Dinner with designer Sasha Maria Bell

I met Sasha Maria Bell one Saturday in September. She welcomed me into the apartment she shares with her two cats, Derek and Dorothy, in Sarpi. Sasha tells me she would never live anywhere else because it was the nuanced visual and cultural stimuli offered by Sarpi’s hidden streets and little shops that gave her the idea for her crazy hosiery brand: TYTM8. Hanging in her home is the iconic photo of Grandma Pat and Grandpa Pete—or ‘the legends’, as Sasha calls them—that was printed on one of the designs in the first Cowboys & Matrimoni drop back in 2020. Since then, each collection has continued to explore a specific theme through snapshots dug out of old photo albums hidden in the attic or digital archives shared on Facebook years before. Each pair tells its own story, combining British irony with Italian quality.
CP

You were born in Manchester, how did you end up in Milan?
SMB

It was very sudden. I’d never thought about moving, although I always knew that Manchester wasn’t my world. The first time I stepped foot in Italy was when I went Interrailing around Europe with a friend of mine. I loved it and it felt like a place I would like to live in. We only passed through Milan but I loved the vibe. Back in Manchester at a friend's birthday party, I met one of her university friends who was talking about moving to Paris to be an Au Pair—it’s a way to travel where you work for families abroad and teach their children English. I signed up to the Au Pair World website and the first family that came up was in Milan. It was totally random; I hadn’t selected Italy or anything!! I sent my application and a month later I was here. It was like life had led me here, it was no accident. Even the fact that I had gone out and met that girl who told me about this thing I had never heard of before. Being an Au Pair wasn’t at all common where I came from so something brought me all the way here.
CP

How old were you?
SMB

It was 2014 and I was 21.
CP

And what happened when you arrived in Milan?
SMB

I didn't go to university. I studied at the school of life—I write that everywhere, even on LinkedIn! I got here and worked for a few different families, because I felt like changing areas after a while, and then I found an agency that took me on as an English teacher. I switched to that because it was a well-paid job and because as an Au Pair, you tend to live with your family, which I liked, but I also wanted to go out a lot and meet people. Then I started working privately with families: in the afternoons I would do lessons, tutoring, homework, games etc. It was nice because I would organise days out as well, we went to museums, we painted. It was a wonderful time in my life, being around children keeps you young. I love children—their minds, their ideas, their creativity. Then I began to move into the fashion scene. I always liked to play with clothes and use them to express who I was, even when I lived in Manchester. My sister worked in a retirement home, and I used to go to their warehouse to get old jumpers and sweatshirts. Those were the indie days when we used to dress like grandparents. When I came to Milan, I got into the fashion world just by going out and getting to know it—I was a party girl. I partied for seven years straight! That's how I met my best friends, Elettra and Angelica. I remember seeing them for the first time at Rollover one night and thinking I wanted to be friends with them. And it happened!
CP

You manifested it!
SMB

That's right, always getting it! Their group of friends were all stylists or working in fashion in some way and that made me want to do more creative work. I wanted to do something I could express myself with.
CP

How did TYTM8 come about?
SMB

It was very weird. I did internships for two very small brands with very different aesthetics to mine and I got it into my head that I should come up with something of my own. Then I moved to Sarpi and it was the first time I had really explored the area. The woman who showed me the apartment explained that it was famous for all these hosiery shops. I loved wandering around, finding these hidden shops that no one knew about with all this 2000s deadstock. I started building a small hosiery archive that I would wear all the time and that’s when I thought: Hey, it might be interesting to launch a hosiery brand! That's how the idea came about. It was 2018. Then, of course, I had to design them and find somewhere that would print them, which was the hardest part because you’ve got the fold and then the two legs might form a picture and it has to be perfect.
CP

Like the ones with the clowns!
SMB

Exactly!

CP

I find clowns are a bit scary, but I guess wearing them could be a way to exorcise that.
SMB

Definitely! So many people are afraid of clowns. I don't get it; I find them very funny.
CP

Why did you choose to make them the subject of a collection?
SMB

We launched the clown collection in December 2020. It was a time when I was seeing clowns everywhere I went. It was like they were looking for me. Then I went to my business partner Vittorio’s house, and he had this Jack in the Box among his childhood toys. The box was covered in these funny, colourful pictures and I decided to scan it and put the pictures on tights. That was one of our most successful collections, we had so many requests to restock. I think we can say it was the clowns who chose me.
CP

What is the creative process for designing a new pair of TYTs?
SMB

With TYT, every pair has its own story and every collection has a concept. The real stars are the photos. I do most of my research on Facebook because it's the only place that's exactly the same as when I left. That’s where I have all my Manchester connections and where I can still see this English reality that I used to live in. I look through my own albums and my friends’ albums too. We always had digital cameras with us, and we would take pictures of everything. For the prom collection, for example, all the photos are from our prom in 2010. Or when I go to my grandparents' house, I go into their attic and search through their albums for the photos they used to get printed at Kodak. They always tell me off for taking photos away with me, but I do it anyway. [Laughter] I’ve got this huge album at home that’s bursting with photos of absolutely anything and everything.
CP

