super long inseam was so that anyone could buy them and then they could tailor it to them, and it's supposed to be skinny. It's supposed to fit you slim to the body.

So I think there's a very stark difference between copying and getting inspired, right? I think Virgil really changed how people create nowadays with his whole 3% rule. When he introduced that, it brought in this new wave of people who think that, "Oh, I can just take something and change it up a little bit and now it's my own." I don't think that's necessarily true because you're not really being original. They also don't understand that Virgil was doing it with taste. That's somebody else's creation that you're trying to just take. Right? Versus taking something that exists and putting your own original spin on it.

I'm not trying to re-invent the wheel. T-shirts have been done before. Jeans have been done before. Hoodies, track jackets, belts, everything. Everything's been done before. I'm just trying to make my own original versions, if that makes sense. I do see a lot of people who just take things, copy, try to change it up a little bit... whether it's putting their name on it or changing a little detail here, but it's like, it's not really inspired and there's no originality to it. It's just copying. They call them "flips". I liked them at first but too many people have done it now.

Really good answer.

So, that was a really long answer... and like I said, that's a very complex discussion to have. You probably see it as much as I do. So many people just take shit and change one thing and say it's their own, but to what extent is this being inspired?

For myself, obviously the stress tee is inspired by the Dior Hedi shirt. Then I put the spin on it with The Bling Ring and "You're stressing me out" because that's just how I feel. I'm just stressed. It holds substance. And then some kid from Poland stole my design. Literally changed the text and changed the girl to another girl. But it's literally the exact same shirt. It's like the most cringe thing of all time. It's especially cringe to me because I don't like when people steal from young designers either. I'm not saying that I steal from any designers. No. But a lot of people copy and steal... I think if you're going to do that, you should be doing it from designers who are established with a big name, you know what I mean?

Yeah, this is a very fun topic. The only reason I asked this is because I've been thinking about it a lot. A lot of the little designs, the little posters that I make... A lot of it, you can tell that it's inspired by the American Apparel posters. You know, it's literally the same Helvetica. It's got the same thick, bold line. That's like my Virgil 3 percent, right? But, I also think that it's okay to have that inspiration. I mean, it's only okay when I do it. No, but it's okay to have a source of inspiration.

A lot of the time, people have a source of inspiration and then they don't add their own ideas to it... Or they add a very minimal version of their ideas to it. And part of it, I think, can get really philosophical. All of the things that you've ever seen in your entire life have been things that have been created by someone else. So is it possible to be original? That's an interesting question that you can think about. Because if everything that you've seen was invented by someone else, how do you know if it's your idea or if it's their idea? The whole "homage" thing... people are really dragging it.

That helvetica is used by everyone. And, yes, you explained it perfectly. Virgil did it with taste. That's what a lot of them don't understand.

What are some pretentious opinions that you actually believe?

That real fashion is intended to be skinny. For example, Karl Lagerfeld, a fashion designer, lost weight to fit into Hedi Slimane's suits. He would make a lot of commentary on fashion. He would say stuff like "fashion isn't meant for bigger people." I've kind of always been into skinnier jeans, skinny fashion, myself, because I'm very skinny. I've been a fan of Hedi Slimane literally since 2022. I saw a pair of claw mark jeans in 2022. I have them screenshotted. I was always a big fan of skinnier clothing. When I discovered Dior Homme, I was just like, "Yeah, this is real fashion." This should be the epitome of what fashion means. You know what I mean? Like fitting tight to the body.

The reason I like skinny so much is because skinny really isn't a style that you can buy, right? You're either skinny or you aren't. Of course, not everyone's going to like it. This outfit with the first Cigarette Jeans and Mob Jacket kind of tells that. I do not expect everybody to agree with this opinion, of course, right? And it's very kind of pretentious, very dickhead, elitist fashion ideology, but still...

Next question, kind of philosophical. Do you lean into imperfection or do you try to strive for perfection? The context of this question is: are you the type of person who is a perfectionist? Or would you say that there are some imperfections that enhance the quality of a piece of work?

This is a really good question. I am mostly a perfectionist. A lot of times I find myself trying to make things literally as perfect or as good as they can be. I hate half-assing things.

