Tamu McPherson:

Hi, Rachel.

Rachel Scott:

Hi.

Tamu McPherson:

Do you have a nickname?

Rachel Scott:

Razor.

Tamu McPherson:

Why?

Rachel Scott:

My family makes fun of me because I'm like, the really tough one and like, don't show emotion. And they're like, yeah, tough as nails. She's razor sharp. So yeah, Razor.

Tamu McPherson:

Wow.

Rachel Scott:

I feel like I'm so sweet. 

Tamu McPherson:

I loved meeting you in Milan. It was so nice to meet you. I've heard so much about you, your team had contacted me and we were trying to work together for a long time. And then I walked in. I mean, I really believe in fate, and I really believe that the universe really puts you where… and I remember it was the end of the presentation.  And I just walked in and we connected. That was amazing. And I'm so grateful that happened. So we are very similar. We have similar backgrounds. We are both Jamaican, born in Kingston, and work in fashion. And I think it's a beautiful thing when we leave the Caribbean and we travel all around the world. I mean, we're even more similar because we both went to Italy. Tell us more about your story, your journey to becoming a designer.

Rachel Scott:

I always wanted to do it. But I guess growing up in Jamaica and going to high school in Jamaica and not having the kind of arts education that I would've liked, or education in general, outside of some of the very specific things that were really good in Jamaica. I wanted to go to a liberal arts school, just so I could get a broader education, but all the while knowing that I wanted to do fashion. So I went to Colgate University, which is a random place for me to go.

Tamu McPherson:

I applied there too. Really?

Rachel Scott:

Yeah, of course. Well, I mean, it's so freezing and so far from everything. And I'm from Kingston, so to go from Kingston, to this tiny town of Hamilton in the middle of nowhere was extreme.

Tamu McPherson:

But also, the other thing that I think we should mention is most people that I know that are Jamaican, we leave when we're very, very young. Whereas you, you came to the United States as a teenager.

Rachel Scott:

As an 18 year old, for university. So I knew that I wanted to do this. So while I was studying art and French I was doing coursework at F.I.T., and an internship at Vogue and coursework at CSM, all the while planning to do this. And then after I left Colgate, I first tried to go to Antwerp, but didn't get in. But apparently people apply multiple years before they go.

Tamu McPherson:

Give us some context about why you applied to Antwerp.

Rachel Scott:

Royal Academy of Art? Because I mean, for me it was the highest form of fashion education, more so than CSM, at least for me, at the time.

Tamu McPherson:

Because who, who had come out of there?

Rachel Scott:

The Antwerp Six, obviously. And at the time I was a huge… actually was Ann Demeulemeester a part of the Antwerp Six?

Tamu McPherson:

I feel like she was, she was.

Rachel Scott:

She technically, I don't know. There are some people who were in it and not in it -

Tamu McPherson:

And some people should be included in it because of the influence they had at that moment, when their peers were coming out.

Rachel Scott:

Exactly. Yeah. So I really wanted to go there. I thought it was going to be the most rigorous education I could get. Didn't get in, but then also just I had graduated from college, so I was like, well, I'll have to do something. So I ended up going to Istituto (Marangoni).

Tamu McPherson:

And that's in Milan. And they have locations around the world in Paris and London. 

Rachel Scott:

Yeah. And I think one in India as well.

Tamu McPherson:

And Dubai I think so maybe. 

Rachel Scott:

And that was a short course. It was a one year program and the masters, it was like a certificate. And then I found an internship at Costume National. And that was really incredible. My internship then turned into a job and I was an assistant designer there, and I focused on embellishments and embroidery and the show collections for women's wear and menswear. And that was an incredible experience.  I was there for a few years, maybe four and a half years. 

The first fitting that I was a part of, I was supposed to be handing him the pins. And I remember at certain points I handed him a pin and he was like, okay, no. Stop the fitting. And was like, I'm gonna teach you how to pass a pin. And literally he was like, you take it like this and you hand it like this with the head this way. Do you understand? 

Tamu McPherson:

Is that an Italian thing or a fashion thing? Because there’s so much etiquette in how you pass any sharp object in Italy. Yeah. What do you think?

Rachel Scott:

I think it's fashion in general, but the standards are higher in Italy. 

Tamu McPherson:

There's so much respect. And ceremony.

Rachel Scott:

Yes, absolutely. And then there would be discussions about the width of the shoulder that would last half - or in a finishing, it doesn't need to be 41 centimeters or 40 centimeters. And like that was incredible.

Tamu McPherson:

That attention to detail. That attention to detail and the Made In Italy banner is what it is today, and that's why it's so widely respected. And, you know, having a teacher like that, I'm telling you, he's a fabulous, fabulous designer. 

