Born in Kingston, Jamaica and now based in Brooklyn, Diotima founder Rachel Scott presents a nuanced vision of Caribbean heritage and womanhood. Honouring techniques passed down through generations, the crochet doillies of her grandma’s house that Scott experimented with as a child now exist at the centre of her designs, reinterpreted as sensual garments entirely produced in Jamaica. Seductive cut-outs, body-skimming silhouettes, delicate draping and meticulous tailoring lie at the centre of Diotima’s universe, transforming tropes of traditional beading and mesh marinas into alluring forms. Last year, Scott was recognised as American Womenswear Designer of the Year at the CFDA Awards, an industry accolade previously received by the likes of Marc Jacobs, Tom Ford and Raf Simons for Calvin Klein. British model Alva Claire is just one of many women who feel empowered by Scott’s creations, accompanying the designer in a white crochet gown to accept her career-defining award.

Alva Claire: Rachel!
Rachel Scott: Alva!

AC: How was your birthday?
RS: It was really cute. It’s a really crazy time of the season.

AC: I understand. Having your birthday right in the thick of it… [laughs]
RS: Normally I’m travelling, I’m on the plane to Paris, or in Paris, so I got lucky that I don’t leave until Wednesday. I have six samples, so I’m panicking right now. [both laugh]

AC: I know what you’re like! [laughs]
RS: But outside of that, my birthday was cute, I went for lunch and we had people come over to the studio at the end of the day. We had drinks, I got a lychee cake.

AC: I love this.
RS: It’s funny because the studio is very much a studio…

AC: Sometimes people say doing things in the workspace is a bad thing but I think it brings a nice energy into the space, then you have work memories but also memories of your friends. It’s a good thing.
RS: There were people looking at boxes and I was like, “Don’t look at it too close!” [laughs] The samples were haunting me in the back. I got a Metrograph subscription [movie theatre in New York], I used to have one but I haven’t watched films since starting this business and my mind is turning into garbage, so on Saturday instead of coming straight to the studio I went to Metrograph, I watched a really gorgeous film by myself and then came to the studio.

AC: That is amazing, I love Metrograph. My girlfriend swears they have the best fries.
RS: I didn’t know that!

AC: We’ll go there to get fries even if we aren’t going to see a film. [laughs]
RS: She’s a Capricorn too?!

AC: Yeah she is.
RS: What’s your sign again, Alva?

AC: I’m a Pisces, I’m a water sign. What about Chaday [Rachel’s partner]?
RS: Chaday is a Scorpio, so also a water sign.

AC: Water signs are good for the strong-willed Capricorns. [both laugh] I love the Metrograph and I’m a big cinema person, when I’m not working I love going to see films to switch off. I like going to the Barbican [in London], they always have a showing on a Monday morning and if I’m not on set I’ll go to that. Seeing a film in the day is the best, my concentration is different.
RS: That’s what I realised. I used to watch incredible films all the time at home or all over New York, the last thing I did when the pandemic started was watch Sambizanga by Sarah Maldoror. I noticed when I was watching a Marguerite Duras film called India Song – it’s two hours long and the characters never speak but there is just conversation in the background, it’s formally abstract – I was fidgeting a bit and I was like, “This is a sign that I need to do this more,” because having a business affects my concentration level.

“Knowing how to make something is in a way knowing how to live…”

AC: Especially such a wonderful, successful, incredible business that you are the head of. How do you feel, Womenswear Designer of the Year?! [both laugh]
RS: I feel a lot of things. I feel super grateful, blessed, lucky, happy – just super overwhelmed with joy. But, at the same time, I have a lot of anxiety. [laughs] Especially about this next season because to have won Womenswear Designer of the Year after having the business for just three-and-a-half years, I feel like there’s going to be a lot more attention this time which I’m trying not to focus on. A good friend of mine, Joey George [hairstylist], who does the show, has been like, “Lots of pressure this season, Rachel!” [both laugh] It’s a bit nerve-wracking. People must know this but it’s just completely different to be operating as an independent brand than it is to have a brand that is funded and supported. I have a lot of limitations I’m working with, which I think is good in some ways because I think it makes me make interesting choices but I’m also a Capricorn, I judge myself harder than anyone.

AC: Really hard. There’s a pressure that is natural pressure, then there’s anxiety and there’s also double pressure that you’re putting on yourself. With such an amazing award comes these eyes.
RS: I work with people that I’m obsessed with and that’s probably one of the most exciting things about this, working with Joey, working with Marika [Ella Ames, stylist].

AC: Our girl Marika.
RS: She was texting me this morning because we have a shoot on Wednesday and I was like, “We’re not going to have everything!” She was like, “It’s OK, you’ll have it all for the show.”

AC: I first met you in your studio which is powerful in a way as I was coming into your space, but it just felt calm.
RS: I think that was you, Alva, you brought thecalm.