And how did your grandparents react to being on the legs of people all over the world?
SMB

That's the most hilarious thing. Grandma Pat thinks she's famous because a British singer wore the tights to the Brit Awards. She texted me like: are you sure I can go to Tesco tomorrow? [Laughter].
CP

Another thing I really like is your copywriting. The brand name itself, the collection and product names, the Instagram captions... it's always very original and consistent.
SMB

That’s my favourite part. That's what makes a collection strong, in my opinion. I like to express myself and play with words; I like the names to be long and for each drop to have its own story and create a little tale that way. That’s essential for making a concept accessible even to people who might not get the theme.
CP

It is also a very young way of communicating, in my opinion. It’s mostly our generation and the ones after it who feel free to experience fashion in this deliberately ironic way, reappropriating a kind of kitsch aesthetic and experimenting with styling.
SMB

We are exhibitionists too because we grew up with social media. I remember starting with MSN, then Facebook, then Instagram... Almost my entire adult life has revolved around a phone which, in some ways, is a bad thing, but it has also helped us to be more confident and have fewer fears, and to access information and references more easily, whereas before you had to buy a magazine.
CP

It has also kind of blended the beautiful and the ugly, which I think reflects your work to some extent. I wanted to ask what beautiful and ugly mean to you and if you think these two concepts can coexist.
SMB

It's something I've thought about a lot. The easiest way I can think of to explain it is the comparison between England and Italy. Manchester is a very working-class city, very industrial, whereas now I live in Milan, which is a very beautiful city, rich in architecture, art and fashion. I used to say that the place I came from was ugly but with distance, I have realised how beautiful it is. And what I do with TYTM8 reflects that. Sometimes you have to get away from places to appreciate them. TYTM8 features all the ‘ugly’ of English aesthetics—a bit kitsch, a bit trashy—and then you have the beauty of Italy in the quality. The tights are produced here, in Brescia, and then printed in England so you’ve got these two worlds. For me beautiful and ugly are also a bit like yin and yang. There is a little bit of ugly in everything beautiful and a little bit of beautiful in everything ugly. I think that’s how we should look at life. Not to be negative, but because life is a bit of a rollercoaster, isn't it?

CP

Absolutely. And you can’t know one without the other.
SMB

Exactly, that's why it's always so good to unite them and look at them both with interested eyes. With the eyes and curiosity of children, as we were saying before.
CP

What impact has social media had on TYTM8?
SMB

The brand wouldn’t be where it is now without Instagram. When we launched in 2020, the Instagram brand trend was happening and then Covid happened, so we were used to being on our phones all the time and shopping online. Everything has changed now for good and for bad. My biggest goal is to get into as many shops as possible and make a real impact, not just on social media. Partly because people aren’t using Instagram as much as they did three years ago. I used to post maybe twice a day, but I don't anymore. I don't like to force it. It's much better to share content that makes sense and has a story, instead of bombarding people with useless posts.
CP

There’s a section on the TYTM8 website dedicated to the work you do with artificial intelligence, with various before and after examples. How did you get started with this tool and how do you use it?
SMB

We’ve been working with AI for years, way before all the hype. We started with a photo enhancer because old photos look very grainy when you scan and upload them to the computer. Then we switched to DALL-E, which we used to add missing parts to the photos—maybe my grandma was missing a piece of hat or half an arm, for example—to get a cleaner image. We also used it to add objects in the background to get more detail. The most recent thing we’ve been doing with AI is our e-commerce photos: we shoot the models in the studio and then add the faces because you can find a concept for that. Like with the pirate swimwear collection.
CP

Are the TYTkinis made with AI?
SMB

Yes, they were designed with AI. Not that we lack pictures, we’ve got plenty of them, but if there is a concept or trend that’s working and you want to develop, you can do that with AI.
CP

What do you envision for the future of the brand?
SMB

I would like TYTM8 to become like a cool Calzedonia. A line of hosiery, swimwear and clothing, always skintight because that’s what TYT means. I always want there to be a strong community around the brand. I don't want to lose myself, like so many brands that go commercial to sell more. I would rather go slow, maintain my identity and develop new products every year. I’d like to make tights in different materials, but always using photos and combining that same ironic touch with a British mood and Italian quality.
CP

Have you ever thought of opening a boutique?
SMB

I would love to! It would have to be here in Sarpi if I did. I'd like it to be like one of those shops I walked into in 2018 that inspired me to launch TYTM8. I always keep my eyes open for places, here next to all the others. I can't wait.