I'm a very nitpicky person. I'll point out little flaws in things here and there. For example, the most recent marketing video that we just did. It was the promotional video for Autumn Winter 25. My editor, Johan. How it works is we go back and forth and he shows me where the video is at and I'm always telling him to change small details. Johan also helps with a lot of the photography, he understands my vision 100%, and he always puts up with my bullshit. I'm so grateful for him, I don't think I could find a better fit for this position than him. It's very hard to find people who you just click with like that. So, I'd say I'm mostly a perfectionist. I try my best to get the best possible outcome. Obviously nobody is perfect and nothing is perfect. But you can make things close to perfect. It's hard to explain.

Okay, follow up to that: You say you hate half-assing things. So, when you're making something, how do you know when you're done? How do you know that this is the perfect version of it?

The thing about me is that I never really write anything down. Like ideas and stuff. The most I'll do when I come up with an idea for something is to write a sentence in my notes. If someone were to look at my notes they would literally have no idea what they're even reading. For example, the Viktor design. The whole vision for that was just what I was kind of doing. Just feeling like shit. Smoking cigarettes, drinking.

How I know when the design is finished is when it gets made perfectly true to my vision. When I think of something, I have clear images in my head. I don't really need to draw a sketch of something or anything like that. I'll just come up with the idea and I'll have the image in my head and then I'll just make it.

But there's a rough draft for everything. And of course, there are multiple versions of designs that I've made. When there's variations, I usually show a couple friends to get their feedback then I'll pick the best one. Whichever one I think is just the most true to what I'm trying to get across to the viewer. I'll just go with that. For example, the "Lust at first bite" design. It went through like four different really big design changes.

Yeah, I also have those visions in my head. Once the thing that I'm creating matches the image in my head... it's done. I think that's a huge part of creating. You see this thing in your head and you just want to create it in real life. One to one vision. Like imagination to reality, one to one. You know? For me, even if it's not perfectly 100% congruent with that vision, I'll still go ahead and just put it out.

Originally, the design for Lust At First Bite was just the vampire by himself and he had a completely different outfit. And it just said "Lust at first bite KBC". And then I decided to add the girl because I was thinking, like I said earlier, about the meaning of the corpse bride. So I added the girl. Originally she had a really big wedding gown. But then I decided to cut the design in half. And then she had a purple dress, but eventually, it just became like what it is now. Here's the thing. I feel that I have a really good eye for things, a really clear vision. The "Lust at first bite" longsleeve is perfect in my eyes... the fit, the colors are balanced perfectly, there's small hints of red, the characters contrast each other well, the raglan longsleeve itself. It's simple but clean.

Also, this is a sidebar but did you know, because you mentioned having a visual eye and visual acuity, did you know that that's actually measurable? I remember this one time I was applying for this job and it was sort of like an engineering job. Well, in the interview, you had a take-home test and they gave you a bunch of random images. Like two sets of images and they were almost identical to each other. So, you had to find the small, little mismatch because they were almost identical and they wanted to test how good your visual acuity is. I think that's a really good test. If you're a designer, I feel like that's like something that you have. You have that visual acuity you can pass those tests really easily compared to other people. It's a weird skill. Like how well you see things. For musicians, it's their ear. They can really differentiate certain sounds. That's why some people are producers, some people are rappers, some people are designers, and some people work at Target.

I didn't even know about the testing but it reminds me of this. A creative person's mind is going to be way different from the average person's mind, they see things completely differently. It doesn't make people smarter than others though. Everyone is different. Everyone has a different kind of thought process. I know this is cliche to say, but I don't really like school. You get confined into this box where everyone needs to learn the same thing and then depending on your grade, you're this smart or that smart, right? I don't like that. I was always that kid just drawing on worksheets instead of paying attention. I remember some of my teachers telling me I was a good artist.

I want to get into your music taste. What are you listening to?

I think you'd be surprised to be honest. I listen to all kinds of music, but mainly underground rap. My favourite artists at the moment are Future, Ninto, Kahleation, MikeBrokeasf, and Hi-C. I really love the Death Note soundtrack as well, I use songs from it for my trailers. I was listening to a lot of Destroy Lonely back when I got into designing. His old fashion influenced my style back then as well.

Do you use SoundCloud too or just Spotify?

Mainly Spotify.

