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In a world before social media, in a New York City then guarded over by twin towers, there was a web. Not spun by a spider or shared using browsers, the web’s borders were well-defined (14th Street to Canal), its connections formed by personal interactions as well as sensory and instinctual clues. Somewhere near the very center of this fashion/art nexus was a merry, glittery quartet: As Four. They were Adi, Ange, Gabi, and Kai (they only used first names), and they were almost never without Powder, a white pit bull and sort of fifth member of the gang. Their aesthetic was over-the-top, futuristic, sui generis—and accessorized with their distinctive Circle or Donut bag.
As Four elicited catcalls on the street; they were labeled “aliens” and “baroque cavemen.” They lived, illegally, in a silver-painted, party-ready apartment in Chinatown known as the Silver Cage that was often compared to Andy Warhol’s Factory. There, in their self-created Utopia, all four—plus pets—were said to all sleep in the same bed (or two mattresses, depending on who you talk to). “I’m not sure if that was true or not,” says artist Ryan McGinley, “but I liked to believe that.” A lot of other people did, too.
Who were they? What did they do? And was it art, or was it fashion? “They had the air of rock stars, but were actually their own fashion commune,” says consultant Julie Gilhart, who bought their collections for Barneys. They were also a manifestation of the American dream. Immigrants all, they hailed from Israel (Adi Gil), the USSR (Angela Donhauser), Lebanon (Gabriel Asfour), and Germany (Kai Kühne), and called themselves a “United Nations of Fashion.” As such, they had a higher purpose than clothing production; by living and creating together they wanted to show that peace and unity is possible. And though they wanted, and earned, attention from the fashion system, they flouted its conventions—sometimes presenting only one collection per year, or staging experiential-shows-cum-multimedia-art-installations starring their friends—in ways that seem prescient today.
Above all, they were—or seemed to be—free as birds. They loved “blindly.” They fought wildly, sometimes publicly, but still they glittered on . . . until 2005. That year their bubble messily broke and Kai left the foursome. Adi, Ange, and Gabi continued on as Threeasfour. They added the Three, Asfour told Style.com at the time, “out of respect for Kai and for a fresh start.” Kühne showed for a while under the label Myself and Kai Kühne; more recently he cofounded an auction platform called Hasbeens & Willbees.
For Fall 2019, Threeasfour showed reissues and reinterpretations of their first As Four collection, circa 1999. Back then, says Kühne, “we were just running into the future. Now, 20 years later, I see a lot of parallels with the young brands.” Has fashion finally caught up to these Mercurys of the mode? Time will tell.
We spoke with Adi, Ange, Gabi, and Kai—and 22 people in their orbit—to create an oral history.
SOUL SISTERS
The formation of As Four was a gradual process that started in 1994 when Adi and Ange moved to New York.
Ange: [On meeting Adi.] 1991–92 Munich. School. Soul sister. Love at first sight. The yin to the yang.
Adi: I moved to [from Israel] to Germany with my family, [but] never felt I belonged there. When I met Ange, we became family. I found my soul sister. We felt very much disconnected from the city that we lived in and dreamed about finding our own place where we could express ourselves. New York sounded like the place we should go to. In 1994, I came first with a friend, and Ange followed five months after.
BIRDS OF PARADISE
Schohaja, photographer: I first met Adi and Ange at Bella’s Coffee Shop on Elizabeth Street in the mid ’90s through a friend, Sabina Kurz. They looked like beautiful birds of paradise.
Agathe Snow, artist: I remember the first time I truly noticed Ange and Adi—there was really no way to miss them. I had just gotten back from college for the summer, it must have been 1996 or 1997. I was at my mom’s restaurant—Le Poeme, on the corner of Prince and Elizabeth Streets—sitting on the stoop with Vincent Gallo, who lived right across the street. As we were catching up on what I had missed in the neighborhood, he pointed to a very blonde Adi with a geometric-bang haircut, and Ange with black hair, and he said, “They really have changed the neighborhood.” Just walking up and down Prince Street, that’s all they needed to do.
Adi: We always made our own outfits. Back in the [day] we used to shop a lot in thrift shops and reconstruct and repurpose our garments and give them a makeover. Mickey [Boardman] from Paper magazine used to call us “the upside-down girls” since we used to wear lots of dresses and skirts over pants—and many times these used to be men’s pants before we gave them a new life.
Eric Duncan, DJ: This may have been pre–As Four, but you couldn’t not notice Adi and Ange cruising around downtown in 1996–97. They had style for miles. They were also doing the door at various spots like Flamingo East, E&O—if my memory is right.
Adi: When we first arrived in New York, we contacted all the stylists we looked up to and tried to get assistant jobs. We worked in nightlife for one of the most unforgettable parties in New York back then, The Nines. And we also worked in several clothing shops, such as the Dressing Room on Prince Street, where we started a small line that was called What’s Up Pussycat?.
Ange: Our philosophical approach toward everything was then, and still is: Pourquoi pas? [Our style was] fun, free-spirited, individual, and either self-made or customized, [with] elaborate maquillage and hair.
FUTURE PLANET OF STYLE
Ange: Eventually [we started] working as a styling team called Future Planet of Style, for magazines and music videos.
Adi: Ange came up with [the name] and it just clicked. We even had a message on our answering machine saying: “Welcome to the Future Planet of Style, please leave a message after the beep. . . .” I used to do hair and makeup, and me and Ange used to do the styling together. [Later], Kai shot and even developed the pictures—it was all film. He was an excellent photographer.
ENTER KAI
Adi: Our mutual friend Sean kept telling me about this beautiful German [model] friend of his named Kai. One day I was walking down Broadway and there was Sean with Kai and Nina, another model friend. I truly remember this moment like it was yesterday; I [even] remember what Kai wore: He had on a camel-color leather jacket and washed denim. I thought he was the most beautiful guy I had ever seen.
Kai: I came to the U.S. with Ford Models and decided to study photography at SVA. I had already studied fashion design at AMD Akademie Mode & Design. While at SVA, I started collaborating with Adi and Ange on fashion editorials and shoots for modeling agencies. We mimicked what we found inspirational: early Inez and Vinoodh in Self Service, Mark Borthwick. . . . There was a whole new spirit happening and we kind of joined it, while at the same time we wanted to oppose the intellectualism [that] was happening with the Belgium deconstruction, [which] we thought was missing a lot of fun, life, and color. So we kind of combined the two things: conceptual work with happy fashion, energy, and glamour, and frivolousness, which I think is so rare. “Serious-ity killed the cat,” we used to say. We tried to have very solid, smart, great work, but at the same time not take ourselves and that work too seriously. At the same time Gabi and Ange started dating.