Rachel Scott:

Incredible.  And the team that I worked with, because I was there in the early 2000s, early-mid 2000s, and in the nineties there was a team where some of the designers were from Germany and they had then since moved on, but they would come back for the show seasons. And so there was this team that was just dedicated to the most conceptual parts of the show, and I kind of shadowed and assisted them. So that was, for me ,a really great experience.

Tamu McPherson:

And I think what would you say to young designers that, or students or anyone who is thinking about fashion and thinking about the process, and maybe they're living in this social media-driven world where they don't know the value of having this kind of experience? With a designer, with a house? 

Rachel Scott:

I mean, I always kind of thought that this was the better approach, to learn through experience. And I don't know, I actually don't even know if that kind of approach is even possible for kids these days. Like, I don't think that they experience life like this. And in some ways I kind of wonder if they're best off, because they get to things faster. But at the same time, I do feel like there's a depth of understanding and a richness of education that you don't get in school, that you absolutely get while working. That informs how you work and how you design. I mean, even down to how you pass a pin is such a huge part of working in the industry. That it's invaluable. And I think there's a lot to be said for taking your time and learning, you know, taking your time through experience. 

Tamu McPherson:

Is there anyone else who has really given you clarity or added to your vision of where you wanna be today as a designer?

Rachel Scott:

I mean, people I haven't met, maybe.

Tamu McPherson:

Oh yeah. Who?

Rachel Scott:

Like Miuccia Prada…. obsessed.What she has built for me is this company that has this strong connection to culture, and building culture, and also just maintaining and supporting craft for me, so incredible. And obviously it's a massive corporation. But I've always admired her and what she's done with the company. And I think it's a really nice model, that if it could be replicated in a small way, I would be proud to do something like that.

Tamu McPherson:

Do you think - I'm not biased, I respect men a whole lot - but actually, at her level, to pick a code designer… I'm sure there's a plan and there's a plan in the near future, but I think that you really have to put your ego aside as a designer. You have to really be brilliant. A brilliant mind to invite a designer to come and co-design the RTW collection that you yourself launched. What do you think about that?

Rachel Scott:

I mean, I have my opinions about it, obviously from the outside. 

Tamu McPherson:

What are your opinions?

Rachel Scott:

I mean, I'm a little… I was a little sad.

Tamu McPherson:

Okay. So, we are referring to Raf Simmons as her co-designer, for any of our pretty birds who don't know.

Rachel Scott:

Exactly your point, because, and I don't think it's about ego. I think that's one thing about fashion, and maybe this also goes back to this idea of working, like learning through work and building up through experience. I don't think there's a lot of room for ego in design. You're always working on teams. Whatever you're participating in is constantly being held up for group critique. Of course fashion is difficult and can be really hard. But I don't think that that process is necessarily negative. I think it's a really strong way to come together and build something better than what one person could on their own. So I think in that respect, it's incredible that she did that. And it's just like a testament to how smart and how confident she is as a designer. 

Tamu McPherson:

But you were a little sad. 

Rachel Scott:

I mean, Raf Simmons is incredible, and I think that his work at Jill Sander was obviously amazing, and also at Dior. But yeah, I think I would've liked to have seen a woman there.

Tamu McPherson:

Okay. In that aspect. I know she probably selected him cuz they have a long relationship. You have a point: to elevate a woman when we have the opportunity to do so. Yeah. That would've been very, very interesting to see that conversation. Especially because as a designer, her vision for women… she doesn't objectify women as other women designers often do. We can be smart and sexy. They're not exactly exclusive. It's a clever way, you know, the way she does it. 

So all of your expertise has led you to create your own brand now, Diotima. Can you tell us about the brand? Can you give us a little background on the name of the brand? Because not all of us, we might not be familiar.

Rachel Scott:

I launched the brand in 2021. And so we've only been around a year and a half. And just a little about the brand: The grounding of the collection is crochet, and that's all made in Jamaica. But then it's threaded through all the different elements of the collection. So there's a lot of tailoring. There are wovens, a lot of cotton shirting. And everything is threaded through with this crochet, in terms of a material level. What I'm trying to do, it's like building this idea of what ‘Caribbean style’ is now. And trying to think about it not nostalgically. Of course I'm obviously very influenced by Jamaican dance hall style of the 90s and 80s and 70s. But then, also I'm influenced by images I've seen of women in the 1800s, and how they dressed and how they manipulated their clothes.

