For women’s fashion week in September, Closed will open its first flagship store in Paris.

Overall "Illusion" from the FW 13/14 collection by Kostas Murkudis for Closed Jeans. Photography by René Habermacher

René Habermacher: When I heard you’d be working for Closed jeans, I thought it made great sense with your approach – sustainability, resistance, utilitarianism and uniformity are expressions that come to mind when thinking of your work, and all of these seem to be relevant in the context of jeanswear.

KM: I grew up in the DDR (German Democratic Republic), in East Germany, so these are surely aspects of my work that I value and are part of my professional ethos that I will follow up into the future. It’s my contribution, to make it accessible to more people than for example with my own brand.

I always had “two hearts beating in my chest”: one more poetic, free of necessities, and the other that is more about durability and functionality everyday. I always loved the approach of the Bauhaus, it is very important to me. But I really do love both aspects. Now with my new mission at Closed, I can really apply everything you described, I have all tools and a fantastic team I love working with.
For me this is the perfect balance between the two brands.

Whereas with my own brand, my mini-label that I call my laboratory, I don’t have to think about whether the piece is really durable, has the right pocket or whatever. I just can do projects important to me, which do not necessarily have anything to do with fashion. For example recently I have worked with a royal glass manufactory in Munich, Lobmeyr, that usually do stuff like church windows etc. I think there are so many possibilities and I am very curious for new challenges.

Shirt and Jeans FW 13/14 Kostas Murkudis for Closed. Photography by René Habermacher

RH: You’re working for quite some time in fashion now. When you started, fashion was something different: in the 90’s, fashion still had a socio-cultural context, was a compass and expressive part of movements. Today it’s different, its not really that a social movement expresses anything through dressing codes.

KM: That’s true and has obviously social, socio-political, and sociological causes. There is very little happening that could tempt for re-orientation. I do really hope that finally something will be happening. Or has it started already? When you look what is going on in Brasil, or Turkey, in countries where I would not have expected that this kind of movement would be surfacing.

The situations in Greece, Portugal or Spain, France and possibly soon England, don’t look so great either, but something is happening and I am hoping very much that this will spread across cultures and regions, and maybe create the necessity to develop new codes. Obviously they have to develop themselves, we as designers can’t help it.

RH: For quite a while fashion hasn’t had a cultural value of progress, it has become more a simple “garment industry.”

KM: That’s right. Fashion is not allowed to be like this anymore. It’s the very capitalist approach to define success only through growth, to which the big houses are forced to: generating work, circulate money, this and that – it’s not about content at all. In fact it is even arbitrary who designs. It is the brand with its margin that is in focus.
If that’s what’s thriving in society, fashion can only be its image.

On the other hand, design has become another aspect – let’s take an example like the iPod, or the iPhone and what has been generated here: a simplicity, practicability and a beauty of objects that have not been produced like this in a while.

It’s not about developing funky variants and decorations, but to work continuously on refinement and improvement with every generation, which I believe impacts our everyday culture. Even kids are not seduced to just buy something new because there are some new crazy buttons added. And you don’t have the desire to buy a jeans with 25 embroideries and absurd stitchings on the butt that are completely pointless. This pointlessness, this battle of material is not working anymore.

Jeans dress FW 13/14 Kostas Murkudis for Closed. Photography by René Habermacher

„First there is nothing, then a deep void and finally a blue depth.“

Yves Klein.(Leitmotif for the colour codes to the SKYWALK CAPSULE COLLECTION No.1)

For example my brother Andreas, who owns a concept store in Berlin, he affords himself the luxury to buy only what he thinks is really good, regardless of the label. He buys what is up-to-date in his eyes. He was totally shocked about the pricing for which it’s possible to get good design that is on top politically correct produced in Italy: good quality fondly fabricated from great fabric. Not that this is world changing…

RH: But democratic?

KM: Democratic in a positive way. I didn’t really want to use that word. When my brother saw the Skywalk Capsule Collection in Berlin, he went to order straight away several looks from the FW collection, saying: “wow, this is really cheap- and so cool, but really cheap”.
Of course we have the same approach, maybe also because we grew up in the DDR: for us longevity or functionality and beauty don’t have to cancel each other out.

RH: What is your relationship to glamour?

KM: I try to stay remote, but sometimes have to make compromises. My relationship is rather an aversion. I come from a very simple background and it really does not touch me to hear “who was where with who wearing what”, that doesn’t interest me.