AND THEN THERE WERE FOUR
Adi: We used to see Gabi around the streets of our neighborhood. One day he walked into the shop where we worked and from there everything started.
Gabi: When I first saw Adi and Ange on the street in the East Village, my heart dropped. I was very intrigued [to discover] who these people were, and where they came from. I was fascinated by their energy. I felt a very strong connection; they were very familiar, as if I knew them from a past life.
Ange: We used to see Gabi and Vincent Gallo in the neighborhood all the time and assumed they were brothers; both enigmatic and attractive. One day I went to a trimming store in the pouring rain, bent over a bucket of buttons, [and] someone tapped me on the shoulder . . . [it was Gabi]. We fell in love instantaneously. . . .
Gabi: [The creation of As Four] was a series of events starting in 1997. I had completed my first collection at that time and was looking for the right aesthetic to style and photograph it so it would become whole, so I approached Adi and Ange. They were working as a stylist team with Kai, who was doing the photography, at that time. The results blew my mind, [their work] was so amazingly on point in a way I couldn’t have imagined. The three of them added so much to what I started that I felt it would be great to collaborate further, so we decided to join forces. It was a dream.
Adi: We decided to make it “official” and call our collective As Four, which came from Gabi’s last name, Asfour, which means “bird” in Arabic. It also meant for us as four people coming together to create and play.
Schohaja, photographer: : At that time, I was traveling quite often to New York. [Adi and Ange] invited me to stay at their studio. We became closer. We had a great time, and hung out a lot in Bella’s Coffee Shop. After Kai’s home burned down, he moved in with them. Gabi followed after he split up with his wife, and they all began living together in a 35-square-meter studio. I was impressed with how they managed to live together in such a small place. I loved how they were expressing fashion. It seemed fresh and innovative. They understood fashion as an experience and they had a high taste level.
Kai: We all ended up together in Adi and Ange’s tiny one bedroom on Stanton Street above the legendary Club 205. We used to drop our rent check to Hank—owner of our building, which he won in a poker game—in the safe in the back of Mars Bar.
Marcelo Krasilcic, photographer: They all were involved in fashion, [and] they started just creating and doing things together. One of the first things they did was some sort of fashion show organized on Orchard Street—when Orchard Street had all the original kind of stores that people would come to to get cheap things. All the stylists [and] people who did the show were supposed to go to the stores and pick up some things [to use]. They had a show, and I remember Kai cartwheeling in the middle of the road and [that] they were all dressed pretty amazing.
Kai: We never wanted to get into this whole hamster wheel [of fashion]. We loved going to the flea market and vintage shopping, seeing the beauty and quality in something [that] has been, and trying to make it a will-be—what I’m still believing in. [We were] not restricted by [feeling that we had] to prove [something] to the system. It was absolute freedom; there was a line of beauty.
Ange: We were blessed to find each other: like a lucky four-leaf clover, a universal miracle, or fate.
FROCK STARS
Julie Gilhart, fashion consultant: I actually first took notice of them showing up at fashion events on their mini bicycles, all dressed up and looking cool. They had the air of rock stars but were actually their own fashion commune.
Ryan McGinley, artist: I used to take Polaroids at my apartment from 1998 until 2003; for like five years my whole bedroom was covered in Polaroids of everyone that came over and the apartment was kind of like a skater flophouse, and those guys would come over all the time. I remember when I first saw them, they reminded me of where, like, the Jetsons met that movie The Warriors. They were just wearing these shiny iridescent silver outfits that looked so futuristic, but they were riding around on spray-painted BMX bikes, kind of looking like a gang. And they had this super-beautiful pit bull, Powder, that would always be with them, which also—even though it was such a cute, friendly dog— kind of gave a bit of a dangerous quality because it was like a very muscular pit bull.
Gabi: The girls had banana bikes; the boys had BMX. But we felt that it made sense to just go traveling by bike in New York City. We were like, “Why doesn’t anybody drive bikes?” Because New York is so flat, it’s a great way of transportation. But nobody had bikes at the time.
Ange: It was really dangerous; I don’t even know how we did it—and there was always a dog with a tutu running [alongside]. A lot of times people would ask, “Are you guys in a circus?” or “Are you in a traveling band?” They always asked us no matter where we went, so we must have been a little like troubadours, [with] that kind of energy.
Kai: We were called baroque cave people.
Andy Spade, entrepreneur: I saw them in the East Village riding together on their bikes, and I didn’t quite know what to make of it. I didn’t know if they were artists, designers. . . . They weren’t club kids, I knew that; they were in some scene, but I couldn’t figure out what scene [it was]. They didn’t fit in anywhere, you know? Kate [Spade, Andy’s wife] just immediately fell in love with all of them.
Ben Brunnemer, musician and DJ: As Four had this super-futuristic ethos and aesthetic with all the silvers and metallic fabrics, but then their pants were essentially bell-bottoms, and they would mainly wear vintage clothes that they would cut up and reassemble. I feel like they were the link from the ’90s rave retro-future (i.e., Deee-Lite) aesthetic into something new and more elevated into high fashion for the 2000s.
Agathe Snow, artist: It’s 1999; I [had] moved back to city to get married with Dash [Snow]. Soon we found out a lot more about them: where they came from, what they did, how they all slept in one gigantic bed. And we just loved it all. It seemed perfect—it was perfect. It seemed like the perfect way to change and fix the world just by creating bonds with people, especially the ones you are meant to fight with.
Kim Hastreiter, journalist and cofounder of Paper magazine: I knew they loved style, and they would make stuff; they would be wearing thrift shop. They were very futuristic looking, you know.
Lynn Yaeger, writer: I first saw them in the elevator of the Puck Building going to some event. They had a cat with them. I thought they would never deign to speak to me, but then I believe Mr. Mickey introduced me to them, and they were surprisingly nice.
Lauren Boyle, artist: For [me and] Solomon Chase [fellow DIS collective artist], As Four, and the whole community of misfits that banded together with all its eccentricity and non-normativity, was really just like every high schooler’s dream of New York. We were in college and we found them in the early 2000s, and we were just like totally awed and changed forever because of them. Their energy was just so magnetic and their aesthetics were otherworldly. So wherever they went, we followed them. We were just like total groupies—groupies that turned into interns, and then assistants, and now just dear friends. At that moment, As Four was really like the epicenter of the sort of, like, mythical, barely documented period of downtown New York [which was] a kind of Utopian bubble of grungy pre-internet, pre-smartphone glamour set against the Florida recount, and the chaos of 9/11, and Giuliani’s dancing ban.