There's this idea that I'm trying to work almost trans-historically, so working through these moments and these images that really influenced me. Trying to not be stuck in a form of nostalgia, but to think about how I can form a new idea of what Caribbean style is, and also to try and get away from the kind of pigeonholing of who we are and who we can be, to reconsider what luxury is and what value is and where are the values placed in craft and clothes. 

Diotima was a figure in Plato’s Symposium, and she is the only female figure in the symposium. And she explains to Socrates what ‘love’ is. It's often referred to as The Ladder of Love. They describe six elements of this ladder to get to the highest form, with the lowest form being love of someone beautiful, and if you can love someone beautiful, you can love all beings. And then it ascends to love of institutions. And then the highest form is love of beauty in itself, like in the most abstract way. I have always liked this figure, but then it was taken up by Marcuse in Eros and Civilization. And in it, he talks about the power of sublimating desire and love to create beauty - a radical form of beauty and change. So for me, this idea of sublimating desire to make change in the real world is interesting. I like that you don't know if she's real or not. I like this idea that it's like working towards this idea of who she is and what she could do. 

Tamu McPherson:

And I mean, you are really making change at home, because in our industry we have artisans who have worked, who have a craft that's been passed down for hundreds of years. And unfortunately, in Jamaica we don't have the opportunity to work with high fashion brands all the time. So our craftsmanship is not elevated in a way that it could be, because of the lack of opportunity. And so talking about beauty and talking about bringing change, instead of - you must know hundreds and hundreds of mills in Italy, for example. But instead of choosing one of those, you've decided to work with your collective in Jamaica, and this is how you're making an impact at home, locally, and kind of exporting the work of our village globally.

Rachel Scott:

I have to say I do a little bit of both. I do work with materials from Italy, some really wonderful mills. But putting the work of these women in the context of what is considered to be luxury is kind of the deconstructive move or like the radical move there, because we're decentering this idea of value or luxury, which I think is super important. You know, embellishment has been made in India for so long, but we think about Made In Italy almost exclusively. We're not thinking about the fact that that embellishment is made in India, and that it's a traditional craft that has existed for hundreds of years. And that' it’s being made there, and then taken somewhere else. And then the value is no longer in the hands of the people making it in India. 

And I've seen that through my whole career, and always wanted to work with Jamaicans. But the challenge is that yes, there is no formal industry, 1) because there's no opportunity for sure. But also, there may have been the possibility for it. In the 70s, there were fabrics that were being made in the Caribbean. There was Sea Island cotton, for example. And there was clothing manufacturing that was happening. But with what was happening politically in the 80s, there were these free trade zones that were established in Jamaica in particular, where large corporations - for example, Hanes - would come in and they would be able to operate with no tax liability in the country.

And so they could pay, you know, ridiculously low wages, but then not contribute. And so whatever idea there was of clothes making… materials were devalued because there weren't good wages. You know, it just wasn't supporting the local economy at all. And then the wages ended up being too high, so they moved their manufacturing elsewhere. And so whatever was there was killed by this moment of this free trade zone. And so now what exists is something very informal. It's in the tourist industry, or things for the home. And so there isn't this formalized, you know manufacturing industry, which with fashion is so difficult because there are all of these deadlines and schedules that are very hard and you can't move them. So working in that kind of time scale is really complicated if you're not within this mentality. 

So what I've tried to do is to mix it with other things. Because I have limitations and capacity on what they can make. And also because everything they're making is made by hand. Crochet is fully made by hand - can't be replicated by machine. 

So there's a real limitation on how much can be made within that time, a limitation of how many women I have working with me. So I started making crochet garments on their own, but, knowing that it was so important to the message what I ended up doing, was then mixing it with the tailoring, mixing it with like the, the suiting and the dresses in order to thread this idea through and to have like different levels of complexity of the crochet, so that I could have more women involved. Some that were less skilled, some that were more skilled.

So the whole structure of the collection is built around how I can work with these women, how I can keep this work consistent, and then how I can then present this to the world in a way that's considered luxury.

Tamu McPherson:

I think it's a wonderful example of how you can scale the craftsmanship out into the collection. And it's an example for other brands that could work in similar situations all over the world. It's always there because it can be done. 

A lot is changing in Jamaica, on the island, on the rock. We are really opening our eyes in terms of culture, and I know a part of your mission for your brand and how you represent our culture is to really champion more inclusivity. And I know you're very close to the transgender community, and you are helping and advocating for them. Tell us how you found yourself in this space, as a Jamaican who grew up in a very homophobic, sexist country.

