Eli Russell Linnetz’s career arc defies the dubious orthodoxy that you have to study fashion design to make it as a fashion designer. A native of Venice Beach, he pursued screenwriting at the University of Southern California before spending his post-college years experimenting his way through a mutlifarious portmantaeu of creative roles: film director, costume designer, set designer, photographer, graphic designer, and more. What united all of them—and led him eventually to fashion—is that they are forms of storytelling.
Linnetz’s adjacency to the Cali industrial-entertainment complex, plus his talent, landed him to professional projects with protagonists including Lady Gaga and Kanye West (whose hydra-like record of creative mentorships is surely unmatched in contemporary culture, whatever you think of him). Then in 2018 Ronnie Cooke Newhouse introduced Linnetz to Adrian Joffe, who offered the still 20-something a label under Dover Street Market’s incubator program.
Since then Linnetz’s wave hoodie has won him an established design signifier while his hand-made quilting won him a spot in the pantheon of Met Gala greatest looks on the back of A$AP Rocky. Last year he collaborated with Dior Men at its show in Los Angeles and was a joint winner of LVMH’s Karl Lagerfeld Prize.
Now Linnetz is ready to make his next step. For spring 2024, instead of his usual painstakingly set designed, cast, and photographed lookbook, the young designer—now a 30-something—will present ERL’s first ever IRL fashion show. He is doing this not in Venice but Florence, as the official Guest Designer of this year s Pitti L’Uomo. Before he got on the plane last week, Vogue Runway checked in.
Hi, Eli! The guest designer slot at Pitti is very special, and often signifies some wider shift in a designer’s story. Does that apply to you?
My background is I’m a screenwriter. I’m more of a filmmaker than a designer, as you know. I was doing so much for other people that I never really had the chance to do something for myself, which is why I created ERL I never really intended at first to sell a single piece. It started as me doing something for myself, going back to my roots, and the authenticity of Venice Beach. It was just the medium in which I was expressing myself.
Now I want to show a different side of myself while remaining true to Venice Beach. This collection is named Eli Russell, which is my name. I would love to be at a fashion house, and I do feel that I have more to say. So I think this is a big departure in terms of where I am going while maintaining a line with where I have come from. The collection is all Made In Italy by hand, all artisanal. It’s all quite different from what I have done before…
No spoilers! But in vaguer terms, how is it a departure?
Like you said, Pitti is a platform for one-off expressions. And there was this part of myself I felt I was not feeding. I kind of see the world through costume design, and I have never really been about dressing the everyday—even if I kind of fell into that. But you will see there is a huge departure in this collection, in form, in color, in everything. I’m exploring things I never have before and pushing myself.
You said you’d love to be at a fashion house. Is there a tension between barefoot Venice Beach Eli and the Eli who is thinking about that role?
It’s not tension, but I have evolved. And that place [a fashion house] has become a platform from which I now think I could have something to say… Because I feel like I’ve told 0.1 percent of the stories that I want to tell. And I’m at a place where I’m ready to explore bigger pictures, in the same way that there’s a difference between making an indie film and a blockbuster.
And what are you trying to say in this collection?
For me every collection is a mini movie. For me, this time, the movie that takes place in my head takes place in 2176. A lot of ERL has been me diving into the past and this is me looking into the future. In the story Florence is under water, and there is an ambassador hosting a surreal ball at his house. Because of the rising water, all the surfers from California have flocked to Italy for the summer and they’re all riding the waves over there. They sneak into the party and play dress up to masquerade as the invited guests.
That’s very worked through and articulated. Your first role was as a scriptwriter. How do you stay articulate when your language is not language, but clothes?
Well I value precision so much that I would shoot the images for Vogue Runway at this show if I could, but of course I can’t! [Usually] I take all the photos and do all the casting in my studio, so it does feel like a weird step to give up some of that. But I’m still approaching this like a film, and everything—from casting to the set to the music, which I’ve partly composed—has been planned as part of that ambition. Maybe this is the only runway show I ever do, so I’ve put this pressure on myself to nail every single element of it.
I was thinking what does artisanal even mean for someone from Los Angeles? So we worked with a lot of film prop houses too, which represents to me some of the artistry of where I come from. I worked with the LA Opera on some of the pieces. And we’re also doing a giant installation inside the Fortezza. Basically it’s a 1:1 scale recreation of…
Eli, no spoilers!! Break a leg and see you in Florence!