William Rast, the fashion line of Justin Timberlake and his childhood friend Trace Ayala, reprised its Fashion Week runway show Wednesday night to a packed gallery of every type of fashion and technology press, the latter contingent having been drafted into service by Sony's public relations corp, which was on hand to show off the company's netbooks, Bloggie cameras, and other gadgets.
We tracked down Timberlake and Ayala backstage for a couple of rapid-fire questions about the fashion and technology businesses and "organic" cross-promotion.
Wired.com: Where do you see the intersection of technology and fashion these days? Do you think they're related, and how are they related if so?
Trace Ayala: They're related — just to be able to stream this show is amazing for us.
Justin Timberlake: Absolutely. Technology's related to everything. Technology is making the world more accessible, so yeah, as generations go by, they'll become more and more married to each other, for sure. I think they go hand in hand -- fashion inspires design, and technology inspires design as well. What you can accomplish with a mobile device or whatever it is that's being made, I think there's a specific way to make that thing marketable and fashionable.
Wired.com: You're in so many different industries — there's the barbecue, the fashion, and obviously, the music. Do you think that's the future of brands, to go across a bunch of different industries?
Justin Timberlake: We get creative with a lot of different brands but they're so specific to each other. I don't cross-promote anything of mine unless it genuinely feels organic. For instance, I have one of my bands playing the music for the fashion show, but that makes sense. I wouldn't do something that was pushing something that wasn't organic.
Ayala: Yeah, a lot of people cross the line with that.
And with that, we were hustled away by various handlers. A shred of wisdom, perhaps, gleaned from this brief conversation: Just because a company can cross-promote one product with another doesn't mean it should, so sayeth Justin Randall Timberlake.
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