"It's all culture baby!" - Maryam Mazraei (@mmazco) on Crowdmuse and dreams of collaborative fashion futures.
I sit down with Crowdmuse's co-founder Maz to talk creative collaboration, her passion for sustainability, and hiding copies of Dazed Magazine from your Mum.
Another day, another indie brand gets ripped off by a huge fast-fashion chain. What happens next? Usually nothing except maybe a sneaky Diet Prada post. It all seems inevitable. Yet, it doesn’t have to be. What if there was a better way for brands and creatives to work together? Now there is.
Enter Crowdmuse - a new platform helping creators collaborate on products while maintaining ownership over their individual contributions. In the era of collab obsession, it’s no wonder why Crowdmuse has quickly become a darling of the fashion-tech scene.
Yet, what makes Maz and Crowdmuse stand apart isn’t just what they’re building, it’s the energy they’ve cultivated – energy that has quickly amassed a devoted following. Their latest drop with web3 luxury collective, Slow Rodeo sold out in less than 10 days.
Casually clad in a Story mfg. jacket (“I got it from their sample sale in Brick Lane” Maz casually remarks) and a black jumper with frayed sleeves, Maz, the co-founder of Crowdmuse, is a picture of laidback East London cool. I got a sense that a few decades earlier, she might have been the front-woman for a shoegaze band.
“Hey, how are you?!” she asked excitedly at the beginning of our chat in a Alexa-Chung-esque husky voice. She’s not asking just to be polite, she actually wants to know. It’s a stark contrast against the now slightly dystopian image of a tech founder in a hoodie and Allbirds but it’s this difference in aesthetic that captures a new breed of founder at the intersection of creativity and tech – culturally conscious, empathetic, and with immaculate vibes.
Sitting down for a chat with Maz, we talk about sneaking copies of Dazed Magazine as a teenager, her vision for web3 aesthetics, and what’s next for Crowdmuse.
Welcome to the show Maz, you’re the co-founder of one of the most exciting fashion-tech projects in web3, but I want to take it back to the start. Where did your love for fashion and culture come from?
I’m North London born and raised – it’s such an amazing city to grow up in and has such a cultural mix of everything. I really enjoyed art and music growing up - especially music. My older sister would listen to a lot of classic 70s and 90s rock and it influences my music choices to this day. When it came to culture, I was very inspired by the early days of Dazed Magazine. In my teenage years, they had very daring imagery and growing up in a Middle Eastern household I wasn’t allowed to look at that kind of stuff so sneaking copies home was like my secret way of seeing the outside world and allowed me to feel seen.
You’re passionate about sustainability as well, could you tell us a little bit about where the passion emerged?
Back in university, I was already digging into sustainability in fashion, but things really started when I met my then-co-founder. He's British Bengali and he opened my eyes to Bangladesh’s massive textile industry.
We were both keen to dive in together, so we thought, 'Why not just go to Bangladesh and see what’s going on?'. Once we got there and visited the factories, we began to see the real picture. The more we dived in, the clearer it became how unethical the supply chain was. Big brands, ones we all know, were right there, producing garments in mass.
Seeing the working conditions and the material quality first hand was a real eye-opener – it hit me, ‘wow, this is seriously not good’.
That experience was a major wake-up call. It really showed me how corrupt the clothing industry was, both ethically and environmentally. And then, the Rana Plaza disaster in 2013. That was another huge shake-up for the whole industry. It pushed me even more to ensure sustainable and ethical practices for our own brand then and was involved with the Fashion Revolution movement, championed by Katharine Hamnett, renowned British fashion designer, best known for her political T-shirts.
How would you describe your personal style? Any particular designers that inspire you?
My style is that I wear whatever the f*** I want *laughs*. I appreciate artisanal and handmade, slightly tailored looks. I’ve always admired Yohji Yamamoto in particular. When I was just getting into fashion at a younger age - I was looking at a lot of interesting fantasy-like drawings and stories by Yoshitaka Amano and Yohji was like Amano’s work come to life. It’s very consistently black and gorgeous. I don’t necessarily wear a lot of Yohji but I like his approach. It’s more about design and the material than a particular print or logo. One of the things I took away from his book was the idea of clothing as utility. I really appreciated that Yohji had this unisex kind of design that was very functional. Women need pockets too!
How would you describe your own philosophy on fashion?
I don’t have a philosophy per se but I do believe that we’ve become so detached from our garments since clothing has become so accessible and mass produced. It’s why I founded my first-startup, RELLA - a sustainable fashion company which later became a Menswear clothing brand that helped match sustainable manufacturers in Bangladesh with UK brands to give transparency to consumers on where their clothes come from. I wanted to bring the story back to the material and the craftsmanship that it takes to make a garment.
