The long awaited release of the "Me and You" website is finally here! "Me and You" is a collection of work across various mediums designed and curated by young design duo and BFFs Julia Baylis and Mayan Toledano; it includes collaborations with artists like Petra Collins, Arvida Bystrom, and more. We asked Mayan and Julia to tell us how it all began.
Mayan: Do you remember what the first thing we made together was?
Julia: Do you mean clothing wise or ‘art’ wise?
Mayan: Anything
Julia: ‘Me and You’ kind of started as an art collaboration, yeah?
Mayan: I’m trying to remember.
Julia: It was the silkscreened piece which read ‘me and you’ with the glitter tongues (‘me and you’ being me and Mayan, not our label name lol)?
Mayan: Yeah, but was it in screen-printing class or before?
Julia: I think screen-printing class that first semester.
Mayan: Third year of hell, first semester.
Julia: Haha yes, so much of this started because we hated school. In that case, if we liked school ‘Me and You’ may have never happened.
Mayan: We were just so desperate to do something that goes beyond the bounds of ‘fashion’. We didn’t really hate school; we hated fashion school.
Julia: Right, well we first started collaborating on prints on paper and fabrics because we wanted to take a break from constructing clothing. Eventually, it naturally went back to constructing clothing; then Petra asked us to make some pieces for a shoot she did with Tavi for i-D.
Mayan: Fashion school you don’t have extra time for side projects so anything like the ‘thank you’ dress for Tavi was super rushed and of course we couldn't do anything like that for class because our teachers would call us ‘junior designers’ (as an insult).
Julia: Lol yeah, they somehow didn’t get the hyper girly thing that is in our blood.
Mayan: ‘Fashion’ is for the older, rich, and successful. oh, and skinny of course.
Julia: Yeah, well we were taught to think that we were making clothes that could only be for the racks in Barneys. We wanted to make something more accessible. After the Tavi dress we were like we want to make dresses, so we made the ‘feminist’ dress, which led us to print on t-shirts, undies, etc.
Mayan: ‘Me and You’ started with the idea of being inclusive and supportive towards girls of all kinds.
Julia: Yes, totally not to just make something for the one percent.
Mayan: Our girl world has so much more than just clothes. I remember I always believed in what we did even before it had a name. Everything really clicked with the ‘BFF’ shoot we did with Petra.
Julia: Yeah totally! The next shoot for i-D we casted a bunch of girls who inspired us. It was so cool because every girl was so unique, confident, and real. For this shoot we made a bunch of new clothes and that’s where the ‘feminist’ undies came from.
Mayan: ‘Feminist’ undies started as a test just using the same kiss print from the t-shirts.
Julia: I feel like at that point we didn’t even consider selling; it wasn’t until we put a photo on Instagram and people reacted so positively.
Mayan: With your best friends you always feel confident and protected. We shared our ideas with the world because we loved them so much, we had nothing to promote at the time. ‘Me and You’ was an extension of our close friendship and the support of our best friends.
Julia: Yeah, so great! And we are best friends.
Mayan: <3
Julia: Can’t believe we are finally here: selling to our fans and the people who have supported us from the beginning.
Mayan: We didn’t realize what it was going to take to build a business from the ground and make a product we really love. We were clueless about the whole business side of things. It took all this time and effort but it’s finally here!
http://www.itsmeandyou.com/