Masha Orlov, stylist: I mean at the time they were considered alien freaks; literally they were the aliens. Their haircuts, the makeup—they were amazing just to look at. They were also harassed, and I remember there was a lot of hostility, especially toward the girls just from people in the streets, because they were so odd, you know. Now, it’s like commonplace; they kind of created that.
THE SILVER CAGE
Marcelo Krasilcic, photographer: I had just moved [to 86 Forsyth Street]. They lived a few blocks [away and] I invited them to a party here. They came and they loved i,t and they were like, “Is there another floor available?” I was a little like, “Uh, maybe . . .” But there was. [This] was huge for them because [before] they lived in a tiny [apartment, and when] they moved here they had all this space—they had the whole floor. They painted everything silver—floor, walls, ceiling—and in the back they had hidden (because you’re not supposed to live here) a kind of loft with two mattresses. The four of them slept on those two mattresses with the dogs, the cats. . . . It’s funny because it wasn’t a sexual thing. I think Gabi and Ange pretty soon after that were not a couple anymore. The way they operated was they would not wake up, or open the door, or anything, before two in the afternoon. So there were stylists coming to pick up clothes [and] knocking on my door, like, “What do I do?” I was like, “Come after two-ish.”
Thomas Bullock, musician and DJ: I met Gabi and Kai once “The Four” had formed. They lived together in one room—slept in the same bed, in fact. It was hidden at the back of what was appropriately named The Silver Cage. A number of us would be there regularly. It was the nucleus for orbiting neighborhood folk of all kinds—rich, poor, young, old—soaking up and spilling over.
Ange: People used to say, “Oh, I looked up and it looked interesting,” and they would just walk upstairs and knock on our door and walk in and sometimes it just clicked. Maybe we sent out radio vibes or something . . . we were like an antenna.
Ben Brunnemer, musician and DJ: Their studio on Forsyth was a major hang for a lot of people, before- and after-parties, during the day, etc. Lots of people, myself included, lived or crashed there at different times. People would show up from other countries or states who had heard of them and wanted to intern for them and ended up living there, people who have now gone on to do cool fashion stuff (Eckhaus Latta), musicians, artists, dancers. . . . It was definitely the closest thing to the Warhol Factory vibe, and obviously seriously indebted to that since it was also painted silver.
Gabi: I have to admit we were not so culturally aware of Warhol’s silver loft or Noguchi’s silver space; there were many different silver spaces that people had. We just felt that [silver] would be great background for photo taking—like silver prints, you know? Anything we took with a silver background we felt would be kind of a signature, that there was some kind of magic with the reflection of this, this metallic reflection that we felt would be fantastic, that any picture we’d take would look great.
Kai: The cute thing about us that we were like beautifully naive, young—not stupid and unsophisticated and uneducated—but young and free. I didn’t know Andy Warhol worked in a silver studio. While we were painting the loft on Forsyth Street silver, some guy who lived next door screams through the window: “Oh, the Factory!” And then we [were] like, “Shit. Okay.” And we were discussing not doing it because we didn’t want to be pinpointed to that, but I’m sure there are a lot of similarities between what was going on in the Factory and the way we felt during the time that I was there: [like] working with the system, but also not caring too much about it.
Ryan McGinley, artist: There was an urban myth that they all slept in the same bed in their studio, and I thought that was cool, too. It’s like you’re just completely living your art and everyone that you’re making your art with is all like this big family and we all sleep in this giant bed together. I’m not sure if that was true or not, but I liked to believe that. Another sort of legend was [that] Björk was supposed to be at their studio every day.
Ange: It was our own bubble we never left. It was like the epicenter of our universe. Everybody came flocking to us. It was our space.
Gabi: We wanted the four of us to shut our doors and do this kind of unlearning process where we would unlearn everything that we learned so we could start all over again. It was this kind of thing where you are just Gabi, and you are Adi, and Kai, without this attention to what your family is about, and what your financial status is, or your culture, [or] your religion, or your political point of view, or education. It didn’t matter.
Masha Orlov, stylist: Their parties were just epic. They would go on until 7:00 or 8:00 a.m.; they were wild. I go to ecstatic dance classes and [can say that As Four’s parties] were ecstatic. Kai and I would get into, like, performance art dancing. And then we would take it sometimes to other parties, even in Paris, and people would be like, Who are these fucking crazy loony tunes? At the Cage it was just free. Even though we live in a time where there’s a lot of freedom, I feel like now with social media it’s way more controlled.
Thomas Bullock: There were parties there at the Cage. All stunningly memorable, if dreamlike in the mind. One stands out above all. After the first show at the Chinatown school, my band, A.R.E. Weapons, played and a chap called Eric Duncan deejayed with me for the first time that night. Afterwards, he and I became Rub-n-Tug and pretty much supplied the soundtrack to downtown (Passerby, etc.) for the next few years. Anyhow, the party: cases of always pink champagne on the fire escape. The loft: packed! So much joy, love, angst, and creativity in one place. So much energy. Till dawn every time. No drugs, really, that wasn’t the thing at all. Love and champagne.
Bobbi Salvör Menuez, actor and artist: I grew up going to their shows and being in their studio; I even shared a cat with them. My dad lived in the same building as their studio for most of my teen years. And even before that, my mom and dad had been friends with them. I just remember their studio always being kind of like completely covered in glitter and silver and sequins, and there was always such a good kind of communal creative energy. I always really felt like I was like a weirdo or something, and that part of myself always felt very encouraged around all of them. It was really fun for me to like be interacting with “adults,” who had a relationship to expression and joy and play that felt more connected to [how I felt]. I was like, “I don’t have to be boring when I grow up; I can keep having fun and being weird.”
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THE UNITED NATIONS OF FASHION
Adi: We came from different places, different countries, that are often in conflict. Gabi was born in Lebanon, but his parents are from Palestine. I was born in Israel, but my grandparents came from Eastern Europe. My grandfather spent years in Auschwitz and then escaped to Israel. Ange’s family was originally from Tajikistan and later immigrated to Germany. Kai is from Germany. The fact that we all came from conflicted places naturally made our focus promoting unity, using fashion and art as our instruments. We used to say we are the United Nation of Fashion.
Mickey Boardman, journalist: They used to say that they seemed like a joke: like a Russian, a German, a Jew, and an Arab walk into a bar. . . . That was perfectly the Paper sensibility at the time.
