Carri Munden of Cassette Playa talks Future Primitive, Black Metal & Spring/Summer 2015
After seasons on hiatus, Carri Munden is back with a Spring/Summer 2015 Cassette Playa collection. We sat down with the founder to discuss the brands "Future Primitive" motto, her affection for black metal culture and just exactly what she's been up to during her time away.
Following several seasons on hiatus, British-born Carri Munden has finally returned with an anticipated Spring/Summer 2015 collection from her label Cassette Playa. It's a typical exploration into the brand's distinctive, hyperreal, eccentric graphics, which Munden established early on, while introducing themes of spirituality, particularly from Hindu and Buddhist cultures in India and Tibet during the '60s. The shared experience, spiritualism and a rejection of atypical society are concepts which are reoccurring in today's Internet culture, and it's this concept which triggered many of the psychedelic designs in the collection. We sat down with Carri to further discuss her thoughts on what inspired her, the brand's "Future Primitive" motto and her affection for black metal culture.
To celebrate the return of the brand, we teamed up with Canadian artist Aaron Chan to create a short video inspired by the logos, prints and patterns of the Spring/Summer 2015 collection.
What is the genesis of your famous “Future Primitive" motto; does the world and its future care about us? Or is it more about us caring about the world?
I took the words "Future Primitive" from a Powell Peralta skate video. '80s and '90s skate culture has always been a big influence on my designs and graphics, but for me those words mean a future that balances technology and innovation, (and I mean this in the extreme i.e. post-human), with a respect for ancient knowledge and practices. We can be cyborgs, but spiritual and highly emotional ones. This means looking up from your screen, leaving your interface and interacting with - and, yes, caring about - our world.
How does your affection for black metal culture translate into your work? The reoccurring reference sounds a bit ironic, if you call yourself an optimistic.
Black metal is the most emotive and beautiful music for me. I connect with both the music and the Nordic culture it originates from, I definitely feel like I have Viking blood. I like noise whether it is sonic or visual and that's why I enjoy black metal. In the same way I can find calm in the visual over-stimulus of Tokyo or India, I can find calm in the layers of heavy drone, fast drums and guitar and other worldly vocals of black metal. 
The models in your Spring/Summer 2015 lookbook look injured. What happened?
That was Matthew Joseph the stylist, and makeup artist Daniel Sallstrom's idea. It was a combination of Thai boxing wraps, and the colored pigments that are thrown during the Indian festival of Holi.
Your peculiar visual identity seems pretty steady, but your work must go through deep mutations. On what level do they actually happen?
Recently I took a few seasons out to restructure my production and business model, to achieve lower price points but with no comprise on the concept or the story telling. I have always felt more of a connection to cult streetwear brands like Stussy or BAPE than high fashion. Previously I wanted to explore luxury processes like digital print, and it felt right for me to show at London Fashion Week. I naturally inhabited a place somewhere between those two worlds, but now I am more excited about making the brand fully accessible and for it to exist alongside other creative projects I'm doing.
Warped and stretched across parts of the garments, your playful use of patterns, words and logos has always been extensive. Are you interested in creating optical illusions across the body or is it more a statement on culture, product identities and verbal information?
I think less about the body and more of the garments as a canvas; placement, colour, texture. Fashion is ultimately communication and I love that print can be so direct, you can literally wear your inspirations on your body. It's a very direct way of connecting with something or expressing your identity. I use a lot of symbolism and collage in my prints and the wearer can, if they chose, connect with the graphics on multiple levels.
What sort of printing techniques are you using for Spring/Summer 2015?
Screen printing, digital printing, sublimation and tie-dye. In some garments I have combined these processes. I like layering pattern and graphics/print.
Your new collection is about "powering up." Does that mean that are you interested in using fashion to impact society? If yes, how exactly? Describe the process. If no, what sort of impact are you pursuing?
For Spring/Summer 2015, I was researching Hindu and Buddhist cultures in India and Tibet, and more specifically the '60s and '90s, the dual summers of love when Western counterculture embraced Eastern philosophies and practices. I am fascinated by the many communes and cults that existed in the '60s, mostly originating in California. That time had a synergy with the youth movement of rave in the '90s, concepts of community, shared experience, spiritualism and a rejection of society. I think the same concepts, desires and imagery are reoccurring now in our post-Internet culture. I guess my collection is for digital natives that want to reconnect with humanity or go native.
Are materials "becoming media" more and more or is there a schizophrenia in that relationship? What are your thoughts.
I agree! I was doing a panel discussion on London Collections: Men for SHOWStudio yesterday and we were discussing the influence and power of screens and more specifically, Instagram - as digital platforms are the space, be it virtual, that most people first see a collection and is also how we communicate daily. I feel that some designers, including myself, have started to design with this in mind. i.e. graphic shapes, prints and stories that can communicate from a 2D high-res tiny square screen.
If we are talking in real life, clothing has always been media to me. Like I said, I am less interested in fashion, but clothes as self expression and coded communication. 
One garment or accessory that is good at masking/hiding:
Erm, camouflage.
Your best exhibitionism experience:
I am not an exhibitonist, I am pretty introverted. 
Your best exhibitionism fantasy:
I would like to be a half-animal, half-girl J-pop star, vocaloid or virtual reality character.
The must-have in your handbag:
Baby lips and a USB.
Your favourite shoe in 1995; 2000; 2005; 2010 and 2015:
1995 - Nike Air Max 95. 2000 - Mui Mui trainer heel hybrid, blew all my student loan on these. 2005 - Was only wearing Reebok Classics. 2010 - Nike Mercurial Super Fly 2 (world cup 2010!). 2015 - Nike Flyknit.
Interview by Jeanne-Salomé Rochat for Highsnobiety.com.