Right Side two pieces from the SKYWALK CAPSULE COLLECTION: Murkudis took inspiration from a vintage aviator suit,
using the cuts and details to create a minimal wardrobe: a shirt, a blouson and pants for men and women.
Boots: vintage DDR army. Photography by René Habermacher

„Earth is a delicate shade of blue“

Yuri Gagarin (Leitmotif for the colour codes to the SKYWALK CAPSULE COLLECTION No.1)

RH: Tell me a little more about the Skywalk Capsule Collection…

KM: The idea was based on the desire to bring the brand back to an international level, and the one of the brands defining aspects: the idea of unisex, that I thought very interesting and gave me also the possibility to explore menswear more, find a different angle and define their image more sharply.

Because the project was a very small range, I had to stay quite precise as well in material as colour and design, but it was the first time that I had the chance to show pieces that one actually can afford. If you look at the product, it appears at first sight quite minimal, even though its technology is actually very complex, which is something I wanted to put forward as well.

But because of all this, it was quite obvious to me to give the collection somewhat of a poetic moment.

RH: Yet here is also a practical thought behind it?

KM: Of course. It was to show the brand’s core, and a product that should function in the everyday life over long time.

Apart from that, the beauty of a product becomes apparent in its use, becomes part of our lives and our bodies. That’s what makes a jeans. It only becomes your jeans, and a great one, when it deforms on your own body, through use, through touch, through creases, through whatever. It becomes part of your being. That makes it truly beautiful when it is beautiful.

Felt Perfecto Jacket and Jeans, both FW 13/14 Costas Murkudis for Closed. Photography by René Habermacher

RH: With a clientele living in the most various meteorological conditions, does it really make sense today to produce season-oriented collections?

KM: This is a totally legitimate question. Also as we know that the big producers often deliver new products up to twelve times a year.
So for smaller brands it is indeed worth considering to orient themselves differently because they have no chance to stand up against this moloch of an industry.

In a way we are overtaking ourselves with everything: when the sales start the season hasn’t even really begun, there is a resort collection, a pre-collection and a in-between collection- that is all a bit absurd. I see that with my brother, who says “I don’t need a pre-collection that is delivered in November when its perhaps snowing here and -30 celsius”. That makes no sense.

On the other side I am bound to the cycles of the classic way of producing 4 collections a year.
I think the problematics are there for everyone, but no one has yet found an ultimate solution, or takes the risk to say ‘I am going to position myself entirely new in this context.’

RH: In your case do you do a presentation, or are you considering eventually a show?

KM: Right now this is not a real topic for us. Maybe next year or after that, it really depends on how we develop and what our expansion will bring.

RH: The one thing I find puzzling is with all the coverage on the shows, once the products are in the shops, you are already bored of them.

KM: I totally agree with you that three weeks after the shows you vaguely remember and when the products are delivered to the shops you practically forgot about it all. This wish and desire to own the pieces immediately is fading in that period.
But that’s what you have Zara for: they deliver within three weeks after the show a dampened version for those who can’t wait at all and never really got it anyway: those will buy the cheap copy (laughs).
By then the others just saw the newest collections and are wondering that they have ever liked the current one…. I look at this smiling.

Left: Jeans dress, Right: Split neck pullover and Jeans, all FW 13/14 Kostas Murkudis for Closed.
Boots: vintage DDR army. Photography by René Habermacher

RH: You do have a special relationship with Japan, is that right?

KM: Yes, when I was a small kid, I started to do judo. I had a fantastic teacher that I absolutely worshipped as a living hero.
I was excited to wear these suits, the belts. The scent of the mats, the bows, this outlandish language had fascinated me. To me it was of course an escape from my Greek moulded DDR prosaicness and the pressure to perform. I did virtually absorb all these words, ceremonies and preserve within for years.

When I started to be interested in the arts I read a biography of Yves Klein, and realised he was a judo master like me, and eventually lived in Japan. I think his work was to some degree influenced by Japanese moments, in their simplicity and splendidness. This has really accompanied me ever since. The Bauhaus would have been unthinkable without the Japanese influence. In many aspects this influence has developed with me, the desire towards the exotic but as well the austere, the sophistication and the celebrated. The handling of colours, surface but also the poetic moments and the spiritual aspects behind.

I celebrated plenty successes in Japan and grew with these, so I owe a lot to the Japanese. We found each other. I was always fascinated and excited about it, to the point that Gordon, one of the owners of Closed, and I started to take Japanese lessons.

This hunger is not satisfied yet- and will always find itself in my work again.

RH: What is the last thing that stimulated you?

KM: I was very inspired by the exhibition of Martin Kippenberger: the incredible freedom of a man in dealing with the most different tools. I have great respect for his state of mind that moved me to tears of joy. I haven’t laughed that much for a while. All my senses had been spurred through this.

