Most people know Joe Ando Hirsh, or Joe Ando, as he’s known professionally, as the guy on TikTok whose viral “Can I make you a dress” videos have earned him millions of followers (2.9 million on TikTok, specifically—and growing).
What started as a bit, where Ando asked friends and girlfriends if he could, well, make them a dress, eventually ballooned into a much grander scheme. Soon, celebrities like Dakota Johnson, Maitreyi Ramakrishnan, and Millie Bobby Brown began appearing on his feed, playing along in Ando’s skits. Hours and hours of grueling work were boiled down into digestible, minute-long videos, with Ando’s charisma almost equally as alluring as his talent.
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It was his work with Second Daughter Ella Emhoff for the Democratic National Convention, however, that elevated Ando from “TikTok dress guy” to a real industry contender. And Ando can feel it. He recounts his name being mentioned in the same article as an old boss, the designer Laura Kim, whose brand was worn on stage by Michelle Obama. “That was crazy,” he said, “because the last time I saw [Kim] in person was in their studio space at Monse, [and I was sewing] with her at like 2:00 in the morning.”
Like many artists, what seems like an overnight success story was actually years in the making. On a recent Sunday morning in the middle of New York Fashion Week, Ando, in partnership with the skincare brand EOS, opened up to a select group of fashion journalists about his nascent career and unconventional rise in the notoriously fickle fashion industry. Born in India to a French father and Japanese mother, both creative professionals, Ando mostly grew up in Long Island where he watched his parents struggle with the ups and downs of life in the arts. It made him crave stability, he says. So much so that a job in a steady field like finance was initially the goal. But, “I failed statistics.”
From there, Ando made a U-turn. A big one: Fashion school. “I honestly just walked by [FIT] on my way to an acting class,” he says. Ando recalls telling his classmates this anecdote on his first day, when everyone was asked to describe why they chose to study the art of making clothing. “They were like, ‘That’s not a good reason,’” he says with a laugh. But he stuck it out, balancing school with acting gigs—another creative passion he began exploring as a teen—and learning the basics of pattern-making, draping, and knitwear at one of the foremost fashion institutions in the country.
Even now, with Ando’s work as a burgeoning fashion designer the sole reason we’d all gathered before 9 a.m. on a weekend, the 28-year-old FIT graduate remains aware that this could all slip away at any moment. He seems keen to not let that happen—or, at the very least, to make sure he soaks up every drop of knowledge and to take advantage of every opportunity put in front of him while he still can. “Who knows when it’s going to end?” he says.
So after the group discussion, Ando joins me for a little one-on-one chat before he returns to his studio. (“I have to another dress to make by Friday,” he explains.) Read on for the discussion—and for details of his forthcoming ready-to-wear collection—below.
Glamour: How’s your Fashion Week so far?
Joe Ando: It’s weird because as much as I’m fashion adjacent, I’m not very involved in the Fashion Week stuff. I usually have to just keep making things. It’s like my hands [need to] sew, I can’t really stop. I need the hours, but I’m trying to be better about it. It’s good to just go look [at collections] and meet people and get perspective and stuff like that. So yeah, I’m balancing it.
Your parents have creative jobs. How did that influence your decision to pursue a creative career? Did their paths encourage you? Or deter you?
I think you just kind of come to learn that stability is not really a thing. I could have kept on the same route I was on before [going to school for business], but I failed statistics. I was fully out of options on that front.
My plans always change. Like I said, [I don’t] really have a plan. Watching my dad’s experience in the artistic world, and how he went about making choices—it did intimidate me a lot, but it did teach me that when I get any sort of raindrop of opportunity, no matter what it is, no matter who respects it or whatever, just to take it and roll with it. These days, I’m pretty much locked in New York more often than not because I can’t say no to things, because who knows when it’s going to end?
Tell me more about working with Ella Emhoff and collaborating on the dress she wore for the DNC.
We had a mutual friend. I know of Ella because of her knitwear work, which I love. She does these awesome knit canvases. She knew of me and nicely enough was like, “I really wanted to go with an indie designer.”
She was nice enough to buy into the experience and want to be a part of the design process. She was very involved in the whole thing. Usually, with different people, I’ll present them with the option, like, “Do you want to see the swatches?” They’re like, “Nah, if the color’s good, I’m good.” Ella wanted to touch it. She wanted to see it. This was for her moment.
Read moreElla Emhoff’s DNC Look Was Made by the TikTok Dress Guy, Joe Ando
“Can I make you a dress?”
By Sam Reed
This was to help her stand out in the way that felt right and respectful of the people around her. It was so fun. It was cool. That was one of the first times that I invited someone into the full design process, and they were like, “I actually want to do this,” as opposed to being hands off. We went over a lot of designs. She even sent me things that inspire her—flowers that inspire her, what kind of tea party-esque vibe she wanted, in so many words. It was a super involved, friendly, and warm design experience.