Sean Lennon, artist: That’s really authentic; they’re not pretending. They’re artists that are beyond fashion, meaning I think they’re transitioning out of all sorts of boxes, and, you know, it’s sort of typical for them because they don’t ascribe to any sort of clichés and they’re always kind of thinking outside of their own box and pushing boundaries. I do think they’re doing that with activism, but also with sculptural work, installation work, performance art, and all sorts of stuff.
Thomas Bullock, musician and DJ: I saw how they lived, and listened and watched how they worked, and knew right from the start that fashion wasn’t the argument but a way to get as close as possible to the insane and vulnerable center of existence. The fractals and shells and other incorporations of nature were organic trajectories to something universal.
Marcelo Krasilcic, photographer: I think more than anything for them it was always like a life project, you know? A vision of the world, a way to live, a way to dress, a way to do things, [which I think they maintain] to this day. It involved a lot of freedom, and a lot of care, and a lot of love, and a lot of research, and just really trying to do things differently, and trying to do things [their] own way, trying to think of things that have not been [done].
Gabi: Things had to be unique. That was something that we used to fight a lot about among each other. [What we did could] not be intersecting with anybody; it had to have its own voice. [We felt that] if we had this opportunity, and this luck, to be together, and this kind of gift, we needed to use it to its utmost potential, right?
NEW YORK, NEW YORK
Julie Gilhart, fashion consultant: They were in the right place at the right time. New York was all about the “hunt for the new” and they had a fearlessness and self-expression that reflected the downtown cultural scene at the time. They were part of the city’s nightlife and were great mixers of fashion with art and music. The city back then was probably the most connected city in the world due to its culturally diverse nature. This international convergence fueled the emergence of new communities of people who were very open-minded which encouraged creative expression. Remember, this was pre-social media.
Christina Kruse, artist and model: It was about wearing clothes and moving around in them going out, not taking a selfie in an outfit and staying home.
Lauren Boyle, artist: That moment between 1999 and, like, 2005, we ran around sometimes without phones at all—you didn’t even need them; you knew where people were going to be. [Things were] a little bit more uncensored and unguarded because there wasn’t the kind of surveillance that there is today. I think that that in itself allowed for As Four to be as exceptional and special as it was.
Mickey Boardman, journalist: I sort of think they created a downtown fashion and art scene. They always had a group of interesting people around them from Bjӧrk to Marcelo Krasilcic (their downstairs neighbor), to artists and stylists and hair people. And all the people sort of started dressing like As Four.
Ryan McGinley, artist: People don’t have crews as much now; [back then], you know, it felt like everyone kind of had a crew. We operated between 14th Street to Canal Street, east to west—that was the playground. I would see As Four out every single night for at least three years.
Sean Lennon, artist: It’s hard to recognize New York now for what it used to be; you know, it was just really thriving. There were just a lot of artists and musicians and intellectuals and people of all different generations and all different social and cultural backgrounds kind of mixed together and in downtown New York. This was before the market collapse of 2008 [that] made the fashion industry contract and become more conservative because of the financial bottom line, I guess. I think there was more room for avant-garde, experimental people, like As Four.
Masha Orlov, stylist: There was so much trauma, too. I mean, you could write a dramatic fairy tale about New York in the late ’90s and the early aughts. At one point Gabi had fallen in love with Agathe Snow when she was still married to Dash, and Dash like tried to set Gabi on fire. It was outside of a club.
Jeffrey Deitch, gallerist: [The late 1990s] was a very special period with lots of creative energy, lots of discourse, where people in all these related creative fields knew each other well and collaborated together. As Four was at the center of this, and I was introduced to them by Kim Hastreiter, the editor of Paper magazine—Paper really more than any other publication was at the center of this discourse. . . . It [was] one of these periods where you had so many of these creative people living in the same neighborhood, so it wasn’t that people had to take the subway for an hour to get to each other, a lot of it was centered on the Lower East Side and adjacent neighborhoods, where people would just see each other on the street, in bars and clubs that were within walking distance. I call it a special period of convergence; you have these—sometimes it’s every 20 years. You had one in New York City during the Pop Art period, and there was another one around Punk and New Wave music.
Masha Orlov: Nothing was happening in New York really fashion-wise—I mean there was Bernadette [Van-Huy] and Susan [Cianciolo]. Bernadette Corporation shows were off-the-wall, and amazing, and just crazy, [and] also [shown] in art galleries, but Bernadette didn’t really dress that crazy at the time. That was the thing about As Four, not only did they make those clothes that were extra-eccentric, but their lives [were, too]. They were an immigrant artist’s fashion dream, for sure.
Mickey Boardman: They were a perfect example of what makes New York a great fashion capital. Immigrants, totally self-made, with a completely original point of view. They really represent their time visually, a time when downtown culture influenced the world. They never had the commercial success they deserved, but they were hugely influential creatively speaking.
HUMAN PLANT
Though it was not formally presented, this was As Four’s first collection.
Kai: Was there an As Four philosophy? It was very internal and instinctive, and [about] opening ourselves to this very organic and natural instinct. We created through being together, and then saw what worked and built upon it.
Gabi: [We shot the “Human Plant” collection on a boy.] That was a point that we wanted to make, to put it on a boy, because we felt it was more interesting. It was also instinctual. [Our clothes were] no sexes; we wanted to have this androgyny. Somehow [this collection] ended up on a boy, but he looks almost like a girl—other. I felt like this myself. I didn’t really associate with boy or girl, and we always made clothing that was in that direction.
Kai: Gender fluidity. We didn’t care about gender. Our sizes were our names and everybody was welcome to wear anything, and we wore all the items. So all of that before it ever became a trend came natural to us.
Masha Orlov, stylist: [What was also] interesting was . . . you know, [Was As Four] heterosexual or homosexual or bisexual? Gender fluidity existed in the West Village and subcultures, but As Four kind of brought it into existence in popular fashion culture. They were way ahead of their time.
Kai: I think the [overall] message [of our work] was a certain kind of freedom and inspiration and opening minds. At the same time, when we were working strictly on the patterns, there was a lot of concept behind it. So we did some magical things of like two dimensions into three dimensions to mimic that world between art and the hanging on a wall and actually a wearable beautiful garment that unfolds on the human body. And then the combination of human plant, we had organic shapes that were more pant-like on the human and that was part of the “Men in Skirts” show.
THE CIRCLE BAG
Kim Hastreiter, journalist and cofounder of Paper magazine: Their first things were the circle bags.
Ryan McGinley, artist: I always think of the classic donut purses—I don’t even know if that’s the right term for them, but that’s what everyone called them; that was their street name—they just were so sort of like revolutionary.
