When AllHipHop.com heads down to Las Vegas twice a year for the MAGIC Convention, we like to find the hottest and newest fashion trends amidst the sea of celebrities and “who’s who” of the fashion industry. When we heard that rock legend Gene Simmons would be at the Dussault booth in the Street Wear section of the convention to launch his own line, we were intrigued. Canadian designer Jason Dussault, the creative mind behind his own Dussault Ink line and business partner for the Gene Simmons Money Bag line, spoke with us about the inspiration behind his mesh of rock and Hip-Hop style. Having hot girls alongside Vancouver, BC Hip-Hop MC Prevail of Swollen Members and KISS founder Gene Simmons certainly helped the hype of the MAGIC booth, but in the end it was the quality of the clothes that got our attention. Jason explained the concept and details behind his very successful custom clothing business, and how he’s taking his independent approach to the world. AllHipHop.com: What I found interesting about this line is it’s really a mesh of rock and urban couture. You’re really catering to a lot of different people with the line. What was your idea behind this? Jason Dussault: It’s exactly right; you nailed it on the head. I don’t want to be put in the hole of a rocker; I don’t want to be put in the hole of Hip-Hop. In fact here right now I have a Hip-Hop artist and I have the ultimate rock artist, Gene Simmons, and Prevail from Swollen Members. The thing is when I put Hip-Hop in my car I love Hip-Hop, when I put rock in my car I love rock. I’m one of those guys that likes all music and I’m very versatile, so I wanted to have clothing and create a line that I would wear. Obviously that would be a mix between the two. Our rockingest piece that you think is so badass and rock inspired, you could have someone who loves Hip-Hop wearing it and it totally works. Some of my Hip-Hop clients are Dallas Austin – he’s come into my Hip-Hop shop in Vancouver and done a custom piece – I’ve done pieces for Lionel Richie, Kid Rock, Gene Simmons, The Black Eyed Peas. So it really sort of spans the whole rock and Hip-Hop markets, I wanna be right in the middle. AllHipHop.com: Ed Hardy was kind of the first to [succeed with] the tattoo look, but now there are many lines [following suit], so a lot of rappers are going to the rock star look. Jason Dussault: 100 percent, I think that if you put on an Ed Hardy hoodie and put on a Dussault hoodie you’re gonna see some big differences. I’ll let you choose which one you like better, but people need to try on our hoodies because they’re much different. AllHipHop.com: Tell us about the detailing, because you’ve got satin on the insides and embroidery mixed with patchwork… Jason Dussault: Yep, it’s a multi-level thing which makes it a nightmare for me to bring across the border because matter has so many materials. It has so many materials because I’m a comfort-first person. I’m not gonna wear something that makes me feel uncomfortable; I wanna live in my clothes. On the inside, where people are really gonna see, it’s like a suit. If it falls open and you look inside you’re gonna see some amazing Chinese embroidered silk. But because that’s heavy you might wanna feel that in the arms, so down in the arm I put a nice light nylon on the inside. But that nylon all the way down to the cuff work grabs you against your wrist, I put velour just in that area. So just two and a half inches of where it’s touching your skin is the softest material you’ve ever felt, and then going into nylon where it’s just slightly touching you, but it’s light so you get that good feeling. AllHipHop.com: Well I would imagine with the detailing alone that the stitching is going to be a little stronger… Jason Dussault: That’s it too – [on] all of our embroidered pieces, rather than just embroider, we highlight them with some bleach and we use paint to darken up the areas, so the piece is really 3-D. If you were to just take an embroidered piece and slap it on just a hoodie, it would be like a lot of the other pieces you see on the market. What I wanna do is give it some depth and a 3-D part so when you see this in the distance walking down the street it jumps out. If you just put it here [on the table] you’re like “Big deal – you put a patch on some material.” In our pieces that go to retail, this [holds up a hoodie] will all be painted with dark paint to give it some depth and highlighted in certain areas with bleach. Whenever [people] put on this hoodie they can not take it off – they buy it every single time whether they have the money or not. I hunted all over the place for the right material, it’s the most important thing, then I put the blur also in the liner, so when you put this over your head it keeps you nice and warm. This is one of my trademarks here, so that when it comes from the back you know it’s a Dussault. I mean, sure people are gonna try to knock us off but we’ll just keep trying to stay ahead. AllHipHop.com: You guys are doing a mixture of tees and hoodies. Is there anything else that comes from the line? Jason Dussault: Yeah we do jeans, we started off as a custom house in Vancouver where people come in and build their own custom hoodies. We still have that shop open so you can come in and say, “Okay I want that patch, and I want it painted up like this and then [like the one we did for Kid Rock] I want the American flag on the inside of the liner” or “I wanna have a purple inside.” Whatever you want we will custom make it for you. It’s just been really inspiring because I’ve got a lot of cool ideas from that. A lot of people are coming in and mixing colors, thinking I’d never do that. So our jeans are all straight leg, it’s a very Hip-Hop style. This is our new one [points out pair of jeans on rack] that we’re doing called Rock-a-billy, which is a little bit more simple. This is also a signature of mine where I do a triple stitch by doing one in white and the other two in brown. AllHipHop.com: Do you make them for [thicker] girls? Jason Dussault: You know what, if you come to the custom house we’ll custom make ’em for you. The store we’ll open up on Melrose in June, it may have the ability to customize, but worst case scenario we’ll set up in Vancouver and you may have to wait a week while we customize and send ’em out here. AllHipHop.com: What are the websites people can go to if they want to look at the line? Jason Dussault: Well if they wanna see the Dussault stuff it’s www.dussaultink.com, and if you wanna see the Gene Simmons collaboration we’re doing you go to www.genesimmonsmoneybag.com. AllHipHop.com: Anything else you want people to know about the line in general? Jason Dussault: I hope everybody really loves it, I hope they love it as much as I do. I look forward to people enjoying the line in America as much as everybody up in Canada.