A dingy basement studio isn’t where most people find their future collaborator and co-designer. Yet, for Katie deGuzman (right) and Michael Miller, it’s where their 12-year-long friendship—the basis for K/LLER COLLECTION—first began. 

As fast friends studying furniture design at Parsons, the duo honed their metal restoration, lighting design, and jewelry skills separately before eventually coming together two years ago to get their own line off the ground. They’re joined by not only the desire to make goods from scratch but also an obsession with materials: The two hand-cast crystals, feathers, and other natural elements in brass, giving their pieces a tough-to-achieve polished, earthy vibe.

And as on-trend as their current quill-filled collection happens to be, they don’t pay too much mind to those sorts of things—they’re all about emulating a lifestyle. ”We really look at this as, ‘What do i want to wear? What speaks about us?’ We’re similar in our aesthetic, so it works really well,” Katie explains. So well, in fact, that Helmut Lang boutiques are now carrying their work, and their following is growing exponentially. Looks like for them being stuck in the basement all that time was worth it. —carlye wisel

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