NERVO Talks Style, Miami and What They Won't be Wearing to UMF

Racked is no longer publishing. Thank you to everyone who read our work over the years. The archives will remain available here; for new stories, head over to Vox.com, where our staff is covering consumer culture for The Goods by Vox. You can also see what we’re up to by signing up here.

To say that Liv and Mim of NERVO are jetsetters is an understatement. The Grammy award-winning sisters are more like jet sprinters, traveling from one country to the next to spin for thousands and write tracks for major EDM players like David Guetta and Afrojack, all while living out of two suitcases.

That's right. While most lowly travelers complain about squeezing their entire shoe collections into one suitcase for a two-week riviera, these Covergirls go months on end without switching up the contents, reworking their outfits sans a stylist, and swapping out leotards for leggings so as not to max out their weight. In fact, we were able to catch the sisters in Miami just hours before they jetted off to Brazil for the day, only to return before the weekend's dawn and take over Ultra's Main Stage on Sunday.

The sisters are no strangers to our city; they've been slinking into the hottest clubs here before we even knew how awesome they were. Their style parallels their musical track record, and we just had to know their secret. Unfortunately, we were hard pressed to find any miracle advice that would instantly up us to their otherworldly level of cool, but we did discover who their DJ style crush was, their dream designer collab and just how far they were willing to go to get passed the doorman. Luckily for us, all it took was a bit of raw talent.

You travel around the world with different gigs every night and somehow manage to remain the coolest dressed girls in the crowd. How does the whole getting dressed process work for you?
Liv: We share a suitcase all year round and share a lot of our clothes, but then there are pieces that Mim wears that I don't really wear and vice versa. Everything we carry in our suitcase, whether we get it gifted or we buy it, could make us max out on our weight so we [sometimes] have to get rid of something.
Mim: Everything that we take on we love or we can really work with. A lot of what we wear is very versatile so we can swap seasons.
Liv: We wear a lot of little shorts and in the summer we might wear tights. In the winter, we might wear tights underneath the shorts. We wear a lot of body suits- easy to wash and dry very quickly at night. We wear a lot of brands, like Black Milk is one of our favorite brands of leggings, body suits, cool prints. Another brand we really love is Kuccia from the U.K., We Are Handsome. I guess casual attire is what we're wearing today; denim, normal stuff. But when we're gigging, it's got to be versatile. It's gotta be light. It's got to be colorful.
Mim: It's got to be easy to wash and dry in 24 hours.

So you guys wash your own clothes?
Both: Not always.
Mim: If we give it to a hotel, often they can't get it back within 24 hours. If they can get it in during the next morning then great, but often not. But if we're somewhere like Miami for a week then that's when we'll get a lot of washing done. It's kind of like practical packing, really.

Any packing tips you could share?
Mim: We have a rule. If you haven't worn it in literally two months, just don't bring it on the road again. It's really hard because we live out of two suitcases and often we'll have things like friend's weddings.
Liv: That's always the most difficult.
Mim: We can't turn up wearing Lycra and plastic to a friends wedding, so you always have to have a cocktail dress in there or a date night dress dress, a pair of heels. Shoes are really hard as well because they weight alot.
Liv: You want heels, but you want boots as well because they're really comfortable. And you need flip-flops. It's all about rationing.

How would you describe each other's style?
Liv: I'm a little bit more girly and Mim's a little bit more bold.
Mim: I like that you said that! I like you didn't call me boyish. Sometimes I feel that because of the shaved head and I don't have the biggest boobs or anything like that, I like to wear makeup. It makes me feel more pretty, more girly. Liv's the prettier of us...
Liv: More girly!

What are the three makeup products you like to use while you're spinning?
Liv: Love liquid eyeliner, I would die for it. A good mascara, because I'm big on the eyes.
Mim: A good foundation.
Liv: And then I really like this Covergirl product called Smoochies. It's like a lipgloss, but it's got a little bit of color and tint.
Mim: Sadly we're not those blondes that look good with dark lips.
Liv: You could pull it off.
Mim: No, I think it's because my mouth is too big! But yeah, we like the tint, not the stain.

What spring trends are you into now?
Mim: Well it depends where we are. It's spring here but it's not spring in Australia or Brazil. We don't really follow the seasonal trends; we kind of just go with what we feel comfortable with. We're loving really short denim shorts.
Liv: Yeah you can't go wrong with denim shorts, like cutoffs. Again, they're versatile. You pair cutoffs with over the knee socks and you can wear them in the winter. I'm loving patterns. Like really, really bright patterns... More is more. If my shoes are clashing with my jacket and clashing with my top then I'm totally cool with that.

That looks so good on stage though. The bolder the better, right?
Liv: Yeah, maybe! If you say so; you're the expert.