Kai: The circle bag was born out of an orange square bag we created for the “Human Plant” lookbook. I had stuck my arm through one of the pattern piece circle armholes of a shirt and modeled it as a bag. Then we created the kinda half yin-yang-shaped blue leather bag, then the square orange canvas version, [and] then the circle as the core piece of all future collections.
Humberto Leon, designer and retailer: I first became aware of As Four when I would visit New York in 1999 and saw their bags and the four of them, plus all their friends looking like amazing futuristic beings. Obviously the circle bags were super downtown.
Sarah Andelman, creative director: I started to see many cool people wearing a circle bag and I was curious about it. I think it was during an event at Purple Magazine Gallery in Paris that I asked a young lady where it was coming from and she replied to me she was doing it! It was Ange.
Andy Spade, entrepreneur: They did the circle, and we did the square. Our [Kate Spade] bag was like this totally elementary, basic shape, which I think was the modern part of it. And they were just straightforward colors—blacks, reds—but it was very much just like a box. And [As Four] did the round one with the round hole. It’s kind of funny that we worked together.
Mickey Boardman, journalist: Of course I had a circle bag. It seemed like everyone had one of them in those days.
“PUPPEN COUTURE”
Kim Hastreiter, journalist and cofounder of Paper magazine: The biggest thing I did with them [was] before they became designers. Fern Mallis and the fashion show people came to me and [asked me] to curate young designer shows in the tents. They wanted to raise the heat of the tents. Now everyone I knew, no one would be caught dead showing in the tents . . . all of my crowd didn’t even go to the tents, so I gave [the fashion show people] all these really strict requirements. I said, “I can get people to do stuff because they trust me, but they hate the tents, so unless I can be assured that I have full control. . . .” They said okay and I took the tent and I divided it into three sections . . . and I curated three days of young designers. I had the very first Rick Owens show there—we had Kembra [Pfahler], we had a Boudicca [show] that was all done by fax machine. It was like art; it was amazing. I approached As Four to do a show [and] they came into my office and they brought this doll from Canal Street; they cost like $1.50. It was like a six-inch tall hula dancing doll that wound up; you turned the key and then it would just dance—and then they took the clothes [and] the head off the doll. They said, “We’re going to do a whole show of miniature outfits on these dolls.” I didn’t really completely understand [their idea], but I just wanted to let them do it. I didn’t even see it beforehand because they said, “We want to surprise you.”
Gabi: In 2000 Bryant Park offered Paper magazine a place where they could invite young designers, that were very New York to do like a multi-designer fashion show. So Kim—we call her Mama Kim—invited us, and we had such a short time [to prepare]. We wanted to really show how we worked and we did the “Puppen Couture.”
Kai: We [later] learned that this is actually an old technique; couturiers also send little dolls to their clients. We had no idea; we were just having fun.
Kim Hastreiter: [The show] was in the performance-type room that I had and the doors were closed, and, of course, they were [an hour] late. Everyone was waiting because all their friends and all the crazy kids came. [Then] the doors opened and there was the loudest Wagner music—like deafening Wagner music—and there was this wooden platform that they had built and covered in felt or something. It was beautiful. And there were 100 or 150 of these dolls, without heads, in little miniature As Four outfits dancing—all dancing! The platform came up to your chest or a little higher, so when you walked up to it your head would see the outfits on the eye level. I remember it was the most astounding thing I ever saw in my whole life—I have chills thinking about that. Bill Cunningham spent a lot of time there (he loved what I did), and I remember he went crazy: He was screaming. I’d never seen him [like that]. I don’t even think my description can do it justice; it was like this moment, and it was really their first fashion show. People just couldn’t believe it.
Ange: Stefano Tonchi said, “Oh, my God, that show with the dancing toilet brushes!”
THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNEW IT
Agathe Snow, artist: One day during fashion week we had all been out to a fashion party; something was off. I lived on Hester Street at that time, right around the corner from the Silver Cage. The sirens going downtown were nonstop, [and] I decided to shut my windows to keep sleeping awhile. My mom managed to get me up. She [ran] into my room screaming, completely panicked, [saying], “You’re okay! They bombed everything.” She had walked from the Upper East Side, [because there were] no subways. I first walked to my roof to see what she was talking about, and saw the people in line—thousands of them—covered in gray soot crossing the Manhattan Bridge and the Brooklyn bridge. Complete exodus. That night Gabi, Aurelie (a French girl who worked at the restaurant), and I took our bikes and managed to ride all the way down to the esplanade in front of the fallen Twin Towers. They looked like lace. All had burned, but there was Xerox paper flying everywhere that had survived. Anyway, 9/11 changed everything for all of us.
Kai: There were certain things that were kind of clairvoyant—I don't know if that’s the right grammar to say, but there were many, many things that [we saw that] somehow then came true. We didn’t want to do a fashion show [and become] part of the system. What we did instead is we covered the Jeffrey Deitch Gallery on Grand Street in black fabric and created a full-on spandex jumpsuit covered in charred, black, slightly reflective sequins [that was worn by Theodore Fivel] playing a theremin. He was on a pedestal with a second one next to it. The whole thing looked like the World Trade Center. They crumbled like two days later. The night before [9/11] we were at the Marc Jacobs party. It was a crazy fashion scene because he had it on a pier and it rained like crazy and we were all standing in the mud. It poured down and suddenly the clouds were swallowing the World Trade Center. We were like, “They are disappearing. . . .” And then the next morning they were gone.
Sean Lennon, artist: I feel like that was certainly the end of a dream or something. It felt like whatever kind of pure, naive optimism we had as a generation kind of went up in smoke, you know quite literally. And I don’t think anything in the world has felt as cleanly optimistic as it did before 9/11. I mean, I don’t think it’s just for New York—I think it’s for the whole planet.
THE WORLD OF FASHION
Julie Gilhart, fashion consultant: When I first saw the collection of As Four, I right away recognized there was something special and unique about their energy and downtown attitude. They had a distinct point of view. It was a high priority for me to find designers who had an individual expression. It was important to find, as we wanted Barneys to be a place where customers could discover the best of new designers. As Four, was just that! They were on the same floor as Alexander McQueen, Comme des Garçons, Martin Margiela, Olivier Theyskens, and Yohji Yamamoto. All of these designers had in common a strong aesthetic identity, and weren’t afraid to step beyond the social norms and explore fashion in new, unique ways.
