From Detroit to Parsons Design School and ultimately the runway, fashion illustrator Aaron Potts discusses his journey, vision and creative process. He shares with us the importance of self-expression, how a fashion design class changed his life, and why a Winsor & Newton gouache paint set became the foundation to his artistic career.
Brooklyn-based artist and fashion designer Aaron Potts merges art and fashion to create clothing that empowers people to see and celebrate themselves. From his studying days to establishing his own brand, Aaron reflects on the journey to discovering his style, ethos and process, and his collaboration with Winsor & Newton that champions self-expression and inclusivity.
I started my journey in Detroit, Michigan. I was a very creative kid, always sketching, painting, making collages, and at the same time also a huge fan of beauty pageants, award shows – and anything Diana Ross! At a public (state) high school I was taking a journalism class, and I got a grade that I was not too thrilled with, and the teacher wouldn't change it. I got so angry I thought, I'm getting out of this class, and the only other class that was available was a fashion design and illustration class.
This was where I was able to start to marry my creativity with my love of fashion and glamour. After the second week I felt like I had an epiphany. I just had this thought: this is it. I knew that this was supposed to be my path. I felt so like myself. Up until now, high school had been very difficult for me – I was shy and introverted. But once I found this artistic expression that helped me come out of my shell, it helped me meet new people, seniors were asking me to design their prom dresses. There were the most amazing classes. I took on everything from fashion design and illustration to calligraphy and photography, fine-art drawing and still-life drawing – all taught by one teacher. She is an amazing person, and was like a surrogate mum, and I'm still very connected to her. She helped set me on my path with applications and portfolios, going to Parsons School of Design, and here I am, decades later.
One of the things that I decided for myself was that I wanted to be considered an artist first, and my expression happens to be through the medium of art. Creativity, artistic expression, self-expression is why I do this – it’s honestly not about the clothes. It is about myself and the people who wear my clothes. We use the clothes as tools to find and explore who we are, express ourselves, communicate these messages to other people. I say to people all the time that anyone who can afford to buy clothes doesn't need another article of clothing, so they need to be something more than just making yourself look pretty. I mean, how many more black dresses do you need? Instead, I would like to make a black dress that helps you express who you are so you can see yourself in a new light. That's what fashion is, and what art is, for me.
When I first started in fashion, everything was a product of my environment and a little more obvious – things like sequins, feathers and fur. I grew up as a church kid and a mama’s boy, and loved all these glamorous things. I then learned more about fashion, the world and people. I moved to New York City the summer after I graduated from high school, and hit the ground running. Outside of all my classes at Parsons I was surrounded by all these new people from different backgrounds, faiths, colours, countries and languages. When you're walking down the street in New York City absorbing all of this, it starts to feed into your creative expression.
My evolution is really about learning more about people and humanity, and then trying to find a way to bring that into my work. It’s about deeper messages, which for me are diversity, the freedom of gender expression and framing all different types of beauty as the ideal beauty, such as age not being a barrier to beauty and to style.
My work as a fashion designer is about putting images and work out into the world that can help everyone feel seen and heard and embraced and loved. I've been in this business for years, and it's still evolving. I am an artist first, and now I'm trying to become more of a businessman, and I still want these messages to inform not just the creative but the business side of things.
On the first day at Parsons I got a supply list of everything you need for foundation year, when I was taking classes like three-dimensional design, fine art, nude drawing. On that list was a Winsor & Newton gouache paint set, with maybe 10 or 12 tubes of primary colours. That set became the foundation of my artistic life. We had to learn how to mix from those limited number of tubes. Every colour, every shade, every tone. The gouache set turned into dozens and dozens and dozens of colours. This became ground zero for how I make art in relationship to fashion.
I found that the materials I use, and how, inform how I paint different fabrics, from velvet to chiffon. This translates into how I use colour, the colours I love and learning how to mix and make a colour palette for a collection. Fashion illustration then became my calling card. Whenever I would start a new job, I would become the designated fashion illustrator for the company in addition to designing. I would pull out my Winsor and Newton gouache paints – some of the most consistent tools that I've had as a designer. I have now been using these gouaches for over 30 years.
I like to use these paints to express the spirit of a fabric. It is about making it look like it, but also feel like it. Fabrics come in different weights, sheens, textures, so this will be shown in how I mix the paint, which brush I use and how I use it, and how much water I add.
Sometimes I want my brushes to be a little drier to give more texture. If I want something to feel floaty and airy I'll put more water into it and let it be more of a diminished shade so that it looks like there's air around it and you can see through it. You can add tones and shades to build shadow, which gives you the three-dimensionality of fabric and how clothes look on a human body. The paint helps tell the story of what the fabric is, how it hangs, how it moves. A lot of this happens over the course of years of using these paints. My hand has become so adept that things like the pressure I use plays into how we make these paints reflect what fabric actually does.
