The Opening Ceremony founders Humberto Leon and Carol Lim agree that 1993 was a formative year. For one, they both graduated from suburban Los Angeles high schools. “That summer was pivotal,” Lim says. “I could really enjoy myself because I’d gotten into college, so I backpacked through Europe for four months.” And that fall, they enrolled at University of California, Berkeley, where they met and, Leon recalls, quickly bonded over their shared affinity for polyester outfits. “At the time, we looked to magazines and what our favorite actors and musicians were wearing,” he remembers. “As an 18-year-old kid, you’re trying to emulate the people you admire.” In the pre-internet era, the pair had to conduct nondigital “research,” as Lim calls it — queuing for the latest issue of Interview or the Face, or scrutinizing 10,000 Maniacs music videos.

Image Opening Ceremony has collaborated with Calvin Klein on T-shirts featuring a David Sims image of Kate Moss from 1993. Credit... Courtesy Opening Ceremony

“Brands, too, were different back then; every brand stood for its aesthetic,” Leon says. (In high school, he had worked at the Gap and Lim at the Body Shop in their respective local malls.) “There was a purpose to every store: You’d go to Miller’s Outpost for your jeans, you’d go to Esprit for the colorful striped tops.” And underwear, carefully positioned so the waistband was in plain sight, had to be Calvin Klein. “From our very ‘mall’ perspective, that’s what we knew and what we could buy,” Leon says, “and in a sense, that and Calvin Klein perfume was our first step into luxury.”