Born in a village of south Germany with an inclination toward RPG gaming from the age of 14, Sarah Mayer found herself “out of the box” in a much later stage of life. Her works are produced in an all-digital environment post her studies of fashion in Amsterdam. Recently she spoke to us about her works and thoughts on the growing digital space for fashion creatives and alike for the influx of thirst we have now to express ourselves better.

Let's begin with your upbringing within your culture.. What was your environment and indulgence like? What were the main influences in your teen years?

I always describe myself as a bit of a late starter. Growing up in a village of 400 inhabitants (at that time) in the south of Germany with parents who also grew up in the same kind of environment, did not inspire much “out of the box” thinking. Strangely, excluding myself from the real world of my village and diving into RPG gaming at the age of 14, made me expand my knowledge of other cultures. However, only at the age of 17, did I hear about the existence of Fashion for the first time. I did not even find out myself! A classmate of mine commented on my manga scribbles and mentioned that studying fashion could be interesting for me, casually influencing my future in one sentence.

On aesthetical matters, the growing subcultures and many others are currently moving past the creepy and horrifying visual representations with a more accepting and rather embracing approach. Many say, it's the threshold of fear that the current generation has moved on from with the times we are experiencing now. What is your intake? What makes you choose the style that you work upon?

Of course, art is always influenced by worldly happenings and the outcome is a response to it, intentionally or not. Fear and depression, which I think every artist experiences at some point, surely shape the visual outcome. I have much fear myself but I intentionally try to keep my art positive, maybe as a sort of self-therapy. I do believe though, that much of this aesthetic digital art rise has been influenced by the now much bigger community of female artists. When I think back to my RPG days, I was very often the only girl around and it was a big surprise in group chats when I made a vocal comment! The guys would go “ whoa there is a girl here!” I doubt this would happen these days.

How did you find self-building AR VR accessories? What is your academic background to be precise? What were the first few explorations and experiments like?

After hearing about Fashion, Fashion it was! I started studying Fashion from the age of 17, three years in Germany and then another four years in Amsterdam at AMFI. In those years I learned how to research trends, turn them into concepts, and eventually into physical collections. I made paper patterns from scratch, cutting the fabric and sewing the garments. My only real digital fashion encounter was during the minor HYPERCRAFT in AMFI which was based on a program called Lectra/Modaris. This minor was still very young and the rise of digital fashion, too. Now it is much more common to do such courses or even graduate with a completely digital fashion collection, which was not allowed yet during my studying time. I graduated in 2015 btw.

Digital fashion makes more sense than ever, now that metaverse is providing a much inclusive or rather relevant approach to digital consumption. What do you think about the growing digital space? What do you like and dislike? Is there anything you fear?

The digital fashion and metaverse baby is growing up so fast and rapidly! I mean it seems inevitable that soon we will express our fashion style with our virtual selves more than our real selves. This sentence in its full meaning is kind of scary and also quite lonely. What I am afraid of most with this development is the loss of RL interaction. I am afraid of it because I can feel this change in myself. The world outside my screen seems to become less real. Even though many people might have already completely accepted this as the norm, I do think, in the long term, we will simply turn into something else than humans, something that does not need those real interactions anymore to be happy. I suggest reading “Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind” by Yuval Noah Harari which scratches the topic of turning into something else than a human.

Let's talk about your favorite movies and music artists …. Who are you tuning to and leveraging on these days?

So much amazing stuff out there! For movies, I really love The Matrix (All of them, especially also animatrix!), Alien (All of them, so good, best alien creature ever created!), Star Wars (They keep on making new series and movies and there is always a little treasure to be found!), Terminator (The story is fantastic!), The Green Knight (amazing music and visuals, very dreamy), Playtime 1967 (Just incredible!), Hayao Miyazaki (I love them all!), Arrival (amazing music and visuals), A Quiet Place (Great take on an alien invasion)Of course, there are many more! For music, it really changes a lot so this little list is what I have been listening to the past few days: Cola by Arlo Parks (Definitely check her out, she is amazing), Cold Little Heart by Michael Kiwanuka, Gonna Love Me by Teyana Taylor, Heaven's Only Wishful by MorMor, 11 Hours by Wet, Licking an Orchid by Yves Tumor, Mad About You by Hooverphonic.

You have mentioned you are vegan on your Instagram. I wonder what you think of the growing vegan culture and other sustainable lifestyles that are being adopted. Any particular message and requests for the people finding it hard to navigate in the ongoing struggles of life? What do you despise about the people and their ignorance of our depleting resources and other environmental issues?

Very few people ask me about this! Thanks! It is actually a really important part of my life and influences my work, too! I mean it is really not a secret that our relationship towards other animals totally sucks!! It is absurd! I am not mad at people that are not vegan! Most of us (me included) grew up knowing pretty much nothing about the industries that mass murder animals in incomprehensible numbers. I am more frustrated and sad than anything else when my friends, family, and strangers see or even experience the horrors those animals go through and still forget about it the next day! I mean I do not want to sound extremely pessimistic but our “abilities” to see past those horrors and move on so easily have brought us to where we are now but they will certainly turn against us really badly, for sure! (Of course, it is already happening!).

Speaking of the environment, what is your favorite pastime? What other creative projects do you undertake? Please tell us how you get inspired and how you finalize your looks and designs?

I am a quite simple person I would say. I don't need much to re-charge apart from time to myself to do what I feel like doing. I love gardening or going for little hiking trips with my friends or getting the occasional ice cream (If you are ever in Antwerp, try IceLab NiceCream Creations!). I sleep a lot! I love sleeping and taking care of my little feline! I do not take pleasure from shopping or things like this, I find it stressful. Inspiration comes as flashes of an idea after watching a movie or seeing a cool visual on Pinterest. The finalization of an idea is usually connected to how I want the image to feel (happy, soft, melancholic, cute, harsh, etc.) in consideration of the subject I am working on/with (if I am working with a person's face).

Last but not least.. What are the concepts you are currently working on?

I continue to do a lot of work with other artists which are very satisfying and usually comes with a nice new learning curve! I also want to explore the deeper meaning of my visuals. I have heard before that people can see a story develop in my work and I think so too! I am going to see where this story will lead me.