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WHAT WOULD YOU SAY IS A COMMON MISCONCEPTION? "I definitely think that because I'm young, people don't always support the way they could —that could be retailers, customers… With a young designer, you don't always take the risk with them because it's new. If you've been shopping Oscar de la Renta for twenty years, you might not change your mind. Like, you go to your places and you buy things 'cause you've been doing that for so long. But that's just a cultural thing that our world needs to think about. I think that young designers definitely have a really interesting take on what's happening in the industry because we're living it before anybody, in a way. We grew up with a social media-kinda world." And the fabulous white petal party dress on the mannequin at the front of his showroom was worn by Emma Robert's Scream Queen character Chanel Oberlin. "Her character is this fashion It Girl. With Emma, she just pulls from the collections, wears them, then sends it back. We've done things where we've loaned for movies and stuff and we don't have to do much. We just send it out and hope it works. And if it does, great!" He speaks expressively and uses his hands as he talks. A number of It Girls adore Christian's clothing, just scroll through his Instagram photos and you'll find Ariana Grande in a custom metallic iridescent coat, Lily Collins wearing his marble flounce dress, and Ashley Graham in a sexy custom sequin slip dress. Christian is very vocal about dressing all types of women. "We try to celebrate everyone. I think that that helps," noting what lures in his clientele. "We kinda throw it in your face that we will support everyone, and then that brings everybody around — that brings retailers, that brings customers, that brings fans, that brings everything," he says with a smile. Clients can expect a different look each season. "They're always a little bit forward," he says of his collections. "But I also think a lot of the clothes are classic… You can be a really tiny It Girl like Emma Roberts and you can be someone like Queen Latifah and wear these clothes. That's really special." As an advocate for dressing women of all shapes and sizes and not just those who fit into sample sizes, this year, Christian teamed up with plus-size clothing store Lane Bryant on a spring and fall collection. "I love working with them. The clothes are really great, super chic, and we sold out of almost every item, which is awesome." Naturally, his artistic vision transcends his work. Home life is unsurprisingly as bright and picture-perfect as his creations. Christian and his musician husband Brad Walsh often escape from Manhattan to their Connecticut home on the weekends. The architectural marvel, which Christian decorated himself and was featured in ELLE Décor, boasts a mélange of patterns, colors, prints, art (mostly curated by Brad), and vintage furniture expertly woven together to present a chic, cohesive look. "I'm very into all these crazy colors. But it's a mix though. I do like things that are graphic," says Christian about his design style. "I like things that are monochromatic, grey tones, and black and white… We'll be working on a collection and I'll be like, 'I wish I could recover everything in black and white stripe.' But I can't. But I want to." This hobby allows Christian to break from fashion and refocus his creative energies elsewhere. Fortunately, Brad shares Christian's affinity for antique/vintage shopping – which can and has easily turned into a day-long pastime. Christian and Brad also share an appreciation for out-of-the-box Halloween costumes. This Halloween, Brad and Christian dressed up as a 70s hallucination. "It was really random," he says of the costume idea. "If you were on a really trippy drug in the 70s, that's what we would come to life as." The year before, they were Picasso paintings. And there was a time where all they did was dress up as Disney couples, for instance, Christian as The Little Mermaid's Ariel and Brad as Prince Eric. "I was like, I actually can't be Disney characters anymore 'cause it's getting weird." He smiles. "You have to look these costumes up. They're really scary. I posted one actually of my Ariel, which is really intense. I'm gorgeous though." He pulls up his Instagram page on his phone to show me. "That costume was actually amazing. One of the guys who worked here long ago made it for me. It was really fun. I had hip pads and I was really tall," he beams. Both artists bring different creative strengths to the table –literally, during the holidays. "Obviously, I don't cook anything. Brad cooks everything… I make a beautiful tablespace. That's tradition." The couple has their traditions. "We watch the Puppy Bowl after Thanksgiving. We chill. We eat a ton of food and we decorate the tree. Brad is very into Christmas, so that's always fun." The plan is for them to spend Christmas with Christian's pregnant sister ("I really need it to be a girl," he adds) and her 2-year-old son." My only other tradition is that I try to send little mementos to every actress or musician that we dressed for the year —a little 'thank you' for having a great moment this year." What a picture-perfect, fairy-tale life you two have over there, I comment on their country home living, which he shares snippets of on Instagram. "Some days. On the weekends, I will say, if we go there it is to try to have a normal life, 'cause it's a getaway place. Business is so hard and some days are so horrible that you have to get away from it or you'll go crazy. I learned that a couple of years ago when I bought the house and it made my life so different." Photo Credit Sara Kerens