AC: No. Being a model is so funny because I’m going into so many different ateliers, so many different people’s spaces, studios and creative caves. I walk in and I just feel this wash of all the things that people have been working towards. Yours was such a beautiful, calm feeling but also exciting. I remember that. Then, weirdly enough, having already met Marika and worked with her in London and then having worked with Joey a bunch of times in New York, them being close to you makes so much sense to me. You have these people around you who not only want to support you but there’s also this creative communication you have that is beautiful, you almost don’t need to speak because you feel each other. You wouldn’t work with someone if you didn’t feel that love and that power.
RS: Totally. Even though there’s anxiety and stress, the lead-up to the show is so fun at the same time. I’m panicked because the shoes aren’t here or I’m on the phone to FedEx for three hours, but then Marika and I are looking at something and we’re like, “Let’s fuck it up and turn it around.” Or Joey comes in and is like, “Look at this wig.” It’s just all these creative conversations that are built on a lot of love, trust and respect, that discourse and what we make together in those days is so special. It’s magic.

AC: It’s magic because it’s also so recent, your last collection was so beautiful. I could only have wished to have seen it in person. I remember speaking to Max [Weinstein] – who styled me for the CFDAs with you – about your presentation show saying how excited everyone was to be there.
RS: There are so many people who get involved at this specific time, which is weird because most of the season it’s me alone in the studio or me and one other person. Now I’m having conversations with Jordss.

AC: Jordss! The crossovers, I love that!
RS: We’re about to talk with the set designer. It is almost like a film, we’re creating this moment that lasts two hours, it’s weird it’s almost the timing of a film as well. There’s an arc to the music, I work with Simon [Donnellon] who I’m sure you know well from Jawara [Alleyne.]

AC: Simon’s amazing.
RS: It’s an ephemeral film because the presentation is just for two hours and then that’s it, it exists in memory and you can never replace it. It’s not on 35mm. I think that’s so exciting and so beautiful, I love that part of it.

AC: It’s such a beautiful metaphor to describe it because there is this feeling about a show, it’s a moment in time that’s in your head and there are so many emotions that are pushed into it, and then on top, for you there is everything that came before that. It’s so intense but it’s so beautiful. How do you feel right after a show?
RS: I usually don’t remember. [laughs]

AC: I hear that.
RS: It’s a classic designer thing. I think there are two types of designers, some want to be out in the open but I’m not that type.

AC: So you’re not going to walk the full runway afterwards, no? [laughs]
RS: I’ll come out and wave. [laughs] Last season I decided to just stay in one spot and it was kind of backstage, I never went outside so I never saw it. But, I was listening to see what the energy was and I was like, “I think it’s good.” After that it’s kind of a weird euphoria, you’re totally delirious, you still have a million things to do, and everyone’s tired but everyone’s so excited.

AC: There are so many emotions swirling around. Have you been away since I saw you last? Have you been back to Jamaica?
RS: I went to a bunch of places. I went to Toronto and I went away for some trunk shows and then I went home for the holidays.

AC: How was it?
RS: It was so nice. This season is so chaotic because you have the shortest amount of time and everywhere in the world that I work with has a long vacation of some form. It’s chaos and when it’s the holidays it’s event after event, I was in the studio until 2am then going home and coming back at 8am. In the middle of all that [the holidays] are just a time where I am warm, I wake up when the sunlight comes up, I go out to my mother’s back garden and sit with my feet in the grass. For the first half of it, my brother and his family were there. They live in California and he has three kids, he has a six-month-old baby girl and her name is Evelyn Rachel Scott.

AC: Ah, stop! That’s iconic. [both laugh]
RS: She’s so funny, she sits there and judges the whole time. I’ve given her my name! [laughs]

AC: When they’re six months old it’s literally like they’re a freshly baked pudding.
RS: The first week was just crazy family time, they left after Boxing Day. I got a kite for my nephew and I won Christmas, I was like “I have the official title of best auntie.” [laughs]

AC: I feel very much the same way, I only have one niece. I have an older brother who has a little girl called Raye and she’s like my best friend. She’s so funny and smart, her brain works so differently, she comes out with questions and I’m like, “I didn’t even think about it like that.” [both laugh] A lot of the reason for being back in the UK is to be near her. It’s the most precious time.
RS: My brother lives in California and I’m here so we’re quite far, so it’s constant for those days when we’re together. My nephew Redford is seven and I remember when he was six months. I’m not a parent so I can’t even begin to understand what it’s like to entertain a baby but he would have all the toys and sometimes if he would get fussy I’d take him out into the back garden and drop petals from my hand and he was so obsessed with it. When I got the kite, I was like, “This is full circle.” In the other half of the trip, we went to Port Antonio, swam in the lagoon and one day we went out on a boat, then I came back into the winter.