CLOSED

This interview and photographs are a Stimuleye exclusive
interview and photography RENÉ HABERMACHER
fashion editor SUZANNE VON AICHINGER
hair JONATHAN GEIMON @ AIRPORT AGENCY using Bumble and Bumble
make up MIN KIM @ AIRPORT AGENCY
model KATE B @ NEXT MODELS
thank you VERSAE VANNI @ NEXT PARIS
and LIBRAIRIE Ofr PARIS for your support

USA, 1963, Washington, John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy receive the Moroccan king Hassan II
© Max Scheler Estate, Hamburg Germany

I remember Max Scheler with one of his beloved Davidoff cigarillos smoldering away nearby. He was an impressive character, with an elegant dryness that one would be tempted to account being Hamburgian, yet he was born a boy from Cologne. In his later years Max had dedicated his time entirely to taking care of the Herbert List estate – the iconic work of the photographer who shaped and mentored him. On one of my visits to the archives we went through folders and boxes of photographs and came so across prints of Max’ work for the first time, almost by accident. I had not been aware of his photography then, though i knew he had worked at Merian and founded the magazine GEO at Gruner & Jahr, introducing colour reportage to the wider audience.

I’ve talked with co-curator Olaf Richter, head of the estates of both Herbert List and Max Scheler about Max, his background and the relationship to Herbert List and the current exhibition

RENÉ HABERMACHER: How did this exhibition come together- and why right now?
PEER-OLAF RICHTER: The idea of this show was born in February 2003 – the month Max Scheler died.  It took us about 6 years to finish this project.  Why did it take so long?  Max Scheler was humble if not neglecting his own work. He stopped working as a photographer in 1975 and since then had turned the tables. He rather worked to publish other photographers work, than his own.

I took quite a bit of effort to rediscover what was going on in his life as a photographer. The negatives from the late 50s until the mid 70s were in a rough chronological order, but before that, the first 8 years, were all over the place.  For us the first period was especially interesting, because it told us something of where he was coming from. He learnt photography from another photographer: Herbert List.

Herbert List printed the images that he considered important. The Estate had a rich base of vintage prints that covered all the projects he worked on in his life time. These prints were frequently titled on the back. The main books on List that had been on the market had all been made with these prints as a basis.

For Max Scheler things are very different. There is not that much vintage material, and it is hard to say if these old images reflect his personal choice or some editors preference. So we went back to the negative and contacts and researched there. Unfortunately the negative have only a rough labelling, and therefore it took a lot longer to make a selection, research locations and titles.

Max would always put Herbert’s work ahead of his own – which was something that I never understood. Why this hesitation?
I guess he felt that his work of that period, was the work of a pupil, while the work of his teacher, was really what was worth remembering. It is interesting how close the two worked together. After an initial year or two as an assistant on the road and in the darkroom, Scheler started getting his own assignments, gained some respect, moved from Munich to Paris, met Robert Capa and  even became a junior member of Magnum.

How did the relationship of the two evolve after the first meeting during war in Munich: personally and professionally? I am also asking that as I have a special interest in the idea of the “stimulating” mentor.
I guess stimulation needs at least to prerequisites. At first the receiver of the stimulus needs to be in a situation of wanting to open up, receive a certain change in her/his perception and possibly even her/his life. And the stimulus must also be desireable and fit the pattern of interest of the receiver. If the stimulus is too foreign or threatening it might be rejected. I think these things fell in place when Max Scheler met Herbert List.

He was very young then- it must have been the shaping experience…

Max and his mother left Cologne in 1941, when Max was 13 or 14 years of age. Around the same time List left Athens, because Germany invaded Greece. He had tried to immigrate to the USA but failed and had to return to Germany. Max was raised without a father, since he died the year Max was born.  The sudden presence of a male person of authority in the life of Max and his mother was quite welcome. Not to be misunderstood all three of them were very liberal, unconventional and forward thinking persons. None of them wanted to construct a classical family. It was more the realisation of his mother that this very sophisticated photographer in his forties did spark some certain interest and outlook in the young max’ life, that she possibly could not, because the was too close. She of course realized that he was gay and therefore no husband material. But she might have also understood that the conventional reaction of a mother to not allow her son to have contact to a 25 years-older gay man, would have been rather short-sighted.

So through the turmoil of the war they kept close contact.

The stimulation we talked about earlier, that caused Max Scheler to learn a craft, languages and a certain ‘savoir vivre’ from Herbert List, developed through that time.

And I think that it was manyfold. I am not sure if photography was really the most potent influence here. And I am not sure what was going on between the two of them emotionally. Did they fall in love? That is speculation, but I guess it safe to say that a certain amount of love and trust is necessary to allow oneself to be stimulated.

