Kiser Barnes: It’s great to sit with you and hear your story about what it means to be a dad and how that impacts your perspective as a creative. Your dad is a photographer and you were a photography major at RISD before switching to fashion. How does the creative influence from your father inspire your work? Do you see your dad in the way that you approach creativity?

Robert Geller:  I see it in my path for sure. I think the reason that I wanted to become a photographer was because I wanted to be like my dad. I saw the way that he worked and his studio life and that environment; I was just really attracted to it. I always love being in the studio with all the people that are working on photo issues. It's a great environment – you have the hairdressers, makeup people, and usually music and it's a good mood. It's just the way that photo studios and shoots are. People come with a lot of energy. My dad is different than me in a lot of ways. I think his work was definitely his most important thing for a while. He was one of those guys who would have something in his head and he would do it. I think that's why he married and divorced three times. He would go on two and a half month-long trips to photograph the Maharaja in India, or shoot these stories about ‘the ten most eligible bachelors in California’ and then do these grand portraits of them.  Lots of traveling. I think for him it was like that's what a man should do: go and earn money for the family. I'm different than that. I think that it's important but the most important thing is to be with the family and spend time with the family. My work is extremely important to me but it's not the most important thing. The most important thing for me is definitely my family.  

There are times where I think I could be doing more with my work... but I would never want to give up the time that I have with my kids.

When we came to visit we'd sit in the back of the car and we’d look at the map, like ‘can we find any windmills?’ It was specially marked where there was a windmill and whoever found one would get an ice cream... I have amazing experiences from that time.

But that's also a big difference in the generational change. My dad found this old windmill about twenty minutes outside of Hamburg, and for about ten years he drove around looking for parts to fix it up, going to other windmills to see if he could buy anything… Over ten years he built the most amazing house that exists maybe in the whole world. This old, beautiful, German windmill that he totally restored and he built a house in it. It's gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous. The top little hat that sits on top - that's his bathroom. So you have like five windows and you can sit in the bathtub and look all around the area. The next floor down is the master bedroom, and then you go down and it’s his office and a sitting area. You go down another floor and it's the kitchen and the dining area. Down on the bottom he’s got this amazing library. He went to some old villa that was being torn down and found these amazing bookshelves and just covered the whole [library] in them. On one side he’s got this lacquered pink wall, and he has this Chinese art that he found while traveling in China. He has the most incredible taste. He’s just one of those amazing, fascinating people. That's what he did on the weekends. When we came to visit, we'd sit in the back of the car and look at the map like, ‘can we find any windmills?’ It was specially marked where there was a windmill and whoever found one would get an ice cream. Of course everybody would get an ice cream, but that was a game that we played. I have amazing experiences from that time. But he wasn't thinking about us, you know? He was thinking about building this amazing windmill. It’s a different generation [now]. We're sitting around talking about how we want to raise our kids. I think that's a massive change – being much more involved in the idea and ways to raise kids. 

KB: I’m discovering new things all the time and one of the things I think about a lot with Matias is: what are some of the traditions I’m going to build with him and with our family? Are there any new traditions that you feel like you’ve created with your kids?

RG: It’s interesting; you know we just live our lives without pushing too much towards anything. I feel like we try to just go with the flow as much as possible. We have the school in the mornings, we have the gymnastics or ballet classes that they go to, and then on the weekends we stay here or we go to the country. Our traditions are the breakfast table, you know? Our traditions are the pick-up from school. It’s sort of like every day things that when you really look at them from a certain perspective are so amazing. Definitely every morning we have breakfast together at this table. Sometimes there’s crying, sometimes there’s bad moods, and there’s just crazy dance parties sometimes. It’s just such an amazing thing. I try to be here for every breakfast and every dinner and bedtime. And those are traditions, you know? Those are the real things that I think are hard when you’re working. But they’re also the things that build families. Those conversations, the family conversations about anything that’s happened during the day, or fidget spinners or, you know, the coolest toys, or whatever it is that we talk about. That is what’s going to build this family. And then being able to listen to their little problems now, because that’s what opens them up to share the bigger problems later.

KB: You’re often described as “romantic” because of your and Ana’s history together and also because of your work. What does it mean to be a great partner raising kids together?

RG:  That's the thing. It’s like, you have work, you have kids, but really the most important thing is your relationship with your partner. But often it's put into the third place in terms of priority. It just happens naturally. It's like, this will be all right without getting attention for a bit, and we've got to take care of the kids and we've got to get the work done right.  But the reality is, that only lasts so long.  Especially when we have three kids. From the time of pregnancy to the time of having the kid, and raising the kid, and other kids being born, and suddenly there's three... There's a time when you’re really strong partners but you have to be careful not to forget that you’re lovers too.  Ana and I really have been making an effort to not forget that. Ever since Blanca has been bigger, we've had more time for each other and also there's more physicality to give because you don’t constantly having [a child] on you. So we've totally gotten to the point where that fire is on again.