AC: I just got back from Barbados yesterday so the cold is a bit of a shock. It’s nice to be home, we were away for quite a long time. It was a lot of fish, it was lovely. A lot of people being like, “Oh, you’re Jamaican…” [laughs]
RS: You know why, because they’re a small island. They’re all mad about us Jamaicans. [laughs]

AC: I was like, “I’m so sorry we happen to be the most famous island, I’m so sorry about it! What are you gonna do?” [both laugh]
RS: I just remembered when we were driving to Port Antonio, we picked up Marika along the way and we turned off the AC, wound down the windows and we were in the middle of nowhere. I was like, “It’s just so beautiful,” as if I hadn’t seen it my entire life and Marika was like, “Fuck it all, let’s just move here.” [both laugh]

AC: Everyone’s getting ready for the September show and you’re like, “Come to Jamaica then.” [laughs] We’re lucky we get to move around, it keeps it all fresh in my head.
RS: I get bored, I need to be moving around.

“I feel super grateful, blessed, lucky, happy – just super overwhelmed with joy.”

AC: I loved being away and being on the island but I also love putting on a really fab coat and strutting around. At the moment in London it’s cold but there are these milky sunsets and winter is also so beautiful to me.
RS: It’s true, but from inside. [both laughs]

AC: I wanted to ask you about your crochet. The dress I wore was crochet and I remember how amazing it felt on my skin, it’s like a weighted blanket feel, it’s safe like soft armour. I feel like I don’t know enough about crochet and also the crochet that’s made in Jamaica, do you remember interacting with crochet when you were young or is it something that you came back to as a discovered fabric?
RS: It’s a few things. I’m not sure what it’s like in London but it may have been something you saw in relatives’ homes, something you see everywhere in your auntie’s or grandma’s houses is doilies.

AC: Doilies on everything. [laughs]
RS: Table cloths, runners, toilet paper roll covers and weird shit like that. It’s everywhere. I never learned it when I was a kid which a lot of people do, I think it’s just a specificity of my family. My mother’s mother died when she was eleven so I don’t think she was taught these things but she also had this weird obsession with mothers and what they’re supposed to impart to their daughters. It’s also Jamaica, so everything is so gendered in a weird way. We would never admit to it but it’s true.

AC: It is. I was feeling that in Barbados too, I’ve never been to Jamaica, it’s coming when the time is right for me. But, things are so gendered in the Caribbean, it’s interesting to move around, Jenna [Alva’s partner] and I just feel free in whatever that means to us and then you’re reminded so much that people are so desperate to try and place you somewhere. I could feel that through just a gaze of, “Where do I place this person? This doesn’t make sense.” Thinking of my grandma, her house had a lot of doilies in it when she lived in the UK and I remember putting them on my hand, they were all around the house. That and the plastic sofa covering. [laughs] Cleanliness, neatness…
RS: Oh yes, cleanliness is close to godliness.

AC: She had this beautiful dining room…
RS: That you never went in. [laughs]

AC: Never went in, but when we ate we’d all crowd around the kitchen table and in my head, I was like, “There’s a big table in the other room, why are we in here?” But that was only for special occasions – don’t be silly, you’re not eating in the dining room! [both laugh] There were all these unspoken rules.
RS: I could never say I was bored.

AC: Me too.
RS: If I said that, she’d be like, “There’s no such thing, you can learn to do floral arranging, you can learn to embroider,” whereas with my brother she was like, “You can learn science experiments.” [both laugh] It stuck with me and as a kid, I really did love to embroider. I became obsessed with craft from a young age. The doilies in these homes were always starched, which is the same idea as the plastic on the couch, it was a way to preserve them. I never learned how but I think I always had an obsession with it because when I was in university I studied art and I did a lot of printmaking, the work I made was always layered. I had this obsession with the idea of the matriarch and passing on information. I remember one piece I did, and I didn’t realise until two years ago because my parents have everything I’ve ever done framed on walls.

AC: I love this. [laughs]
RS: I’m like, “That’s not real art guys, you can take it down.” There’s this one print I made that had pages from my mother’s mother’s cookbook, it was all handwritten. It also had images of my mother when she was young and it was layered with doilies, I was like, “This is so crazy, I guess I’ve always been obsessed with this.” Then I started working with it professionally ten or so years ago and became even more obsessed because it can only be made by hand. I think that’s so beautiful and you can make anything with it. I did notice that what I remembered of crochet in Jamaica was very specific and I’m also learning now that it’s not just specific to Jamaica but it’s regionally specific, not just in the Caribbean but also Central America. There are people I’ve met who’ve been like “My grandma in Bolivia or Costa Rica makes this type of crochet and starches it this way too,” so there is a shared knowledge of this kind of crochet. Knowing how to make something by hand is such incredible knowledge and for me, savoir faire is also savoir vivre, so knowing how to make something is in a way knowing how to live. It’s important to me that there is this knowledge imparted onto everything that I make, everything has to have this spirit in there. That’s not the only handmade thing we do, we do a lot of embroidery and things that are loud and are obviously embellished and things that are much quieter with seams that are connected by hand. It’s really important to me to bring something back to home in some way. There’s no formal manufacturing industry for clothing in Jamaica anymore but I know that so many women know how to crochet and do crochet.