Sean Lennon, artist: I do think that they influenced a lot of designers—without mentioning any labels specifically. It was clear to me from the early days that they would do certain things in certain cuts that would kind of show up other places. I think they’re quite influential and also watched. They’re a very watched group of designers. Yet they were never able to maneuver the momentum of their work into a business model that was as successful as other artists who might not have been as creative, but have something else. That is another element that I don’t quite understand. It’s an aptitude I guess for mainstream appeal.
Gabi: You start realizing that there were so many people that were kind of intersecting on a certain kind of vibration that was in the air. So many times we had ideas that McQueen had or Wantanabe had, and we were like, “What the hell? How does this happen?” We didn’t really look at them; they didn’t look at us, but then there are intersections. We learned later that there’s a vibration and you catch on a frequency—and it’s something that is actually scientifically proven. So you kind of connect to the ether. [People say, “Oh, who] copied who, and where did that idea come from?” But it doesn’t matter.
BUT IS IT ART?
Kai: An anecdote: Klaus Biesenbach was just in from Berlin and taking the reins at PS1. He came to the Silver Cage to interview us for the first “Greater New York” [exhibition]. While he was developing a headache from our neon light installation, he asked in his German Klaus accent, “What are you guys? Are you art, or are you fashion?” We just cracked up.
Sarah Andelman, creative director: Clearly, their world was more than just fashion, and that’s what I loved about them. I very quickly proposed them to do a show in our gallery space [at Colette], and they did a great exhibition with photography, sculptures, and various creations. I loved observing all their followers. That was pre-Instagram era, and they had fans wearing [the] total look, following them everywhere, no?!
Masha Orlov, stylist: They are artists. It was sculpture; their pieces were sculptural. I feel as though the art world has been way more accepting and supportive of them than the fashion world. I mean Threeasfour are working out of an [arts center] now. They’ve been completely uncompromising, [and] they’ve built up the reputation of being masters of a craft.
Jeffrey Deitch, gallerist: If [As Four] were just simply fashion, that would not have been interesting for me because we were primarily an art gallery. I’ve always been interested in artists, musicians, fashion designers who have a broader concept of where it extends the definition of art and that’s what they were doing. There’s tremendous formal innovation in the work. So it’s not so much a message as a formal vocabulary that they’ve invented and how they’re brilliant in their craft. And what I appreciated most is that there were structural innovations in their clothing and accessories. It wasn’t just that they had a new pattern or it’s like that they’re stylists and grabbed from some nostalgic sources. No, they really invented fresh new forms, which is why I consider them like sculptors.
Gabi: I would say “creation” instead of “art.” We consider ourselves creators of garments; we use clothing as a way to communicate ideas, a way of self-expression. Most of the time I feel I am channeling universal energy: The ideas come through me, not from me.
Adi: I personally don’t like to define what we do as only art, even though we do hear [it described that way] a lot. Because of our specific construction, all our pieces are one of a kind and unique, but we do offer many wearable options.
Mike Eckhaus, designer: I think they always kind of saw themselves as [being] in between [fashion and art]. I remember going to a show at Deitch Projects where they had models on rotating platforms. You could sense that energy of crossover and the quality of how they approach their brand. [They even displayed] their patterns like objects, [like] just gorgeous, complicated, flat works of artworks.
THE BREAKUP
Kai: We started out as a reaction to the ever-growing power of fashion conglomerates. Dead designer brands were the only way for any talented designers to make it, and As Four battled the windmills of La Mancha for seven years.
Ange: [We worked together] intuitively, fluently, complementarily, together-forever love story until . . . the seven-year itch.
Kai: I am still most proud of the Spring 2005 collection, which also felt like the beginning of the end for us. I believe we were getting to a point of fluid intersection of our superstrong design language with effortless wearability, everything was falling into place until fear and vertigo got the best of us.
Hrafnhildur Arnardóttir, aka Shoplifter, artist: They were living in close quarters with each other. . . . It was so intense and it was so intimate. I mean, it’s hard for a woman and a man in a relationship, but four people living and working together 24/7, doing everything together. I mean, musicians break up their bands for much less.
Adi: Kai just left. It was very difficult; it was like losing family. We didn’t want him to leave.
Ange: I remember when it was the four of us we used to be, it was like this kind of deep love for each other. We thought we were going to be together forever, romantically almost; we thought, you know, the only way that we would [part is if we would] die together in an airplane crash. I know we could not live apart, and then bang!
Adi: Nothing is forever—we know now.
Gabi: I mean I felt really that we were living a dream. You know when you dream at night? [We] were dreaming the same thing that you had in the day. For me, it was like that; it was kind of an amazing kind of dream come true. It was unbelievable that this could actually happen. The breakup was extremely tough to digest and to handle. I felt like my family was collapsing, a sad divorce. We were all extremely hurt to lose such a loved member of the group and we knew things would not be the same after. It was like starting all over again.
Adi: Kai’s choice to leave the collective was very difficult for us all. It was a divorce, and just like any separation, it was very difficult and took a long time to figure out a new way of us three together. That is when we came up with our name Threeasfour which also means three “birds.”
Thomas Bullock, musician and DJ: When Kai departed, I was devastated, wanted him back, knew it couldn’t happen.
Kai: It was probably the best thing that ever happened to me. The thought that I could still be presenting the same old patterns today makes me shiver. At the time, I lost my home, my work, my archives, and three people who I loved deeply, as well as some friends who decided to only communicate with the other three. It was traumatic and inspirational, as I realized that I was living in a self-imposed bubble. I still had more to say, and I did not want to create the same language as I did in my design work with As Four. I left the circle behind me and developed my own line.
Marcelo Krasilcic, photographer: There was a tension when Kai was there in the sense that he was he was always pushing. In a way, I’d say he was the one who would kind of like give that extra kind of like shine, that extra spark, that extra kind of excitement. I don’t know if it was him, or the tension of him being with the other ones. Kai’s always like thinking of the future, of the best, of the most exciting. . . . I don’t know at this point if that’s necessarily how they operate. . . . When Kai was there, there was always the conceptual sense, but there was a sense they really wanted to embrace fashion, that they really wanted to be embraced by fashion more than anything.
THREEASFOUR
Adi: Kai was with us only until 2005. I feel like we’ve done so much more after he left.
Gabi: Yeah, we’ve done much more after.
Ange: We in a way have been like a mom and mom and pop shop, come to think about it. It’s still operating [that way], you know—not that we wanted to remain on this level, you know, but maybe it’s also safest in a way.
Adi: When we started collaborating, we were very young and innocent. We didn’t start a business for the sake of having a business; we started just collaborating from our hearts. Much later we realized that [fashion] is not the easiest business to be involved in. I would say we are still learning, especially when it comes to finding balance between the business and the creative sides.