Personally I’m also trying to consume less clothing right now. I think that’s an important thing. Just buy items that are more expensive but longer lasting. I don’t want to buy T-Shirts over and over again because I know the unit cost of making a low priced tee which is just ridiculous. Aesthetically, it’s about finding the pieces that are gonna last me a long time. I’m happy to pay a higher price point because I know it’s made in a certain type of way.
For the uninitiated, how would you describe Crowdmuse? Tell us about the idea of ‘multiplayer’ creation.
Crowdmuse is a place where emerging artists and creators can come and create with brands, and where the brands are what we call ‘cultural brands’. ‘Cultural brands’ are brands that are niche, on the fringe. The idea of multiplayer creation (between the artists and creators, and the brands) is inspired by gaming and the difference between single-player and multiplayer.
Fashion collaborations are very commonplace, they happen all the time, however, if a designer collaborates with a brand, it typically happens at a very, very high luxury brand level, where usually the collaborator has huge social clout. We want to make collaboration more accessible for artists and designers to collaborate together on a smaller scale on a repeatable model.
We also wanted to open up referencing and visibility of who's done what. If you're an emerging designer and an emerging artist, what you don't have is distribution. You have to constantly create content and show your work but it’s really hard to grow an audience on social media. You have to split your attention so you become complacent and forget about your craft, which is really f****** sad.
Let’s accelerate a decade into the future. What would be a dream collab for Crowdmuse to set up?
I get this question so often and it's really hard to answer this question well because there’s so many good ones out there! I’ll narrow it down to a couple that I've been absolutely obsessed with recently.
One is a Moroccan designer called Artsi Ifrach. His work is very contemporary in execution but culturally inspired by Moroccan like garment making and crafts. I think someone like him - there’s such a huge opportunity for collaboration. F*** it - doing a collaboration with a furniture brand and Artsi would be a really interesting mesh of creativity.
I would also say that I’m a big fan of Colors Studio and the clothing they’re producing. That’s what’s exciting about creative collaboration - for example, having music producers or artists meshing with a fashion designer is such an unlock, because it's all culture, baby!
It’s almost like mixing vibes, or creating vibes.
Exactly! I love that. You're literally a vibe creator.
I think that’s what’s really cool about collaboration between creators. I mean, think about how awesome it would be for new [music] artists to have access to really sick emerging fashion designers. It’s a myth that you can actually make money from streaming hence why all these tools are coming out trying to change this. But the one thing that gives them immediate income and the one thing that they still utilize is merch to sell to their fans.
But you know, they go to like, you know print on demand, boring like, “I'm gonna put my album print on a coffee mug kind of like websites” and it’s pretty s*****. It's a really kind of mundane experience that through collaboration, we could make it so much cooler.
Let’s switch gears. You’re in web3 which is its own cultural microcosm. What’s working in web3 culture and what’s not? How do we understand ‘cool’ in web3?
Oh, I think cool is just like being yourself and being inclusive. With some digital fashion projects, I felt they were trying to take the same exclusive, trad fashion vibe and bringing it into an internet culture that is like trying to just keep it real.
What’s cool about web3 is that it’s like a corner of the internet where I can just say and be whatever the f*** I want. It’s a very welcoming place.
I do think however, that web3 is having a cultural clash where communities are essentially just pushing a lot of content but the content can get repetitive.
Some might hate me for saying this but it's like they’re trying to drive metrics for activity and adoption to make their project look like, ‘oh this product is something that consumers want’. There’s a lot of volume push and utilising of free open edition mints. Mimicking similar metrics and user activity to web2 imo.
When it comes to that level of volume creation, there’s a danger web3 could lose its novelty and initial kind of exciting onboarding experience that it has now.
I feel like you would have a good eye for this. Who’s the best dressed person in web3?
I'm quite biased and I would say that the best dressed person of web3 has to be one of the designers and artists that we work with called Wes. He blows my mind all the time when I speak to him.
He's an artist who came into crypto and he makes his own one of a kind fashion items and pieces that are handmade and intricate. He’s a designer and artist type but he’s not flash so he's quite minimal in the way he dresses - just a gorgeous person!
LIGHTNING ROUND!
What’s on the playlist right now?
Yussef Dayes, Black Classical Music Album
What are three things on your wishlist?
I really want one of the jackets that Hugh Clark - one of the designers that we're working with, is designing….He’s recreating a Swiss military style jacket and making the pattern from scratch.
I've also been eyeing up for a long time this Japanese designer called Hagedesu. He does really amazing patch recycled pieces.
Finally, it’s cliche, but I want the new Salomons!
What’s a hangout spot you like?
I’m working a lot these days but can catch me browsing through record stores on Portobello Road and drinking coffee at Cable Co or Layla.
great feature!!