My process when creating a collection can start from seeing a cool person walking down the street, or being on the beach and looking at the shades of water, which is what happened with Spring/Summer ’25. Sometimes I start with fabrics that I love, and then that fabric will become the genesis of the collection.
I always try to have a set of neutral colours, whether that's black, khaki or navy blue. And then I try to layer on colour. Sometimes these are really bright, intense and happy colours, or they might be jewel tones, or more muted, dustier colours. And then I try to mix these together so they aren’t all the same level. This gives a depth to the collection, and gives customers options for how they’re feeling that day – if they feel bright and cheery, super chic or quieter. Sometimes I may do a collection that's just shades of black. Because we're human we have different emotions on different days. I never want to make people feel like they have to put on a façade. I want them to be able to have the tools to express themselves in a very honest and authentic way.
After colour is sketching. I start with pencils; some people start with pens. I love pencils because I can erase, and I can just make a start getting my ideas on paper. Nine times out of ten, the first things that I sketch never make it to the runway or to the showroom. But I have to have that starting point. As I'm sketching, I'm also pulling in references, whether it's architecture or vintage design or pictures of flowers, and I’m building my colour palette with ideas for things like silhouettes and details on clothes.
From here I start looking at fabrics. Most of the time I try to find colours that are already on the market. Fabrics that exist that represent what my story is. But I can take my colours to fabric mills to create a custom colour palette. Once I get rolls of fabric in, I start working with the pattern room, and I take all my sketches and detail them – the length, the size of the buttons, the sweep of the skirt. We work together, making those sketches come to life. Then, because I like to work in a focused way, I go straight from sketch to finished sample. I don't do muslins. I try not to do a crazy amount of fittings. It's one of the ways that I try to add a level of sustainability so that I'm not making inordinate amounts of things that get tossed to the side. So I go straight to my show sample, we get samples back, and then I do a casting or I pick from my crew of models who have become like family. We cast the show and then go to the runway!
Tell us more about the collaboration with your brand and Winsor & Newton.
I've been developing what my brand is about and what I want to say, and this idea of being an artist who happens to work in fashion and leading with art means I want to be a little bit more literal. One thing I've started doing is taking some of my fashion illustrations that I create with Winsor & Newton and making them into prints for clothes. We have a project where we create collector's items – T-shirts – that are of fashion illustrations. I wanted to make art accessible to everyone, and there's nothing more accessible in fashion than a T-shirt. You can dress it up or down, and the artwork becomes your expressive moment. I have probably thousands of fashion illustrations, and I wanted to be able to share them, as not everyone can afford a $2,000 dress. It’s the spirit that is the important thing – whether we share this message with a couture dress or a cotton T-shirt.
In the world that we live in, sustainability is an absolute necessity, but you don't have to sacrifice beauty and creativity to be sustainable. There are lots of ways artists and designers can address this issue, especially because fashion is, I think, the second-top contributor to waste and pollution. One of the ways that I'm trying to help is through the fabrics I choose. I use some sustainable fabrics, but one of the other big things we are doing going forward is using Deadstock fabric. Instead of always ordering a brand-new roll of fabric meaning that the dye will leak into the water system, we're going to go out to mills directly, find out what fabrics they have sitting in a warehouse somewhere, and use those instead. This is a way we can avoid contributing to more pollution, while also finding lots of really interesting, beautiful things.
One of the things that I love about using Winsor & Newton Designers Gouache is that it keeps my hands and my eyes naturally moving together. We've had so many introductions of technology, AI and different services that help you draw and colour, and all of that is wonderful. But I think the true nature of art is that it comes from the human hand and from the human heart. And even if you use some of those tools, if you start from that place of handmade art, it keeps the humanity and the spirit that was put into the original work, which still comes through after it's put through the filter of technology.
I don't generally like to put my work through this filter. I like to make art move through the process in a very pure way, and I want art to come through at the end. Other people's processes are different, and I respect that. But for me, the art, the things that are made by hand, the colours that are mixed and put together – you get a certain feeling from them, and that's what I want to put into the world.
It would be to learn the craft of what you are doing. Nowadays, because of the internet, social media, there are perceived fast tracks. But ultimately you still have to have the goods. You can't fake knowing how to mix colour. You can't fake knowing how to sew a garment. You have to learn a craft and then apply all these other things to that craft. And part of learning that craft is having the tools to do it, knowing which paints and markers and pencils work for you, and your hand and what your expression is. The fact that I had these crafts taught to me so early on imprinted in my brain and in my hand how to use these products, which I’ve used throughout my career. I can't tell you how many expense reports I've filed for Winsor & Newton paints! I would use them at every single job, as they had become an integral part of my creative process.
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