Marcelo Krasilcic, photographer: I think [it was there] from the beginning, but now with Threeasfour they’ve really started bringing that element [of] community, and the idea of more spirituality, more love less war—all that. I think they do have in their minds this kind of natural biology world. I know them so intimately that it’s hard for me to separate what they do, the fashion, with what they believe in life. And it’s been changing; like Adi got really involved in yoga and Hinduism. . . .
Thomas Bullock, musician and DJ: Remarkably, the spirit has proven larger than the sum of the parts, and Threeasfour is just that, the three of them continuing the four. The Silver Cage has gone, too, which might have changed things, but the core vision continues to grow and is probably unstoppable due to it being a philosophy, a heartfelt one, more than a fashion endeavor. That their legacy will be hugely significant, if under appreciated, is certain.
Mike Eckhaus, designer: I interned for them the summer of 2007. I remember it was really exciting to watch the three of them [and] what their kind of focal spaces in the build of the collection [were]. Ange would be, like, chain-smoking [and] lighting little paillettes on fire, and hand-stitching these crazy show dresses. I could see Gabi being more architecturally oriented; and I felt like Adi [had] a fluid hand with, like, the soft pieces.
Sean Lennon, artist: They’re inspired by DNA and cosmology and secret geometry and electromagnetic fields and all sorts of interesting physics and esoteric kind of magical stuff. They’re not your average clothing label, so I think that it’s hard for people sometimes to understand, but their work speaks for itself. They tend to model their kind of curvilinear style after the human body and and physics and nature. So there’s something very harmonious about their work.
Adi: I think that in fashion for me—or in anything that you do—there is a higher message to promote, and for us the higher message was to promote unity. I mean, a lot of people are doing things about sustainability, [but] I think it’s very difficult to find a really higher message. So what really keeps us going is finding ways to talk about these things, and I think this is something very, very important to uplift and to promote. I think that’s why a lot of our collections use sacred geometry, because this is the answer of all existence, and that’s what connects us all.
Christina Kruse, artist and model: As far as I can tell, they pretty much remained true to themselves throughout all these years. Given their personalities, I don’t think it would be possible for them to change, or do things they do not 100 percent believe in, and that is what is so unique to this group: They can’t help but be exactly who they are. These days that stands out. They don’t conform, and that I personally appreciate above all and beyond. That alone continues to give them their place in fashion.
Julie Gilhart, fashion consultant: They were ahead of their time. In the beginning, As Four seemed like this fun-loving commune of designers that intersected between fashion and art. As they folded into Threeasfour, and technology in fashion design progressed, they were the first to really start experimenting with 3D printing and integrating innovation into their brand. It’s amazing now to see their work recognized [by institutions] such as the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and others.
Mickey Boardman, journalist: I think at some point they seemed to focus more on the art side of fashion and doing things with museums like their show at the Jewish Museum. Isabel Toledo [who just passed away] is another designer who did the same. These are artists more than commercial designers and their work is often more appreciated by curators and academicians than department store shoppers.
Sarah Andelman, creative director: Their work [is] important for the sense of innovation behind it; they’re doing so much research behind each [piece]: how it’s built, the prints, the fabrics. Each show is a real performance.
Shoplifter, artist: I think Threeasfour became less about the concept of the lifestyle and maybe they were able to focus a little bit more on the design, on being a company. I think that once the lifestyle behind the brand wasn’t [the focus of] their personas, the clothes became more in the foreground, which I think was a good thing. They’ve been really experimental, and I think continue to be experimental, without losing the integrity of their design, and it’s been quite seamless from As Four to Threeasfour. They’re very true to their style and concept, and I think they’ve had to make smaller collections, but they have been also loosening up more and, you know, I’m always dying for the clothes.
Schohaja, photographer: I still love their creativity and open minds, open hearts and generosity. Threeasfour are perhaps less poetic, but developed even more their message of peace in between nations/religions, using new techniques (3D printing) for their collections and new media to present their work, all together becoming an art piece, kind of a Gesamtkunstwerk.
Christina Kruse: I do own and wear their pants. It’s hard to describe their shape; they are fitted on the waist then go into a slightly bent leg and somewhat change the entire appearance of the legs altogether . . . they are kind of wonderful and those I do wear (in black and sage green) and love them. And people do look at these pants in the street and it makes me smile, as so few people these days go there—including myself.
Mike Eckhaus: [I was] lucky enough to be around them for spurts over a period of time and really got to see the reoccuring people who were in their community. When there were shows or other events, there were always people coming together. It felt very genuine and family-like. After their shows, Gabi’s mom would make all this Lebansese food, and his aunts and his mom and everyone would go back to the studio and have an after-party. It was always very warm and welcoming; [they] embraced the people around them in a really, really genuine way.
BACK TO THE FUTURE
Threeasfour’s Fall 2019 “Lightbeings” collection was an updated revision of their “Human Plant” collection of 1999.
Gabi: Well, I can tell you honestly that the intention didn’t come from us. There was interest from people into that time already. Specifically, Opening Ceremony came to us and they wanted to sell pieces that we did back then. And then people were coming to us to do like TV series and movies about that time, and so we were like, “Wow! People are interested in that.” So we said, “Why not? Why not us sharing what these people are interested in?” We felt if there was an interest, we need to kind of tap into that vibration. So we went back, and felt it was the right time to introduce it again.
Adi: And we believe that our garments are timeless, so we can bring them back. It was a mixture [of old and new]. Some [pieces] were not changed at all, just [made in] different fabrics; some were new. It wasn’t all just the old stuff. We’d get bored. For me personally, I’m not a big fan [of nostalgia,] because I believe that every time, Oh, that can be better.
Gabi: For me, it was kind of intentional to do them exactly the way they were because I felt that there was some kind of magic in what happened and whatever was there was kind of like a throw up—you know, like you just have a moment of a tear or sneeze or something. It comes out of you without thinking. So I felt that that should not be touched.
Masha Orlov, stylist: It’s almost still ahead of its time 20 years later. So many people don’t know it, and it is so modern and contemporary. And if you look at what’s happening in fashion now, I mean so much of what’s going on on the runways looks like the ’90s, you know? There’s a great young designer scene happening in New York now, but it’s all based on the ’90s as well.
Gabi: I think the frame of mind of the consumer is different from when we started and a lot of pieces that we did in the beginning are more appealing to people now. So there is a great opportunity for us now to become much bigger; but there’s also an opportunity for us to fall apart. So it’s this kind of balance that we are at right now. We could get huge or we could just disintegrate. And so I feel that it’s kind of suspenseful every day that we go through this.
