GRIZ was a collaboration between designers and friends Gary Graham and Liz Collins that started in 2002 with a collection of 8 garments made to show during Spring 2003 Fashion Week in New York. The intention was to create a group of experimental, non-commercial pieces in a tag-team fashion, where each designer brought his/her strengths to the designs and all were crafted by the designers themselves, working late at night together in studio to complete the pieces, after spending their days working on their solo collections. The collection was a wild fusion of the designers’ shared sensibilities, and each look was infused with a distinct character and narrative.
From this gratifying creative experience, Graham and Collins moved on to develop a group of pieces inspired by the Seven Deadly Sins (SDS), which were slated to show at the Whitney Museum at Altria in NYC, but due to logistical issues, were never completed. The Pride piece, from the SDS collection, made of vintage American flags, has been shown in several exhibitions and books and is now owned by the Costume and Textiles Collection at the RISD Museum, along with the GRIZ does Liberty dress.
GRIZ will return in a future collaboration.