Browns Focus: Commission

NYC-based label Commission represents a labour of love, a mother’s love to be precise. Created by designers Dylan Cao, Jin Kay and Huy Luong, the trio take inspiration from the powerful 80s essence as exhibited by their mothers’ wardrobes, fusing Eastern influence with subtle nods to corporate power dressing and contemporary design cues. Commission’s woman is strong, stylish, yet sensitive; a force to be reckoned with. For their Browns Focus collection, the designers distilled this essence into a portrait series featuring a number of the muses they had in mind.

Glorietta

Please tell us your name and who you are.
Glorietta Reantaso. I am a first generation Asian-American multimedia artist and dancer. My parents immigrated to California from Bicol, Philippines.

What is your relationship with Commission?
They are my friends.

How would you describe the brand and how do you feel whilst wearing their pieces?
Empowered. I feel in my body.

This project is about the theme of nostalgia. Can you recount one powerful memory from your past?
I was full of energy and freedom dancing to Michael Jackson with my family. We were all singing and dancing.

What are your hopes for the future?
Love, equality and justice.

Please share one piece of advice or wisdom passed down from your mother or a mother figure in your life.
Kindness is always a victory in life.

Michelle

Please tell us your name, age and who you are.
Michelle Phanh. I’m 28 and I’m a model.

What is your relationship with Commission?
Three years ago I was asked to model for Commission. This was before they even launched. I remember immediately saying yes and having no idea what I was getting into. To be there from the very beginning to here now as I write, all I can say is WOW. It's an absolute understatement to say I am just grateful to know these immensely talented, humble, gracious humans. Such an honor and blessing to see Jin, Dylan and Huy manifest their infinite potential. They deserve boundless love, energy, light ––– to the stars!

How would you describe the brand and how do you feel whilst wearing their pieces?
Commission to me is a new aware, conscious woman. She's the interplay of learned intelligence coupled with a lived-in presence that is only hers. She's thoughtful yet cheeky. Femme yet masc. She's a mosaic modern woman full of nuances. She is me! Commission imbues in me classism with an edge. I am timeless, yet modern. I am unique, yet relatable. I am fashion, yet uniform.

This project is about the theme of nostalgia. Can you recount one powerful memory from your past?
As a teenager, my taste for fashion was almost an act of rebellion. Not many people around me had a unique sense of style. I grew up in the suburbs of California where the edgiest thing we had was a Hot Topic. So I found solace in raiding my mother's closet to draw inspiration for my next look. I would go with her to the mall and she would always shop at New York & Company. I felt so chic and impossibly grown up amongst the older women who frequented the store.

What are your hopes for the future?
Hope for the vast possibility of the future! The universe is infinite and so are we. Tap into the light which makes you sing and everything else will follow

Please share one piece of advice or wisdom passed down from your mother or a mother figure in your life.
My mother always told me: "Be independent!" She stressed the need to not tie myself down to anyone. I am a strong, independent woman because of my mother and she's strong because of her mother. They laid the groundwork and I am tapping into that energy every day.

Bella

Please tell us your name, age and who you are.
Isabella Mai Newman. I’m 22.

What is your relationship with Commission?
I met the Commission team at their first showroom on the Bowery. I knocked on the door due to an inclination to feel the clothes. They let me in ‘cause none of us really knew the decorum around that kind of stuff!

How would you describe the brand and how do you feel whilst wearing their pieces?
I feel like a woman, really, in the fullest sense. I’m usually hesitant to use that word for myself out of devotion to some childlike in-between, but the Vietnamese woman was always my ideal and model for that concept. Clothes make a character, so Commission can manifest heritage as destiny.

What are your hopes for the future?
Mass death of ego, and rainbows (sun and rain on the same day).

Please share one piece of advice or wisdom passed down from your mother or a mother figure in your life.
My grandma told me to buy jewellery and my mom told me to buy property.

Naushin

Please tell us your name, age and who you are.
My name is Naushin Khan. I’m 19 and I’m a Bengali-American Muslim model in NYC.

What is your relationship with Commission?
I’ve been keeping up with them this year, ever since I saw how many Asian models they’ve incorporated into their projects and how cool I thought that was (as well as their amazing designs).

How would you describe the brand and how do you feel whilst wearing their pieces?
Whilst wearing their pieces, I feel like I’m the me I’d always longed to be.

This project is about the theme of nostalgia. Can you recount one powerful memory from your past?
One powerful memory from my past was my first day in my current apartment in November 2020; I was eating pizza on the bottom of my stairs at like 2AM, no furniture, no TV, just a mattress. Just me, my pizza, and my cat. It was my first night in the apartment after escaping the physical and emotional abuse I’d endured from my family my whole life. I had about $20 dollars to my name at that time, after putting all my life’s savings into the apartment and moving in.

I think about this often and how now, in May 2021, so many things have changed since that day. I no longer go weeks trying to make five dollars stretch for the whole week. I’m safe, comfortable, and working towards a happier life.

What are your hopes for the future?
For the future, I hope to be in a position to help others who share similar traumas as me, to be able to help give them a way out like I wish someone had done for me.

Please share one piece of advice or wisdom passed down from your mother or a mother figure in your life.
"Sometimes the only way to manage through life is to surrender. To surrender yourself wholeheartedly and completely, and only this way can you gain the strength and understanding to push through."

Neyh

Please tell us your name, age and who you are.
My name is Neyh Douglas. I am 21 years old and I am a student, teacher, poet, and model.

What is your relationship with Commission?
I was a fan of Commission clothing, and now I am one of their muses.

How would you describe the brand and how do you feel whilst wearing their pieces?
I would describe Commision as old school meets modern. When wearing the brand, I feel strong and militant due to their attention to detail and strong tailoring, but also very feminine.

This project is about the theme of nostalgia. Can you recount one powerful memory from your past?
Before my father passed away, I remember sitting still in my grandmother’s guest room as he illustrated me perfectly on the brand new Etch-A-Sketch I got for my birthday. My father was a great artist.

What are your hopes for the future?
This question is hard because I don’t like to hope - hoping is oftentimes for people who have a hard time believing. I do know that in the future a group of strong individuals will continue to fight for what is right in order to eradicate the injustices we see in our world every day.

For me personally, I do know in the future that I will embrace more clarity about my destiny and conquer my personal obstacles that prevent me from being my truest, most authentic and highest self.

Please share one piece of advice or wisdom passed down from your mother or a mother figure in your life.
My mother is the smartest human I know. One piece of wisdom passed down from my mother is to not take life so seriously. Things are always so much more simple than they seem, which seems simple in itself, but this has greatly helped me go through hardships that didn't need to be as hard as I made them.

Shop Commission

Discover more from Browns Focus: Series One here.

Photographer: Huy Luong
Video Director: Michel Sayegh
Models: Glorietta Reantaso, Michelle Phanh, Bella Newman, Naushin Khan and Neyh Douglas
Hair: Nero using Bumble & Bumble
Hair Assistant: Yukie Yamasaki
Skin: Miki Ishikura
Skin Assistant: Shoko Sawatari
Producer: Tristan Orlando Rodriguez
Production Assistant: Hudson Bohr
Interview: Georgia Graham