A work in progress with @rishiassar !!! - reclaimed and repurposed metal work. This is heavy duty. For the culture of course. Join us at @lichennyc next week. We will post more about this work on Monday. Thank you NYC dept. of transportation 😉⚠️⛔️🚧🚸🚷
I am incredibly fascinated and drawn to stories of how people live and survive in extremely harsh natural environments. It’s all I watch on YouTube (aside from clips of Key and Peele). The relationship we have with nature and how it plays a part in our lives. In this case, jungle medicine, and how deforestation poses a threat to the health and well being of the people who live amongst the trees. Jungle medicine and natural remedies is one of the coolest things to me! I really want to try jungle medicine. It’s like magic.
This was the first culinary experience since getting the brand back. Heron’s Chili! An artist / guest chef series I kicked off with @ffffooooooood thanks to my good friend Lucien Smith @feareatsthesoil
I’ve always wanted to cook for the community. My custom recipe. Figured I haven’t been using enough of my free will!
Made some recycled “Orange Label” uniforms for the restaurant staff. This was fun. More to come. Just unlocked a new room in the “house”. 🥶🌶️
I filmed this interview of Diane Pernet 20 years ago.
Diane was one of my first friends when I lived in Paris (2006). I was a college student at the time (Parsons). Blogging for my website HeronPreston.com. On this video you can see one of my EARLY logos! I was fascinated by interesting people in fashion and Diane was someone I wanted to learn from. I was after stories and she always shared them with me. This was filmed on a Canon Powershot. Several months later, Steve Jobs introduced the “iPhone” to the world for the first time.
Diane was a fashion designer in the 80’s. Now she’s a fashion journalist and film maker based in Paris. In this interview, Diane talks to me about her life as a young designer, her career path and why she ended up in Paris. ❤️ @asvof
My last set at @thelotradio for 2025! I played this a couple of weeks ago and forgot I mixed Carl Craig with The Talking Heads 🤯 I just do whatever feels good. with ❤️❤️❤️ 2026 let’s throw a proper dance party! “The sun can’t compare, to your light!”
Believe it or not, I was working out of my house until just this year! Every single collection. Every single runway show. All of my work was done at home. I never had a studio! Even as the brand grew and found financial success, I had to work out of my house. It wasn’t until I started to break free from my partners that I finally claimed a space of my own. For the first time, I get to show up somewhere that isn’t my living room or kitchen table.
I can remember days when collaborators would want to come to my studio to have meetings and I’d lie telling them we couldn’t because I was moving studios. I was embarrassed! I mean, where were we really going to go? My house?! That wasn’t appropriate or professional. So we’d always go to a coffee shop or to their offices instead.
This studio is a reminder of how far I’ve come and how much further I’m ready to go. Grateful for the struggle, grateful for the space, grateful for the future. If you’ve been with me through this fight— if you’ve been here since day one, this is what the win looks like.
The inverted Orange Label was born in defiance.
In 2017 my whole life changed. I was young, hungry, broke, and trusting. Overnight, I felt myself losing control, my freedom, my very own name. What started out as a dream turned into a nightmare.
For a long time I felt stuck.
In that frustration, I searched for a way to keep creating without anyone controlling me. Suddenly, I realized that orange, a color so integral to my brand language, had become a symbol people recognized before they even saw my logo. Orange had become my identity marker.
So I flipped the label. Literally.
I first experimented with the idea in 2024 after discovering some deadstock labels buried deep in storage from my DSNY project. It was my first leap at reclaiming my creative voice. I turned them backwards, revealing the blank orange side and simply called that project “Orange Label”. No logo. No name. No trademark.
During a time when I didn’t own my own name, flipping the label became my survival workaround: a way to keep making work, keep expressing myself, and keep my identity alive.
That inverted orange label became my escape route.
A loophole.
A quiet rebellion.
And even now, in 2025, with full ownership of my name restored, I continue to use the inverted orange label as a symbol of that journey. It’s an homage to the personal struggle of keeping my voice alive even when faced with the most difficult challenges. A reminder that creativity will always find a way out.
Today, my orange label stands for more than a product line. It represents perseverance, freedom, resilience and never giving up.
It’s proof that when systems try to limit the artist, the artist will reinvent the system.
Photo: Shaniqwa Jarvis
Styling: Dione Davis
