For internationally renowned style icon and house DJ Honey Dijon, playing music festivals worldwide, creating soundscapes for top runways, and designing a fashion collection share a vital common thread. In her eyes, creative expressions from fashion to music and everything in between are all guided by their relationship with the surrounding cultural climate. This reigns true for her latest big project, a capsule collection alongside Ray-Ban sunglasses that doubles as a time travel trip through the most culturally rich decades in history. V got the chance to chat with the legendary DJ to discuss her three original club-ready creations with the iconic eyewear brand.

I want to start at the beginning, when did you begin a love of fashion and how did that creative energy manifest in your career today?

“It all started with my parents, they were really into music and my uncle was a tailor. That’s how I became astute to fashion, he used to have fashion magazines laying around the house and it was this whole awakening for me. Also, growing up in the beginnings of house music culture where the clothing you wore was an indicator of the music and the culture that you were into, that was very much an inspiration for me. All the musicians I love from Grace Jones, to Prince, and Madonna have always used clothes alongside music and art, so I never had a separation of those it was all creative expression for me.”

How do you think the underground club circuit has influenced your style over the years? How do you think it’s influenced the greater fashion world? 

“Everything is taken a bit from the street, yeah? I’ve always liked fashion that’s been connected to a movement, sexual liberation, women’s liberation, punk, new wave, or rock– all of those cultural street fashions are inspired by how people really live. I don’t like aspirational fashion, you know, looking bourgeois and trying to be something that you’re not, fashion speaks to me when it’s something that’s lived and experienced, something that’s a part of life. As soon as the internet started the underground was finished, but that continued to inspire me and I like making things that are connected to some sort of cultural relevance.”

Tell me about the collaboration in Ray-Ban and what you wanted to achieve in the three designs? 

“Initially Ray-Ban offered me two designs, and I was like no, there has to be a story. I wanted it to represent all of my favorite periods in history with cinema, fashion, and music. I love the ‘60s, ‘70s, and ‘80s, for me these were times when there was a lot of cultural revolution going on, gay liberation, civil rights, the hippie movement, the burgeoning hip-hop and house music culture. I wanted to create a range starting with the Aviator Olympian HD60s which reminded me of Peter Fonda and what would he look like in 2020 from Easy Rider, the Square 1973 HD70s was me imagining Kate Moss running around Woodstock, and the Wings II HD80s made me think of early hip-hop artists and how they wore a lot of gold, so they were all things that had to do with cultural relationships to the clothing.”

Why did you decide to work with Ray-Ban?

“Because they asked me! [laughs] I’m just being real. It was an honor to be asked and it has so much cultural currency for me. It’s a part of culture, especially in music and cinema, Ray-Bans have always been around. It was an honor to be asked by such an iconic brand and to be put into that dialog in my own voice.”

What’s your favorite classic Ray-Ban style?

“The one’s I designed! I love the 24k gold on the Wing II HD80s.”

You released your collection with Ray-Ban alongside a clothing collaboration with Comme Des Garçon and Dover Street Market, how did you approach designing a clothing and accessories collection? What did you take into consideration?

“Most DJ accessories are purely functional, there was nothing that spoke to music culture in a way that was aesthetically designed as well as functional. I designed a USB case because technology continues to improve in DJ culture, so you need chic things to carry them in but moreover, functional. I wanted to make something that I saw a gap in the market for and that was really useful for my peers and people who DJ in all types of ways. So it has to be functional, utilitarian, chic, and well designed all in the same way, and finally, it needs to have a connection to music which is my creative thing.”

You’ve worked alongside some industry legends designing soundscapes for runway presentations, events, galleries, and more. Are there any parallels between designing a collection and designing a soundscape? 

“Usually when I’m designing a soundscape, it’s someone else’s vision and not my own. It’s certainly a collaborative effort, but it’s not completely my idea. When you’re designing a collection, the inspiration changes from season to season so the soundtrack has to complete the narrative of what the designer is trying to say. With this, I was able to design something that was completely my own vision. Even though they are both creative energies, there’s just different approaches of how you do those things and they’re equally fun and challenging. Bringing someone else’s vision to life is not an easy situation, there’s a lot of communication back and forth, but when I’m doing something for myself, I’m very clear about what I want to say and how I want to say it.”

 

 

 

 

Do you have a process in channeling your iconic stage presence? 

“I just really love my job and what I do, the music for me is sexual and spiritual and that energy just comes out. It’s something I don’t question or try to define, it’s just the universal energy of motion that naturally comes out of me. I have this insatiable energy when I’m behind the dek, it feels like home when I share with the [crowd] the music I love and hoping they love it as much as I do. The music that I come from originated from marginalized people creating art out of pain. I think I’m standing on the shoulders of a lot of queer black people and so I’m trying to carry that energy forward.”

What’s one go-to thing you wear when performing?

“Bodysuit. It reminds me of dancing at the disco in the ‘70s when there were lots of bodysuits and catsuits, sarongs, and athletic wear and people would get laid and dance all night. Like I said, I wear clothing that’s connected to a cultural movement and disco music is the founding father of house and techno. I always like to connect the dots and I don’t believe in past present and future, everything is there for the taking.”

What do you want to see for the future of music, fashion, or a combination of the two?

“I think it’s more important to worry about the present. With our current political climate, I think it’s more important to be living in the moment now. For me, I would like to see more openness and love, more humanity and compassion. Funny enough, most great art comes out of disruption and chaos so I think you’re going to see a lot of really great new music, fashion, and art. I think when the next generation comes to power politically and socially, you’re going to see a lot more change in culture and it’ll be really exciting to see what happens. What’s most important for me right now is to just have peace.”