Kick-Starting a Collection

Since he was fired from Gap in May 2011, and with still-fresh wounds from his days at Perry Ellis and Paco Rabanne, Patrick Robinson checked out of fashion for a while.

He went backpacking in national parks, at Yellowstone and Acadia and Yosemite, where the snow was still deep when he visited last June. It was cold. He said he awoke one morning to find a deer snoozing outside his tent.

It was here that Mr. Robinson, now 46, began to have a vision for what his next step would be. Though he was a popular designer with a skill for turning around the image of once-heralded labels, the corporate world had not always been kind to him. After four years of trying to refresh Gap, with its 1,000-plus stores and its inherent discomfort with trendy fashion, he gave up.

“I did learn a lot about running a big business,” he said.

Another look from the line Patrick Robinson is introducing on Kickstarter.

Another look from the line Patrick Robinson is introducing on Kickstarter.

Now Mr. Robinson is returning on his own terms, or more accurately, on yours. This week, he is introducing a collection of performance apparel designed for urban environments, seeking financing through the crowd-funding site Kickstarter. He has designed about 19 styles to start, but if you don’t like them, just tell Mr. Robinson and he’ll change them. Eventually, he will take suggestions on his own site.

“I wanted to have a direct connection with the customer,” Mr. Robinson said. “I am only going to show the prototypes, which will only get made if people pre-order them.”

Mr. Robinson did not want to put his own name on the label, calling that approach old-fashioned. His line is instead called Paskho, an ancient Greek word.

On his journey here, Mr. Robinson discovered that he liked to challenge himself, physically and mentally, and this was why he decided to focus on functional athletic-inspired clothing, with styles for men and women. His designs include tapered black cotton fleece pants with tab pockets for $125, or a black V-neck in a technical blend fabric for $80, prices that are competitive given that Mr. Robinson is bypassing the traditional retailer. There will also be paperweight cargo pants and shorts, and henleys and tanks in a cotton-cashmere blend.

“It’s not just what you wear to the gym,” he said. “The best way to describe it is clothes not just to work out in, but to hang out in.”

Having invested his savings in the start-up, Mr. Robinson hopes to raise $50,000 this month on Kickstarter, where he is offering a small range of products, as well as his design sketches, and, for $2,000, you can have a workout and dinner with him. He plans to ship the first orders in July, then turn Paskho into an e-commerce business.

“I discovered I like making things again,” he said. “It was one of my passions that drove me back into business.”

By the time Matthew Terry of Ocean City, N.J., turns 22 next week, he will have starred in a fragrance ad for Calvin Klein and two underwear campaigns, most notably in the ab-tastic commercial that ran during the Super Bowl and made him an overnight celebrity. Not that anyone recognizes him on New Jersey Transit, he said, “not without my hair slicked back and my body covered with baby oil.”

Here, thoughts from his gut:

How To My No. 1 thing is to stay consistent in the gym and on a diet. Everyone cheats. I’m a huge dark-chocolate lover, and I cheat once in a while, and when that happens, I work twice as hard at the gym. I personally like to do circuit training. You’re just hopping from one exercise to another, and I find that works for me. I go to the gym five times a week, for about an hour and a half. If I go with friends, I might go for longer. We like to chitchat.

Mmmm, Chocolate I like Hershey’s dark chocolate. I like chocolate with almonds, too. I could die for that.

Question Asked Most Often Am I single?

Growing Up When I was younger, I was a hundred and nothing pounds. I was a stick. In the seventh grade, I started working out and going to the gym. Being involved with high school sports really helped. I learned a lot of the techniques that I use now, if I need to lean out. If I’m getting too bulky — playing football, you tend to bulk up with muscles, and my shoulders get too big and my neck gets too thick — I do lots of cardio and endurance training. It doesn’t add size, but it gives definition. I’ve been working on my core since, like, the eighth grade.

 The Male Gaze Going to the mall and seeing the huge posters of people in Hollister, and Abercrombie, I wanted the chance to do that. But people get the idea that they’ll never look like me. Well, I’ll never look like a body builder or a basketball player. It’s about accepting your boundaries and being able to work with them.

Justin Bieber I’ve never seen his abs. If they are real, then props to him.If not, he’s got a great Photoshop crew.

Mmmm, Abs They are the in thing. Everyone wants to be lean and cut, and ripped is the word everyone likes to use. People get upset why they can’t get abs like this. A good amount of it is genetics. It’s a decent part of the social life. Girls love abs. I’m in the right line of work, I guess.

Sometimes you might wonder where all of those pictures and tweets sent from the front rows of Fashion Week really go. According to a study this season by Krupp Group and Curalate, which analyzes social media impact, the most popular ones were from unlikely sources. The most-liked on Instagram, for example, included a picture of Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, a pair of Louboutin shoes backstage at Michael van der Ham, and scenes from the Topshop show in London (taken by one eleanorj92, a k a Eleanor Calder, a k a the girlfriend of Louis Tomlinson of One Direction).

The No. 1 most-liked image, however, showed the finale of the Badgley Mischka spring collection last September (193,000 likes). It was taken by Ryan Tristan Jin, 27, a fashion market assistant at Elle, who was as surprised as anyone by its reach this season. The image was picked up from his original post by the Instagram account of Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week last month, “and all of a sudden, my phone started buzzing uncontrollably,” he said, whenever he was alerted that someone liked it.

Mr. Jin had a great vantage point for the show, right at the end of the runway. “With an iPhone,” he said, “you have to be at the right place, and at the right time.”