Q+A with the Ladies of All Bad Days

After we tricked the bummer babes behind All Bad Days into modeling for our Ann Sheppard lookbook, I dragged deep wisdoms from them about their projects and woeful world view. Enjoy these salty insights and behind the scene snaps, and then check out their awesome shop! 

HES: What is All Bad Days? Who are you people?
ABD: All Bad Days is the culmination of Breyell Dawn Payne  & Jess Ackerman, two weirdos that found each other out in the universe and decided to use their powers for productive negativity together instead of wasting away separately.

What’s the worst part of working together?
The worst part is that we actually understand where the other one is coming from artistically & emotionally...  it also sucks that we don't have more arms and bottomless stomachs.

Where do you get your best (worst?) work done?
In bed, or on the couch alone together, anywhere that we can be positioned horizontally really... usually with some Drake playing probably. 'Cause we love that champagne papi.

What kind of deep cutting edge market research informed your “Nope” and “Together Alone” lines?
It was a very fluid and honest development. The concept of NOPE largely came from street harassment and the general discomfort we and many others feel by just being in public. Together Alone is inspired by that feeling of being surrounded by people, or just that one close person and still feeling this vast aloneness. It's about embracing that feeling, learning how to be alone without being lonely.

What do you do when you’re not flying solo together?
Usually trying to get out of town any chance we get. We both have service industry day jobs that can really frazzle the brain, so it's nice having a reset somewhere that's outside of the city. 

Now that your site’s freshly launched and a big company’s already ripped off your designs, are you done?
Never. Ya'll are stuck with us. We have our summer and fall lines in production. The summer line will be a very different avenue for us. We are giving up a level of control and collaborating with other artists, designers and maker friends to create this next line. There will be a very different feel to it than our last lines, but it's still sure to disappoint.

Must suck to know so many talented, bummed cuties. Why work with other small scale creatives?
These are our friends! We're kind of all in this together. It's been a really natural progression for us as this small project turned small business, to reach out and include the people we admire in our growth. This is the community we are part of. We want to see our community thrive. A lot of the time It takes the soul out of a project when you grow past your community and it can make your forget where you came from and why you started creating in the first place. It's outstanding the level of support we receive from our fellow maker friends, and we want to continue being a business this way.

Feelings on strangers who tell you to smile?
There is a special place in hell for these slick freaks. We all feel it.

Why bother?
Shit dude, you tell us.