The vibe inside Wesley Berryman’s Brooklyn design studio is organized chaos. His workspace is filled with perfectly stacked binders, notepads, and loads of books–The Bible, The Legend of Zelda, and The Body Electric, among them. There are hundreds of Swarovski crystals divided by color in a lucite container, a silver antique teapot and a knight’s helmet. Berryman’s sketches and reference imagery, which range from darkly romantic to deeply religious to video game realness, line the wall in front of his computer screen, which is playing a loop of trippy, ethereal music titled “Enchanted Forest.” Berryman has an indefatigable curiosity and is eclectic in his tastes. Though he is soft-spoken and his demeanor borders on shy, he is confident and introspective in the most charming–and intriguing–of ways. He easily finds wisdom and whimsy in the everyday corners of life and seeks out any opportunity to enhance the auras of those around him.
At the moment, he is enthused by what looks like a small robot or Transformer which, as he tells me, is a Gundam anime piece that he built himself from a kit. “I love modular things and lately these Japanese Gundams have really informed some of my silhouettes, as well as the idea that I want my pieces to feel modular.” He adds, “I always have my hand in everything all at once, twirling around this desk, touching this and that, moving between books and materials and images.” And the teapot and knights helmet? “These objects just have such a magical quality about them.” So do the clothes that fill the rest of the room.
Berryman’s brand is called Weslah, a nickname given to him by a high school friend while growing up just outside of Nashville. After having worked under Shayne Oliver at Hood by Air, as well as at several other designer gigs and internships around New York City, he launched the label in 2016. That year, Berryman had begun creating his own gothic and avant-garde designs and posting them to Instagram, which eventually caught the attention of FKA Twigs. She reached out via direct message and commissioned a few pieces for her tour.
To focus on the opportunity, Berryman quit all of his other jobs except for one. He was a receptionist at a fitness studio in downtown Manhattan called Monster Cycle, and, after the FKA Twigs opportunity, it was there that he was able to showcase his full line, and potential, outside of the digital sphere. “The owners of the studio—who were like my gay dads—they gave me some space to have a little presentation,” Berryman explains. “I was friends with one of Lady Gaga’s stylist’s interns and the stylist—Sandra Amador, part of a bigger team working for Gaga—ended up coming to see my clothes.” He adds, “her stylist asked if I would make something custom for Gaga: a corseted lime green dress made from hand-stitched tulle and decorated with crystals. And I did. She wore it and posted it on her Instagram and the rest is history.”
Aside from Lady Gaga, Berryman has also designed whimsical, futuristic fashion for the likes of Beyoncé, Megan Thee Stallion, and Rosalía. Respectively, their custom works ranged from sensual lace-up suiting to shorts punctuated with printed thorns and punkish, safety pin-embellished knits.
Despite the attention of these musical icons however, Berryman seems to be most proud of the way his label has evolved over the last few years, namely, its metamorphosis from conceptual to ready-to-wear. His latest line, which is currently exclusively available on his website and priced between $95 - $595, is made locally in New York’s garment district and called “Forever”. The offering is made up of garments meant to be thought of as personal “talismans.” Berryman writes in his collection notes that as each item “passes through the hands of sewers, pattern makers and artists alike, Weslah believes that each piece is imbued with an energy that it retains which will eventually be passed along to the wearer.” And when the wearer puts it on, they then will take that energy and “charge” it, make it their own, and “activate” their individuality.
If this sounds very meta, Berryman means it to be. He walks a fine line between practicality and introspection. The collection, like his beloved Gundam figurines, is truly modular: a bright blue laser-printed velvet legging can be worn separately or layered with a mini dress and a corseted cami. Raver jeans decorated with Berryman’s signature Maleficent-esque thorn and heart prints can be further accentuated with his sculptural necklace (his small collection of hauntingly beautiful jewelry, by the way, is also something of note). Pointed shoulder jackets rendered in denim and a cool cropped puffer jacket, which look as great over a gown as they do with nothing but undies beneath, bring more to the wearable-meets-wild aesthetic. Berryman has shoulder bags too and they’re good: perfectly sized in either black patent or a gray laser-printed fleece with removable heart and cross charms. In his own words, “just a little everyday, cunty bag.”
The real pièce de résistance in this collection though, and in Berryman’s evolution thus far as a designer, is the Weslah corset hoodie: a traditional boned, lace-up corset mashed together with a logo-bedazzled hoodie sweatshirt. The idea was really to blend the artful joy of unfiltered fashion co-existing with the ease of practical, wearable garments. His hope is that with this recipe he’ll be able to scale his business in the coming year and beyond. “My true heart is with the avant-garde aesthetic,” Berryman notes. “But I love the challenge of distilling that into something that can be worn every day.” He adds, “That’s really been my dream is to just see people out in the world wearing my clothes.” “The most rewarding thing about fashion is that yes, it’s art, it’s fantasy, but it’s also something so close to the body and when we wear it everyday, it sort of transforms us.” The corset itself has become a Weslah signature because, as Berryman says, “it’s augmenting the body and how someone feels. It even transforms your aura.” “Fashion is such a powerful medium and it is like magic.” He adds, “they’re really just clothes… but also, they’re not.”