What are your thoughts on mainstream underground like Osamason, 1oneam, Protect? Do you listen to any of that?

Yeah, I really fuck with Osamason. I found him when he had 23K followers on Instagram. His old username was @slimepointe. That's when I first found him. And his only songs out were just CTSV, Jugg in My Sleep, Back from Dead, and a couple other singles. I remember, me and a few friends found out about him. And then he dropped Osama Season and that was my favorite mixtape for a little while. Also, Noon has been going crazy with the styling recently. Haven't seen a bad fit.

Okay I wanted to say this too. It kind of goes back to what we were talking about earlier. Like who do you make your clothes for and shit? I truly make my clothes for myself. It's just stuff that I really fuck with. Everything that I'm a fan of right now I was already a fan of three years ago. 2022. You can see in the screenshot. This is my camera roll from 2022. There's a picture of Dior Hedi, Rick Owens, Lone and Ken when I was at their show. The Corpse Bride is in there. Old Carti fit pics. It's like that Virgil tee, "Everything you like I liked 5 years ago". No trend hopping here.

So for me, the Tim Burton vibe that I'm going off right now. And obviously The Bling Ring. This whole aesthetic that I'm going for right now really just stems from what I was a fan of already. Now I'm just trying to bring it to life. I've wanted to do a brand since 2022. The ideas that I've put out recently, the designs are fresh. All the designs and concepts and actual clothes, they're all fresh and they're all new. But the ideas for them have been around in my head. You know what I mean? Or they've been around somewhere. Whether I drew it somewhere. Or I sewed something a long time ago.

What makes you cringe when looking at fit pics?

I'll tell you this. Not just fit pics but fashion in general. So, I'm from the city of Vancouver in Canada. I think it's the second biggest city in Canada. Some shit like that. Everyone here wears baggy denim, camo, grey-black sweatsuits. Pretty boring if you ask me. When people from my city see my style, they think it's the most unique shit ever. You know what I mean? But here's how I feel about how I dress, I feel like my style isn't even anything super crazy or brand new. I don't think that at all when it comes to myself. Obviously not. But I know I could definitely be going harder when it comes to that.

I'm going to try to really influence Vancouver fashion. That's my big goal honestly. I don't even care about the money when it comes to having a brand. To be honest, I don't really give a shit. Obviously, I need the money. I don't do it for the money, but the money is important since it will allow me to do the things I want to do. Everything is expensive. In terms of the clothes I want to make. I want to do a private showroom. One of the things on my list is to do an art exhibition next year. And obviously that's going to cost money. I want to travel, show collections across the world. All of that costs money. So I'm not one of these greedy brand owners. I actually care about a lot of things. And this is going back to the dickheadism thing. I was just telling my friend about this yesterday. I want my brand to be very exclusive and presented very well in every light that it's under.

It just goes back to what I was saying earlier about "Who do you see wearing your brand?" The whole image of my brand and the level of respect is way more important to me than money. I could drop way more clothes, post a ton of reels and make so much money. But I just don't want to do that. I actually care about everything when it comes to the brand itself. Building it up carefully and slowly. Especially because it's my name. I want my name to have respect more than I want the money. The whole dickheadism thing... even when it comes to who I keep around in my life. Close friends. They all care about what I'm doing. When I graduated high school, I stopped talking to a lot of people, which was bound to happen anyway. And it's not like I'm being a dickhead or anything. I just don't need these people around me for what I'm trying to accomplish. I chat a lot about this kind of stuff with one of my friends Miller, he understands this 100%. Off topic, but last weekend, he was at some club doing coke in the Mob Jacket, pretty funny. I'm making a pair of denim named after him soon.

I totally get what you're saying. I wanted to ask. So, obviously, the future, right? Do you plan on staying in Vancouver? Do you plan on moving? Maybe to New York or somewhere else?

I definitely want to travel. Number one is Toronto. I'm going there early next year. New York is definitely on the list too. A bunch of people were telling me that they were seeing KBC at Fashion Week, which was pretty cool to me. Then I need to go to Europe. I have family and friends out in Italy.

And then in terms of brand direction, I'm going to continue to do this theme. The only thing that's going to change is just the level of things, production wise. It will only get better and much clearer. It just takes time, it's all going to make sense soon.