AC: That’s been passed down to them.
RS: Exactly. I made the decision that I’m going to do the crochet in Jamaica and manufacture it there. I’m going to keep it there and other crafts I can do in other places where there is a knowledge, it’s a foundation.

AC: Thinking of yourself being young and having this appreciation of craft, being able to concentrate on something and the feeling when you finish a piece of embroidery, that satisfaction. Also, taking something we would see in the home, it’s amazing to see it celebrated and not just be something that is in someone’s living room.
RS: Exactly, it’s about their value.

AC: Yeah, the value and the precious item that it is.
RS: I’m so happy that you could feel what you felt when you were wearing it. I think there is spirit imparted into these pieces when someone is making something by hand and I feel it when I receive production, I think there’s so much energy in them. It’s really special that you feel that.

AC: Much like walking into someone’s studio, when I’m wearing something it’s the feeling it holds. I do remember putting my grandma’s doilies on the top of my hand and how that would feel as a kid fooling around, obviously when she was not in the room. [both laugh] Also just feeling very regal, expensive – it just felt beautiful. It’s also quite sexy in a way, people always associate it with older people but it’s a very sexy material.
RS: That is something I’ve been thinking about a lot this season, the idea of the matriarch and particularly the grandmother. I never met my mother’s mother and my father’s mother was a very complicated person, she made crochet and I had no idea because I was kind of afraid of her. But, in general, I don’t think this figure is ever portrayed as being a sexual being or sensual or having an intimate life, their interior world is very portrayed. It’s always flattened, it’s almost clinical from the outside, they’re women who have had long lives and probably know way more than all of us. Especially women of colour, we never get to hear these stories, and we never get to understand the complexity of these women. Matriarch is really what I’ve been thinking about for fall, I hope I do it justice. I asked a bunch of people to share photographs of their grandmas. I still don’t know what I’m going to do with them but I’m thinking about them this season. I didn’t say anything about what stage of their lives I wanted the images from so I got a mix of an old Indian grandma in Trinidad praying and Winnie Harlow sent me a picture of her grandmother who is a total icon.

AC: So we’ve got grandmas. [laughs] It’s interesting how it also plays into the photo that’s shared and what it makes them feel, because they’re drawn to it. You have that with family members if it’s a particular photo you love. There’s a photo of my dad when he was eight years old in Jamaica in a photo studio with a boat on his lap, his legs crossed wearing shorts and he looks so sweet. It’s one of my favourite pictures because he just looks so peaceful but I’m always drawn to a picture of my mum when she’s in London with a perm, living. With grandmas, so much is shared but so much isn’t. Me and my grandma were very close when I was younger, I have a photo of her that is a favourite of mine. I’m quite estranged from that side of my family now, which is sad. I didn’t tell you this, this is so weird, but after the CFDAs I got a message on Instagram from a cousin of mine who was like, “I found you on Jamaicans.com.” [laughs]
RS: Oh my god, stop. We made it to Jamaicans.com?!

AC: No, I don’t think it was connected to that day.
RS: Ohh. I was like, “OK, we made it.” [laughs]

AC: There’s an Instagram called Jamaicans.com.
RS: I follow them! [Alva laughs]

AC: A long time ago they posted a picture of me and it must’ve been pulled out from an interview I’d done where I’d said where my family were from. My auntie’s mum had discovered this and shown my grandma – I have a photo I hope I can share with you. She lives in Jamaica, I don’t know where now but she was very glamorous and she had this beautiful gap in her teeth, really high cheekbones. She used to make jokes to my dad, my family never really spoke about what I looked like, it was always like, “You need to focus on your work.” My dad was adamant that it was important to not just tell me, “Oh, she’s so pretty.” My grandma used to be like, “She’s going to become a model, she’s going to make us a load of money.” My dad was so annoyed she said that but it’s also so funny because I did. [both laugh]
RS: It’s true! And an iconic model at that, not just any old model.

AC: It made me feel so emotional because she was right.
RS: See, they know. She nailed it.

Interview originally published in Heroine 22.

all clothing by DIOTIMA SS25

model BLAYSE JENNINGS at IMG;
hair JADIS JOLIE at EDMA WORLD using CHI HAIR CARE;
make-up WHITTANY ROBINSON AT STREETERS using PAT McGRATH LABS;
set design LOUISA FULKERSON at BORN ARTISTS;
casting director DAVID CHEN at THE WALL GROUP