#55 talking trash with Everybody.World's Brand Director
Ariel Katz on going back to basics and making it all in LA
Moon in the Afternoon. That’s the name for Everybody.World’s FW2025 collection—perhaps the most poetic way to mark the turn of the seasons. Now for the visuals: gentle tones, models in everyday basics set against a dusty pink backdrop, textured close-ups of fabric. Familiar pieces rendered beautifully, almost sculptural in their ease. I’ll spare you the imagining:
They’ve been redefining what ‘basics’ can be since 2016. Seeing their new campaign roll out reminded me why I’ve always admired them. It also made me want to revisit a 2021 interview I did with Ariel Katz, then Business Development & Partnerships Lead, now Brand Director. It felt like the right time to bring it back.
Everybody.World has always been one of those brands I quietly root for. The ones that stay true to their ethos while still evolving. It’s the same kind of joy I get from visiting a store I love over the years—watching it grow, adapt, yet remain familiar at the same time. One of the most satisfying feelings I get from this newsletter (and the interviews I’ve done alongside it) is seeing people and brands I featured years ago continue to grow into themselves, deepening their craft and vision.
And that feeling intensifies when the world takes notice. If you watch The Bear, you would have spotted the brand in action: Ayo Edebiri wore their Tailored Trash Tee throughout Season 4, a fitting spotlight moment for a brand producing responsibly made basics in Los Angeles for nearly a decade.
Carolina Crespo first met her co-founder Iris Alonzo at American Apparel. They started Everybody.World by asking friends and family to design the pieces they wished existed in their own wardrobes; profits and ideas were shared along the way. From these beginnings grew a brand rooted in local production, fair wages, and thoughtful design—principles that continue to guide them today. Just a few weeks ago, Carolina was named one of Vogue Business’s 100 Innovators of 2025.
Looking back on my four-year-old interview with Ariel, it’s striking how much of what he shared still holds true. He has been with the team since day one, moving from freelancer to full-time Brand Director and Contributor Collection designer, and offers a rare inside view of their deliberate design process. For Everybody.World, fashion is as much about the hands that make it as the clothes themselves. Even then, it was clear they weren’t chasing trends; they were building something meant to last. Reading it now, that intention feels even more resonant.
PIN: Hi Ariel, tell us who you are and what you do.
ARIEL: Hi! My name is Ariel Katz and I’m a sensitive scorpio with a positive outlook and a love of seltzer. I currently live in Sydney, Australia with my fiancé, Jerico, and our dog, Babka, and I work for Everybody.World as their Business Development & Partnerships Lead (ed note: now Brand Director).
PIN: How does a day in your life look like?
ARIEL: I’m a creature of habit. Each day I walk my dog, I buy an iced black coffee, I toil at my computer, I go to the gym, I spend time with my partner, I doom scroll, I cook, I laugh, I FaceTime, and as much as possible I go to the ocean.
PIN: How did you find yourself at Everybody.World?
ARIEL: Almost five years ago I was connected with Everybody.World Co-Founders, Iris and Carolina, through a mutual colleague-slash-friend. I would pop by their space once a week to contribute as a freelance copywriter.
They’ve allowed me to grow so much as myself and within their small business since then; I now work full-time for the brand heading up our online store, marketing, and partnerships. I also designed Ariel’s Everyday Shorts for our Contributor Collection!
PIN: What’s one thing that you understand differently since joining them?
ARIEL: How many people are involved in the process! There’s so much gorgeous humanity that lies behind every single garment, even something that seems simple like a T-shirt has something like 60 skilled workers directly involved in making it.
PIN: Sustainable production can’t be easy. How does Everybody.World navigate these challenges?
ARIEL: A huge part of what makes fashion so environmentally unfriendly is that it produces an enormous amount of waste. For our Trash Collection, we reimagined and repurposed existing cotton waste, transforming it into T-shirts and fleece that feel good on and are designed to last. These textiles are the first of their kind in the world! It’s a much more complicated approach, and it took a lot of time and iteration to get the hand-feel just right.
Through this process, no virgin materials are used, and there’s a smaller carbon footprint by way of being made within the United States, under California’s strict EPA standards to boot! It’s an entirely new way to address sustainability in apparel.
PIN: And how do you further encourage consuming sustainably?
ARIEL: Despite its name, we hope our Trash Tee never goes into the actual trash. We want folks to be happy and love wearing their Everybody.World as much as possible, so we offer to repair anything purchased from us that needs a hand holding up to life’s rigorous push and pull.
We mend things at our HQ in LA, or if people want to make the repair themselves, we can organise to send them any buttons or other trims they might need. That way, they can keep wearing their favourite pieces for as long as possible.
PIN: What does “innovation” mean at Everybody.World?
ARIEL: Reimagining with intention.
PIN: On your bio, too, you say you’re “reimagining what a fashion company can be.” What does that look like to you?
ARIEL: Workers, Ecology, Ideas are the foundation which we built the business on, and since launching in 2016 we’ve aimed to ‘Make useful things with people and the planet in mind.’
We’ve never been interested in putting more stuff on the planet for the sake of it—even if that stuff is recycled, recyclable, and biodegradable.
For us, reimagining what a fashion company can look like means developing new textiles from US-grown manufacturing waste; making thoughtful goods responsibly in Los Angeles from fabric to finish; collaborating with everyday extraordinary people, and taking time to ask questions like: What is fair? What is sustainable? What is the future of fashion?
PIN: What’s collaborating with everyday people like? Are we really ‘non-designers’?
ARIEL: We may not all be designers in the traditional sense, but I do think everyone has something missing from their wardrobe. Maybe that’s a garment you’d love to own and have never seen before, or something you absolutely adore but have worn to pieces and can’t find the perfect replacement anywhere. Our Contributor Collection, created piece-by-piece by everyday extraordinary people, is a place for those ideas to come to life!
Right now, it’s a magical group that includes a chess-playing spiritualist, a retired nurse, a gangsta gardener, and a 6-year old, amongst many others. Their individual spirit and style are what unite them. We commit to each of their ideas for a year and they receive 10% of the sales of their designs.
PIN: What’s next for the brand?
ARIEL: Soon we’ll be unveiling details around an entirely new textile range. We also have upcoming Contributor Collections with Zizia Botanicals founder Abbe Findley, photographer and director, Danielle Levitt, and Reparations Club, which is a Black-owned bookshop and creative space here in Los Angeles.
We’re diving deeper into the world of natural dyes too! For Earth Day we released a limited-edition Long Sleeve which was tie-dyed indigo using composted mango and tamale lime powder. The process and philosophy behind natural dye is very profound and I’m super excited to share more about that.
PIN: Sounds exciting! One last wild card question for you: imagine you were an object, what would you be?
Maybe a pencil? Purposeful, impermanent, accessible.
Check out Everybody.World on their website and Instagram @everybody.world.
