Striving for perfection could be a limited quality in some, but for Lisa Marie, the 25 year old Montreal native behind LMLAXO, anything secondary to this is not even an option.
Lisa finds her inspiration through fashion, music, art and architecture and when all of this is infused with the rawness of genuine emotion, it's easy to find yourself connected to her through her photography, which is probably why Lisa's been one of our long time crushes, so stay around to find out more about this Honey because we have a little feeling she will become one of yours too.
For those who don’t know much about you, please tell us a bit about what you do and your background?
Hi! My name is Lisa and I'm a 25 year old girl from Montreal, Canada. I've been interested in fashion, art, photography, music, and architecture for years now. Each one of them was developed differently by experiencing different moments in my life. For example, during a period of time, I wanted to get inspiration for my paintings, so I started walking all around the city trying to capture all the things that could inspire me. That’s were my passion for photography was developed, I started noticing details that I've never even seen before on buildings, parks etc.
What inspired you to create LMLAXO and how did it come about?
Art. That's what inspired me the most. By mixing colours together you can achieve a great eye catching combination. Nature. Nothing is more inspiring than a beautiful landscape, that's the whole reason why we travel, am I right?! Fashion. Because it's a great way to express ourselves. Simplicity. Because there's something about simple things that makes them unique. Less is more.
I mixed them all together in order to create my own “Museum”.
The aesthetics of LMLAXO is very unique, why do you think it’s so appealing to your audience?
Well thank you, I actually have no idea what's going through the audiences mind when they scroll through my page… I think that some people might not understand and they are curious so they stick around, others just understand because they see what I see and others will just hate it lol. At the end of the day, our brain works differently so I think it’s different for every individual or audience.
Do you find that it’s a true reflection of your personal style? How would you describe it?
I would have to say yes because cozy, oversize equals me
During shoots though, I might push it a little but it still stays me since it’s reflecting my creating/stylist side 100%. I love the fact that Instagram allows me to use my imagination everyday. I love to create and I think it’s important for the mind because it makes our imagination surface again… something that we loved using since we were kids. Just because we are all grown up now doesn't means that we have to be all serious about things and that we have to stop using our imagination to go beyond reality, it’s okay to visit our own little world sometimes.
Tell us a story about one of the most memorable projects you’ve worked on so far?
Once upon a time lol I had this brave idea to create a clothing concept just for fun related to my achievement of getting 10K followers. At the same time I wanted to experience what it was like to work as a “designer”. At first I wanted to actually create a piece of clothing that I had in my mind for a while but I decided to relax and to not push this project too far because it would of never ended, and honestly I didn't have all the spare time on my hands since it was during a busy university session.
So I decided to create my own logo and I wanted something related to my Instagram of course but also something simple but catchy so I used the “L” from my profile picture and I mixed it with my bio “I'm the girl Drake is crying about in his songs” and ended up creating this Drake face in tears using this non professional internet program, sort of like Microsoft paint but the 90s version with the “L” in the background. I decided to use this logo on a hoodie and I wanted it to be good quality so I opted for Champion.
Decided to push myself a little further by also creating some T- shirts but this time I used my hand writing as a design. It was harder than I thought, I had to choose a name, order the clothes, decide how many of each size, what colour, embroidered or printed, how do I announce it? When? How will it be presented on my website, shipping costs (the most complicated thing ever), prices and so on. I even rented a studio to create a video haha omg. Just creating the video was something else! My mind was running at 1000 miles per hour, I was going crazy, especially doing all this alone is a struggle. Anyways this whole experience was stressful but very enriching for me, I learnt a lot and I'm very happy that I completed the “L by lmlaxo” project.
What would you say are the biggest challenges you’ve faced within the industry?
I would say staying active with sometimes a creation level at minus 60 because it can happen sometimes. I can’t lie, in my darkest times I thought seriously about closing my account or at least being absent for a while, but why destroy all this hard work you know? I take my account very seriously and I know that sometimes I exaggerate by putting a lot of pressure on myself to make it perfect. Perfectionism can be a quality but also a handicap. Sometimes I’m not even able to post because the next photos have to fit the previous ones and sometimes it’s hard to find the perfect “match” colour wise or light wise. There's a lot of pictures that I've taken but couldn't post because they were too dark or too filled so that’s why I came up with the idea of creating my website to post those “unwanted” pictures.
You have been to some very envious locations, where do you find you connect to most?
At the museum, I’m actually going tomorrow. So much talent in one place it's amazing.
What’s a typical day like for you?
Staying at home, cleaning, working on edits and on my Instagram, emails, feeding my fishes, playing with my dogs and I will never live a day without music, no way, that's what makes me happy! And if I'm not home, you'll find me at school or working, with friends or somewhere in the city craving for inspiration. I usually end my days with a bath and a good movie.
We love that so much of your inspiration comes from music, what are you listening to at the moment?
Yes indeed my captions can be really inspired by my music tastes. It really depends on my mood, I can listen to a variety of artists. I can go from Adele to AC/DC lol but right now I'm on repeat with Usher, The Weeknd, Bryson Tiller, Drake, Tory Lanez, 6LACK, PARTYNEXTDOOR, Travis Scott and Roy Woods. I am also obsessed since forever with this playlist on Spotify called “Rap Caviar”, I listen to it almost every day. It's filled with all of the top Rap and Hip Hop tracks, I love that they update it often so I don’t have to update mine.
Any current sneaker obsessions?
Always been obsessed with Chanel sneakers and the Nike Air MAGs, but currently I would have to say Adidas Ultra boosts and NMDs.
Tell us your favourite spots in Montreal to…
Eat: Seoul Chako
Shop: Costco
Chill: Cineplex Forum especially on a rainy day
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