Welcome to Unstyled. I'm your host, Christine Barberick, co-founder and global editor-in-chief of Refinery 29.

Each week, I invite a notable person to come in and talk with us as we explore the funny, inspiring,

sometimes heartbreaking tales of life, work, and love, as told through the things that we wear.

Rachel Comey is one of those clandestine documentary-style origin stories.

She wasn't even a formal designer yet, spending her free time costuming scrappy local bands here in New York City, when the thin white duke himself, yes, David Bowie, saw a handmade shirt of hers and wanted one for himself.

She was just a freelance production assistant and charged him which she then perceived as, quote, a lot of money.

It was $200.

That was 15 years ago, and today it's not just the late beautiful Bowie who became such a fan of her quietly iconic line.

Parker Posey, Cindy Sherman, Maggie Gyllenhaal, they're all part of Comey's eclectic crew.

And it was Vogue magazine who recently referred to her now collectible Legion jeans among the most tenor-setting denim styles in recent memory.

Her 10 million-plus annual business no longer has menswear on offer,

but it's the roots of these early, sedately, stylish pieces that have given her cult-like women'swear brand a rare, enduring fascination.

She's never taken seed money and funded her first few years on interest-free credit cards.

She's never taken out an ad, and over the course of almost two decades, she's managed,

at one point or another, nearly every aspect of her business. In a time when brands are cutting back

or shutting down with regularity, Rachel Comey, now with two flagship stores on both coasts,

has unwittingly become the face of a new brand of American fashion, one that's personal, reverent, artistic, and most importantly for her, self-made.

Hi, Rachel. Good morning. Hi. Thank you so much for being a guest on Unstyled today. I'm excited. I wanted to start with an image that I have in my head that whenever I think about you, for some reason, this image comes up often. You were showing your collection at a gymnasium at a public school on the Lower East Side. Do you remember that? Yeah, I love that, Jim.

Even in those early days, I'd never been to a show that was in a space like that before.

That was in kind of an unexpected location that gave you an experience.

It wasn't just about the clothes.

And I would love to have you tell us about that experience and when you were planning that show.

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