INTO ORBIT
As Four and Threeasfour are inspiring a new generation—and new projects.
Mike Eckhaus, designer: Looking back on it, I feel like [what Threeasfour does] is not that distant from what we do, in a different period of time. I think that nightlife definitely played a bigger role in their [work] than it does for Zoe [Latta, Mike’s design partner] and I. Years ago, before they moved to Jersey City, we were temporarily working out of MNZ studio for a period of time, and we could look into Threeasfour’s studio; it was really cute to have this weird interaction with them, funny to have things come full circle in some weird way.
Bobbi Salvör Menuez, actor and artist: I think I was definitely inspired by the way that they operated as collaborators and as a community rather than individualized artists with separate practices. I liked how they were all about bringing everyone together, and I think that definitely left an impression on me. When I was about 16, I cofounded an art collective with a bunch of my friends, and I think it was to some extent inspired by this idea of, like, just make it happen.
Sean Lennon, artist: I’ve been looking for ways to collaborate with and maybe help As Four and now Threeasfour over the years because I’m such a big fan of their work. I’ve done some music for them and I’d hooked them up in a collaboration with my mom [Yoko Ono]. They made some textiles based on my mom’s drawings and we did a kind of yoga-themed show, but I was sort of looking for a way to help them that was more permanent. Something that wouldn’t just go up in smoke after a fashion show. And so I thought maybe I should just film them so that way I can preserve their legacy and show the world how great they are, because they do struggle, you know, quite a bit as a label. So, you know, here we are years later, I’m still trying to finish it. I’m pretty proud of what we have, and hopefully I’ve managed to capture some of their genius. I don’t want to project a sort of agenda onto the film other than it’s a documentary about Threeasfour. But I think on some level, if I was drawn to the story of their lives, [it’s] because I relate to an aspect of their journey in that they make art that may be slightly outside of the mainstream appreciation or they make art that’s slightly outside of what the mainstream sees as commercial. Yes, they’re artists. So it sort of touches upon a struggle that I have personally myself. I relate to it a lot and it made me interested in exploring their world.
Lauren Boyle, artist: We [DIS collective] are talking to As Four, and we’re developing a scripted series actually based around the four characters and their lives and how they intermingled. It will also tell the story of New York right before the internet, which is such recent history, but the kids that we work with today, they may have never heard of [As Four]. They don’t know how important they were, or how relevant they are to now.
Gabi: [In 2017,] we were invited to Mana Contemporary—a gigantic art center with almost 200 artist studios, galleries, art foundations, and art academies—by its artistic director, Gene Lemay, for a three-year residency. Threeasfour [has been] consulting and connecting Mana with the right people and technologies with the goal of building a new fashion center, centered around a unique high-tech production facility, that would be aimed at making garments for designers who could also occupy the new studio spaces at the (planned) Mana Fashion Center.
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THE BIG TWO-OH
Sarah Andelman, creative director: [Twenty years, it’s] crazy! But I had this same feeling in 2017 when we decided to close Colette, after 20 years; I think it’s a turning point in general.
Ange: Twenty years ago fashion was still considered an art form, at least for us.
Adi: It still is.
Marcelo Krasilcic, photographer: They were really visible, they were quite extravagant, they were very unique, and they did bring a lot of people together. They’ve had so many interns from all kinds of schools, people—like Eckhaus Latta—like, so many people all over the world that have worked with them and went on to do other things.
Adi: To be honest, I don’t really think about it too much, but now when you bring up 20 years, the first thing that comes to my mind is that the older you get, the more experience you have. I have to say that I’m grateful for the challenges—because it’s not an easy route. I would never change anything. I feel like we’re still learning.
Kai: In a larger sense, our legacy [is] being pioneers of creativity of a time when creative New York fashion was barely existing. We created something from nothing. I think [we tapped into] something that happened much longer before that resurfaced at that time with us; we were aware of it, at the same time not. We were just running into the future. I think now, 20 years later, I see a lot of parallels with the young brands. Now there is again a vibe where [brands are] not only about functioning in the system, but somehow trying to create something new [and] to find their own language. There has been a new refreshing wave of talented carelessness and punkish freedom that I believe is leading to brighter horizons, especially in NYC. Brands that Hasbeens & Willbees has collaborated with, like Telfar, Gauntlett Cheng, Lou Dallas, Section 8—and especially Vaquera—are reminding me of our energy way back and are proof that New York fashion is alive and kicking.
Gabi: It is quite a surprise to me that we’re still around. I don’t really know how we did this, lasted that long, because I have seen many people from our entourage who have fallen out, and also people that started out young and had to close off right away. And then I’ve seen people like Eckhaus Latta, and Heron Preston and Hood By Air—all of this crowd that went somewhere, who have had success, which makes us super-happy and proud. I’m still surprised that we can still excite ourselves and that institutions like The Met and the Cooper Hewitt and FIT still are asking us to exhibit stuff. And I do believe that there is a much greater potential for us now to make a commercial success with product, with pieces that we are super proud of, without kind of watering down the message. We have the right pieces right now. I believe that Threeasfour has tremendous potential to become a huge global brand with the right financial backing and business talent. We have the design, product, and longevity to take this into the collective consciousness of today, or we could just fizzle out and die off. . . .
Adi: Since the times are now different, we also know that this is the time for us to reinvent ourselves and figure out a new way for us to continue. That’s where we are right now, because the city, it’s very expensive. And so now we are at a time that we feel ready to take the next step.
Gabi: We are kind of much more open than we used to be towards all of these opportunities. So we are a different Threeasfour.
Kai: We were a web and we embraced that very much, not even knowing that it would exist at some point. I feel [an exciting energy] again happening since the last two years, and much more New York than anywhere else. Paris is trying; Milan is actually having a little moment. But it’s not that there’s no web, it’s still people. It’s like the opposite of what you would expect for America [where] you fend for yourself. No, it’s absolutely different here. There’s a much stronger community, maybe because it is so tough to be here still and the obstacles to overcome are harder, so you need to stick together. And that was one of the greatnesses of being four people, within all the nightmares and difficulties dealing with sharing your life 24/7. It also gave you a lot of strength and confidence. [I have] the fondest, most beautiful memories and strengths and pride for that time.
Thomas Bullock, musician and DJ: Twenty years— it feels like much longer because my life has changed so much—though I’m still in love with all four of them.
These interviews have been edited and condensed for clarity.