The creative minds behind Cushnie Et Ochs, Carly Cushnie and Michelle Ochs. © Jacob Sutton

It all started with a neon pink mini dress—the excitement that is.

Just a couple of days before they were to debut their fashion line at the start of New York Fashion Week, the hot pink number by the new design duo, Cushnie Et Ochs, previewed on style.com (Vogue’s website). The dress was a lesson in simple, sculptured structure; meticulously placed peek-a-boo slits and tailored lines brought to life by a dose of shocking pink—a precisely executed demonstration of their inspiration, the movie American Psycho.

The pair had in fact been causing a stir since their senior show at Parsons The New School of Design, in 2007. British-born Carly Cushnie (of Jamaican heritage) and best friend and business partner Michelle Ochs (who won Parsons’ coveted Designer of the Year Award) were touted as the “next” Proenza Schouler (a design team that also came from Parsons) when they joined forces in March this year to form Cushnie Et Ochs, and embarked on nine months of preparations for their debut show.

In the stark, minimal venue of The Glasshouse in Chelsea, hovering 20 floors above New York City, Cushnie Et Ochs unveiled cut-outs (there was under-cleavage galore), “sensor strips” that veered dangerously close to obscene, suppley-draped jersey silk, clear cylinder-like clutch handbags that contained knives, and powerfully delivered lines and razor-sharp cuts. “We want the designs to be a testament to a time when women ‘dressed’ to go out,” Cushnie says of the collection. Theirs is a confident, but sexy woman who exudes a bold presence—certainly not for the faint-hearted—“and no wall flowers,” Cushnie adds.

Here is where art imitates life. Neither of the two are what you would call “wall-flowers”—they are confident and passionate about their work. While they met at school, they never worked on a project together until they started the label. “We spent so much time together, and if we weren’t together we were on the phone the whole night,” Cushnie says laughing. “We knew how each other worked, and knew that it would be easy to come together.” In terms of the logistics, Ochs may be more structured and tailored, while Cushnie more drapey, but their aesthetic blends beautifully. From separate research, they came together, pulling inspiration from art sources like Kevin Francis Gray’s sculpture “Face Off”, and a series of reflective panels by German photographer Wolfgang Tillmans.

© Dan Lecca

But the interning experience would be lost without personal traits necessary for steering through the often uncompromising, unpredictable world of fashion. “You have to be strong-minded, determined, thick-skinned, and have the strength to stand by your collection,” Cushnie says. “But you must also be adaptable, open to listen, and willing to learn. Some will love it, and some will hate it, and ultimately you have to be able to defend it and really believe in it.” It is for this reason that she adds there is nothing they would have done differently in the collection.

And so, as they get ready to produce the line for prospective buyers, they look ahead to the next collection. “Our woman is still the same—one able to deliver strong, confident looks, in silhouettes that will always be lean, because we definitely don’t design for women who like to hide under layers of fabric,” she says.