Jonathan Vaughn of Dark_Tones
I met Jonathan at a rooftop pool in the middle of Downtown Los Angeles a year and a half ago. He had an air of cool professionalism and, after a while, we began small talking and laughing about our coming futures together. By the way he carried himself, I imagined him to be many years my elder and thriving in his industry for a long while. Later, I was surprised to find that that was not the case at all. Jonathan is relatively new to the fashion industry, but don’t call him green. The 23 year old designer grew up in Brooklyn, NY before relocating to Los Angeles to pursue his passion for clothing design.
This quiet determination has taken Jonathan from design student learning on the east coast to designer “making it” on the west coast. He began his own technical clothing brand, Dark_Tones in 2018. The brand is focused on “expression, in any form” and is made up of hand-crafted androgynous pieces that seamlessly straddle the line between statement and everyday. Jonathan has recently added suiting and leather goods to the already vast offerings of trousers and basics that his brand is known for, all in the color that it gathers its namesake from, black.
“Dark_Tones is essentially a lifestyle brand centered around embracing the darkness. Darkness is all around us, and in order to overcome it we need to embrace it. The brand ethos is in the name: the ability to change the perspective of something dark and make it something beautiful. So, broken down, it’s the tone in which you hear or see the darkness.”
This wise perspective is incredibly refreshing to hear, especially in the throes of the fear and negativity that we find ourselves in, what with the current state of affairs in the world. But it’s not always easy for Jonathan to look on the bright side of the darkness. He very often finds himself stuck, searching around for the next strike of genius, trying to avoid the self-criticism that we all face.
“I’m actually very self-critical and don’t consider myself very creative, especially when comparing mine to other peoples art. I have a bad tendency of doing that. There have been hundreds of my designs that I’ve scrapped.”
But maybe that’s what keeps him making. After all, self-criticism is not always bad. It’s something that keeps the human mind from becoming too content. In fact, it’s something that I’ve seen Jonathan conquer first-hand. He is always looking to improve his place in a situation, to further a team, to support and carry a vision. He is genuinely one of those people that dreams and then does. And what does he do to refresh his mind and gain inspiration when he really, truly feels stuck? Travel.
“Anytime I feel myself slipping, I always take a trip back to New York, just to give myself a kick in the ass. The amazing thing about New York is the culture and work ethic everyone possesses. It’s such a diverse place where everyone has to ‘make it’ in some way or another, so that has played a huge part in my life. I also just returned from Cape Town, South Africa which was amazing, a dream. There were inspirations, discoveries, and surprisingly, some solutions that came from that trip. It was extremely motivating. Now I have goals I didn’t have before and I’m excited to create more in order to achieve those goals. Once I’m motivated, ideas and inspirations just start flowing, even if it’s completely different from what I was doing before."
This flow of ideas has surely fed his design process since the beginning. He seems to be able to pull inspirations from even the smallest of things. Whether it be a buckle on a passing bag, the shine of Saffiano leather, or even just a strip of cloth twisting in the wind. But it has also led him to a new endeavor in the visual arts world: painting.
“I’ve just picked up painting. I had dabbled with it when I was younger, but it was nothing serious. One day recently, I felt that painting would make me really happy and had an overwhelming urge to start. So I did. Right now it’s all centered around my girlfriend, Caterina. She has been incredibly supportive of all my endeavors since the first day we met. All of my paintings are of her in some way.”
Jonathan has told me that currently he’s still experimenting with styles of painting, ranging from abstractionism to pictorialism. His paintings stretch along the wall in his home studio, constantly inspiring him and pushing him to keep working and improving. A photographer that I look up to once told me that in order for an artist to keep improving their ways of visual making, they should hang their work and look at it often. Innately, artists will be able to pick up on ways that they want to expand their work. Mix that in with studying the work of others who have come before them and you have a recipe for success. Jonathan does both.
“I love looking at the work of Rick Owens, Kei Ninomiya, Yohji Yamamoto, and Issey Miyake. They are untouchables in my eyes and I would love to have that kind of impact at some point during my career.”
So what’s Jonathan’s next step in his journey? He smiles confidently and responds “Paris.” And there is no doubt in my mind that he’s right.