You do so many collaborations with musical artists. If you could collaborate with any designer, who would it be?
Mim: Balmain would be amazing.
Liv: I'd do something really cool, like with Versace. Versace has always got that little bit of that...
Mim: OTT. It's over the top.
Liv: Yeah it's out there. They did a range for H&M...
Mim: That was a little while ago though.
Liv: Yeah but I thought that stuff, like on a high street level, was really cool. They're kind of like the original Jeremy Scott, with the more is more vibe.
Mim: I like Balmain because I like the angular cuts. They're a little bit more sophisticated.

So one of the pieces could be like a leopard print jacket with very angular cuts?
Liv: Ah, Amazing. And then [if we collaborated with] high street brands...
Mim: We love this brand called Kuccia. We found them in LF of all stores! There's actually one in Miami. We also love Black Milk, an online store from Australia. They do a lot of lycra, plastic and prints. I love Jeremy Scott and I love that, what's that big jacket? Joyrich.
Liv: Love Joyrich!
Mim: Wild, bold, craziness.

Who is the best dressed male DJ you know?
Liv: Aoki.
Mim: Really? I think Dillon Francis is pretty good. I like what Porter [Robinson] wears as well.
Liv: Yeah, Porter on a more street wear, everyday level would look really cool, but Aoki's just bold and bright and brilliant.
Mim: And I think David Guetta has some great style, he just does it in a very sophisticated, French way.
Liv: Trust the Frenchies. All the French DJs look good [laughs].
Mim: It's something in their blood.

Everyone has a go-to outfit. What would yours be?
Liv: It'd be my Omen Eye shorts. They're vintage, remade Guess shorts that are high waisted, really short and have got a few little studs on them. I wear a pair of mesh shorts underneath them, so if my butt hangs out a bit I'm fine. Then I wear them with my over the thigh American Apparel socks, my Jeremy Scott limited editions, and some sort of Black Milk body suit.
Mim: Do you know what? Mine's changing a little bit. It used to be a denim vest with ruffles and this beautiful eagle studded on the back, but the studs started coming off so I couldn't wear it anymore. I have to get re-studded but that's not something you could get done in a day, so now it's turned into my Nene L.A. Shiro white puffy long sleeved top with some high waisted, very tight pants.

All those late nights at clubs has to wreak havoc on your skin. How do you keep it so intact?
Liv: Hydration, having a good moisturizer and using good makeup.

Mim, your hair defies gravity. How do you style it?
Mim: With the best hair spray known to man. It's called Calorie Fat. It's the only brand I use. Well, I use a few texturing creams and then a hairspray to really laquer it on.

And you style it yourself?
Mim: Yes, of course. I have to. It would be nice if I had my own hairstylist travel with me but no, not yet.

You mentioned earlier that you've visited Miami at least 20 times before. What is your craziest memory here?
Liv: There's so many!
Mim: Often they blur, so you can't pick which year is what. We've just had so many amazing nights here.
Liv: We used to come to Miami like, eight years ago...
Mim: To party.
Liv: Yeah, to party! This was before we were taking our DJing professionally.
Mim: Yeah I would say my last [great] memory here was last year at New Year's Eve, when we had eight, maybe more like 18 friends, come stay. Basically we just partied the whole time, but we had to get on a plane the next day.
Liv: We saw Marco Corola at Space.
Mim: Yeah I don't even remember where we were, but we just partied through and went straight to the airport! Coconut water. That's the savior.

Well, where do you guys like to go in Miami now?
Mim: This week it's just insane with how many amazing parties there are. You can go anywhere.
Liv: We were just hanging out with our friends down in SoHo Beach House because they were all drinking by the pool.
Mim: SoHo House is a little bit more of a chilled out area.
Liv: Yeah, it's a little more chilled.
Mim: It's the calm before the storm. But to go out this week, every club is basically banging.

And where do you guys like to shop here?
Mim: LF, definitely.
Liv: To be honest, we haven't shopped that much here though, because if we buy something, something else from our suitcase needs to leave. Often we'll got to American Apparel for our essentials though.
Mim: We kind of mix it up with high street and brands that we really love.

What's the energy like in Miami when you're performing here, compared to the rest of the world?
Liv: Miami's always had such a great relationship with house music, so I think when people come down here they're ready to hear sets that aren't always predictable, especially during Miami Music Week. We're playing with Pete Tong at his pool party, but we'll play a different set there than what we'll play with Benni Bennassi. I think the crowd can appreciate that.

Have you ever regretted anything you've done in your musical careers?
Both: No.
Mim: We wish we did it earlier, but I guess in a way if we hadn't we wouldn't have gotten the support from the big guys who have really helped us in the beginning.
Liv: You know we were working with pop stars during the week and then we'd work with djs as well.
Mim: But that was also so we could get into the clubs for free. A certain DJ would remix our record for a pop star and then we'd reach out and say 'hey! We love what you did. Do you want to work together?' and then we'd get into the clubs for free. It was a great stepping stone because we've always been clubbers but now we get to club as a job.

And, can we have a hint as to what you'll be wearing for your set at Ultra?
Liv: I guess we'll decide on the morning of!