Rachel Scott:

And it’s still that way, though, I have to say, it's changing. But having worked in fashion my whole life and obviously being around the queer community internationally, but never in Jamaica, I always felt this want or desire to connect with the community in Jamaica. And I was lucky to have been invited to a dinner a couple years ago that was held by this wonderful organization called Connect Ja. They're based between Kingston and New York, and they facilitate travel for people who want to go to Jamaica, but are maybe afraid because they've heard on the news it's so homophobic, or they watch the Vice documentary about trans women, the gully creeps, and have this really violent vision of what Jamaica is.

They facilitate travel to Jamaica for people who are in the queer community or are just afraid in general. And then they also try to help connect people that are in the community in Jamaica to people internationally. So I was invited to this dinner, which was amazing, and then also, on a personal level, there ended up being someone there who I fell in love with - a woman, and I'd never been with a woman before. So it was a personal transformation, but then also meeting this community and them becoming family to me. I realized, in trying to present a new idea of what a Jamaican is, or could be or what Jamaican style is, it was really important to try to include people that had never been included in the vision of what Jamaica was.

Some of the people I ended up meeting were stylists or makeup artists or designers. So when I shot my lookbook for PreFall 22, I had Shauna, who was really wonderful. She was doing the makeup, and then I had Imani, who's a model and a stylist in the lookbook. And that collection in particular, I really wanted to have the images shot in institutions of Jamaica, something that was very much important to this idea of the nation. I was able to get access to shoot at the National Gallery, which was also connected to this collaboration I was doing with an artist from St. Vincent who had shown in the National Gallery a couple years prior. I was like, what better place to photograph Imani, a trans woman stylist, making change in Jamaica, than to shoot her in the National Gallery. And then she ended up like in a full page spread in the Jamaica Gleaner when the images were released. 

Tamu McPherson:

Really giving visibility to the community. 

Rachel Scott:

Exactly. I mean, the work that I do is not activism work. I am close with people that do activism work, but if there is something I can do, it is to work with people, give them opportunities or connect them with people that can give them opportunities. And present a different image of what Jamaica is and who we are, and show these people from that community thriving and experiencing full lives in Jamaica, and having talents and just being able to show the fullness and the richness of that. Because of course there's homophobia, but in order to make more change if we continue to have this kind of trauma porn that we all watch and learn about Jamaica, we need to get away from that. We need to show with fullness and beauty and the art that they are creating. So I was lucky to connect with them, and I'm still in touch with them. 

Tamu McPherson:

I'm hearing a theme reemerge time and time again in our conversation. And it's the role of nostalgia in communicating and narrating the Jamaican experience. What could be a pathway we could take to move away. I mean, nostalgia is important, but in our case, it might be a hindrance for us. What do you think we need to do?

Rachel Scott:

At least in what I'm trying to do, it's like not just presenting an image. It's also trying to work with people. Because, you know, what really bothered me in the industry was that there were always people referencing Jamaica in a nostalgic way, but they were never actually working with Jamaicans. None of the dollars were actually being spent there. It's almost like we're getting trapped back in a neo-colonial moment if we're just making this image of Jamaica, but not doing anything with it, not connecting to it. 

It's almost like some kind of exoticism. That's just very dangerous to me. So I think creating opportunities for Jamaicans is at the forefront, and then as Jamaicans, I think we have to push to tell our own stories and have our own voices. Even if it's small, I think it makes a difference.

Tamu McPherson:

You know, our culture is so sweet, and the things that we are hanging on to and the things that we cling to so dearly in our culture, it's because of the profound comfort. Do you think we are complacent and we're relying too much on that comfort? And that's why, in a sense… don't get me wrong, we really shine. We do, we absolutely do. But maybe we would be even further along, or we would be able to exploit our potential more - or I wouldn't say exploit, we could make use of our potential. We're almost dialing it in, because it is kind of easy to rely on the cultural credibility that we do have.

Rachel Scott:

I think that's true, but I think it's also… there's so much cultural change that I see happening in Jamaica that I think is so vibrant. I don't think that it necessarily is so visible from other places, like New York. Jamaicans, we're very proud of who we are. 

Tamu McPherson:

And we're extremely successful. 

Rachel Scott:

We are. So it's true. We may get complacent in these ideas of who we are, but I do think that at the same time, we are pushing the ideas -  even music has changed so much even in the last few years. Like Skillibeng with Vybz Kartel. All of that is so new. All the women, the new women in Dancehall, there's a lot of movement happening. There's a lot. 

I was in touch with someone the other day who is part of this group called Equinox. And they're amazing. One of the members is based in Berlin and they're making new, experimental Dancehall, and it's not being done by someone in another country. It's Jamaicans doing it. The issue maybe doesn't lie with us, but it's how people want to see us. And so I think that's why we have to keep pushing to have self representation essentially.

Tamu McPherson:

Well, thank you very much for that.