PSFK Talks To Trust-Fun’s Jonathan Zawada

PSFK recently chatted with Jonathan Zawada, one part of the Australian-based design label Trust-Fun.  Releasing a limited run of one-off highly-detailed graphic ‘Glory’ scarves, ‘Rockmen’ pet rocks and necklaces; along with a number of printed t-shirts; Zawada, his wife Annie, and Shane Sakkeus have developing somewhat of a cult status worldwide.

Outside the label, Trust-Fun’s members have worked with the likes of Modular Records, Josh Goot, Insight, Something Else, Tina Kalivas and Ksubi.

Tell us about the people and the ideas behind Trust-Fun?

Trust Fun! is me; Jonathan Zawada, my wife Annie Wright and our friend Shane Sakkeus. Very loosely its an occasional creative collaboration for commercial and non-commercial projects alike, we all have day jobs so it’s really a form of creative and commercial expression for us, a way for us to create things in the world the way we’d like them to be. The ethos behind Trust Fun is manifest in the name, our aim is to only do things we enjoy and to stop doing them once they become tedious or we run out of money, therefore we have no ambitions of any sort of growth – we’re quite happy to keep things small and enjoyable. One thing we’ve recently learned is that we don’t actually NEED to make profit, we just need to be able to continue to fund our projects and that has been a very liberating realization.

Fundamentally, it shouldn’t ever feel like work. We tend to wait until some sort of inspiration strikes and then we follow through with it while it remains interesting and enjoyable. For example, when we were making our hand dyed scarves and tshirts our production process essentially involved alternating between a couple of hours dying fabric and drinking beer and then a couple of hours swimming in the ocean. If the process itself isn’t any fun then there isn’t any point doing it!

We’ve all worked in fashion before for other companies and the one thing we hated in that was that so many makers and suppliers would end up not getting paid, or would have to wait months or years for payment. We really wanted to make sure that we’d only ever produce what we could afford to, what we realistically thought would sell and in many cases the amount that we could actually physically make ourselves. All of our products are completely unique, all one offs, so that’s always been another constraining factor in terms of quantity. Plus, we feel bad about bringing more unnecessary things into the world so we try to limit our indulgences!

What excites you?

Hot days at the beach and stupid puns.

We don’t ever feel obliged to have to work on anything, we only ever make things when we’re genuinely inspired. As a result we never have to actively seek out inspiration it just comes from somewhere without us noticing. We all have creative day jobs where we have to pursue creative inspiration for clients, Trust Fun is really an escape from that sort of slavery.

The internet! Who knows where anybody lives these days… facebook…?

We’ll finally make some new scarves this year under our new not-for-profit pricing structure so they’ll actually be affordable. We’re also hoping to try our hand at making some swimwear and possibly some limited edition prints. Shane has also just finished a giant wall mural for Topshop and we will continue to work with London Fashion Week on various projects. We’ve also debated gambling the last of our profits in Las Vegas and depending on the outcome possibly hiking a volcano in Bali.

Trust-Fun