I also wanted to ask you about acting. Is that something that you’re open to in the future or has that door closed?
No, I still do it. I have a movie, Empire Waist, that just came out. It’s going to hopefully be in 300 theaters. It was a cute indie film; and then another movie coming out next year, which is a thriller, produced by Bennett Miller.
So I still do it, but obviously, by nature acting is something that you stay ready for and you wait for. Whereas, this has been something that obviously I can pursue more directly. I still pursue acting. I still give my time to the auditions. It was something I was doing before, so that was my initial passion. But I’m someone who likes to be creative on all fronts; obviously, if there’s something I can actually grab whenever I want and be creative with, it’s hard to be chill about it. I can’t just sit still that well.
You share a lot of your personal life online. As your audience grows, is that something you’ve ever reconsidered?
I don’t mind it. Maybe because I’m part of this weird generation of people who were [born just before] social media and so heavily exposed to it. I don’t mind it. I like sharing my experience with people a lot. I like sharing what I’m going through. It’s like the ability to make a short narrative movie in little, minute-long form, which is initially…I did want to be involved in making movies. I get to express really specific feelings about what it’s like to be alive to people.
As much as I used to think, “Social media, who cares? People are just watching just to pass time,” sometimes I do meet people who actually are very, very affected by something I expressed that was personal to me. Like my experience being Asian American growing up in New York during a time I thought was only specific to me. And then, eventually making a video about what that was like. I met people like me. One of those people I became really good friends with who’s half Korean from Missouri and I’m like, “Oh, your experience was probably even more intense than mine.”
Tell me about your first collection, which you’re planning to launch in the spring. Is it ready-to-wear? An evening collection?
A little bit of both. We’re going to put a lot of work into it. Ready-to-wear is the primary goal, nothing too intense—like a small ready-to-wear brand where we sell two dresses, two skirts, and a knit to start to see if anybody is interested and if I’m capable of communicating that kind of branding and vision.
I have this plan that for the people who do like the clothes and buy a dress, I’m going to raffle off a custom design for someone. Whoever wins raffle will actually do a fitting and fully fund making the thing. Cost is no problem. We just want to make everyone happy and build excitement around getting something super unique that no one has and getting to be a part of an experience that usually is only for an actress who has to walk a red carpet or something like that.
Financially, are you backed by anybody? Or is this your own venture?
It’s just me.
Wow. So you’re just putting your own time and money into this.
Yep.
Do you have a name?
I feel like I do, but I haven’t copyrighted it yet. I don’t want to say it yet.
And just to clarify, you’re going by Joe Ando, not Joe Ando Hirsh?
My full name is Joe Ando-Hirsh. I pretty much just go by Joe Ando more now.
Most of my hometown friends know me as Joe Hirsh. Because I was super ashamed to be Asian for a long time, I tried to hide it. But since moving back to New York and spending more time in Japan, spending more time with my mom, it’s become influential. Obviously, having that big influx of pride for the Asian side of myself coming back in—I didn’t necessarily lean into it, but it felt right. So I went with it. Just a feeling.
It’s a totally different time now. I remember anime was not cool. Now, everyone likes it. I’m like, “Okay, now I’ve got permission to talk about this thing.”
Do you have a price point?
Maybe this is unrealistic, but I’m doing a lot of research right now about creating, with every drop, one dress that will be super high-quality, more expensive. I’m still trying to figure out the price point on it, but then, in line with that, the skirts and maybe another dress option would be more affordable.
I want to make it accessible, but I also still want to put something out that I’m proud of that is nice. Let’s say someone spends $150 on a dress that you produced in a super fast-fashion way, that’s still $150 for something that I probably wouldn’t even be that proud of just because I wanted to get something out. So, it’s a balance. I’m trying to figure it out, but I do want to sell things that are nice and are bought by people who really appreciate it and respect it, but also offer up a way for people to also have something that’s nice, but is obviously more affordable.
I don’t envy your situation. Having to figure all of that out.
I can figure it out publicly, too. I already know for a fact that when the brand thing becomes reality, it’ll change what the social media is like, because then I open myself up to opinion on business, which is super new.
You’re acting and designing. Is there another creative outlet that you’re pursuing? Something else that you’d always wanted to dabble in?
Those are enough for me now.
That’s fair.
But I mean, dream scenario, I see myself being an old person and painting. I’m super inspired by painters, and a lot of my good friends I’ve made over the last year are painters that I’ve always been really big fans of. I think that is the coolest thing. Paintings are little windows into different environments.
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