In that context – I am wondering what kind of surrounding Max was born into?
Max family background is rather interesting and must have been very intellectually stimulating. The father was next to Heidegger the most prominent German philosopher of his time. And I dare say with regards to his several marriages and scandalous affairs his outlook on life must have also been rather liberal. Also his mother was a very autonomous person. Raising a boy by yourself during the war was a destiny she shared with many women at that time, but to be the publisher of her husbands writings and lectures after his death, surely required some intellectual capacity and stamina.

So little Max already came with some added ballast weight, preparing him in a way for this relationship…
Well… I would not call it a burden, but it is interesting that he would choose an opposite lifestyle from his father. Being a straight man with several marriages, that opened his mind from a desk or auditorium in German midsize towns like Jena or Cologne, he would rather take after List, and go out and explore the world visually.

But then again his relentless work for the estate of his mentor in later year of his life is quite similar to the position his mother took with the writings of her husband.

USA, 1961, Los Angeles, All around the country private fall out shelters are available, in case the A-bomb will be dropped.
Part of an extensive reportage on the defense of the USA in cold war times. © Max Scheler Estate, Hamburg Germany

In regards to that highly academic family background, one perhaps would consider Max’s path to see the world as a photographer as rather flamboyant….
To be honest I think Max was everything else but flamboyant… that adjective better describes Capote or Liberace. Max was almost conservative, classical italian in his choice of clothes, his furniture, slightly sportive with his cars — he owned several Porsche. And not least the motorcycle he was riding until his 70th birthday.

To what you said before regarding mentoring : I would say that tradition is being carried on in your “house” in one way or another  – Herbert – Max – Michael – and now you.
Yes…we are diverting.

So they had a concept of partnership or family in a very unconventional way. Max clearly passed this tradition on.  He invited us, Michael and me, to share a very open life with him. He enabled Michael and to a certain extent also me to study, and not least to travel, see the world, and get to know interesting people.

So let’s talk about carrying on the torch. Herbert List enabled Max to leave postwar germany and go and explore the world. Max lived in Paris and then Rome in his twenties – Rome was clearly the place to be in the mid-fifties. And he met a tons of interesting and important people.  So all this he kind of owes to List. The man who gave him a camera. And they were a family at times, and then at other time they did not see each other for a few months, since Max was in Africa or Asia on assignment, or Herbert made a book in the caribbean.

Herberts maintained many relationships to artists and celebrities of the time, which is evident in his work. What was the social surrounding of Max like?

Max had quite a few artist friends himself, some of them rather being pop culture – singer, actors. But he was not the one that the magazine sent to do in depth portraits of an artist with a difficult or complex attitude.

Politicians, Industrialists, Monarchy, — such things would be his beat. He had very good manners, was fluent in 5 languages and sophisticated and charming. That opened many doors.

USA, 1964, Atlanta, Martin Luther King and his family on a sunday walk. © Max Scheler Estate, Hamburg Germany

To me it felt Herbert’s view was very driven by “sehnsucht”, a certain longing, while Max’s work stood as rather pragmatic, living through “zwischentoene” [nuances], maybe in that way recalling the metaphysic approach of his “mentor”?
It is very difficult to talk about their work from a biographical, psychological background. There is lots of room for speculation there.

I think the justified comparison between the two leads to the difference on how Herbert saw photography as a young man looking for an outlet of his creative energy and how Max might have seen it.

Herbert saw himself an amateur – not meaning dilletant with little knowledge of technique and such, but rather, that he refused to work on commercial assignments. After the war the situations changed for him, but at least that were his roots.

For Max photography was always a profession and he was a “gun for hire”. In terms of composition and atmosphere a lot of the early images of Max still relate to the style of List. He thinks in single shots, not in whole photo essays. After the initial 5 years in the business that changed. Like List in the mid 50s,  he switched from the Rolleiflex to the Leica, from single shots to story telling through a series of images.

List actually took his first 35mm pictures with Max’s camera. Max had a Leica first, List followed.

It is interesting to see how Herbert went into a different approach later on with work that goes more in the direction of reportage. As the special issues on Naples for DU magazine for example…
Herbert saw himself clearly as an artist. Even in his years he worked as a photographer for money, he always tried to maintain complete control over what he was doing. It was his vision and his idea and the camera was his tool. He therefore related to all artist on and eye to eye level.

I think the war and the horror surrounding it, really initiated a shift in Lists work and also gave a base to Max’ interest with the Camera. List was very much interested in photographing objects, architecture, still-lifes and landscapes in the 1930 and 40s. But he changed and started focussing on the human being. This shift to “human interest” was not a singular incident for the work of List, but happened all over. A rougher style of photography – out on the streets, in peoples life, focussing on their emotions – became popular. For List this was something that he added to his vocabulary, but for Max Scheler, this was always the main focus. He was a “died in the wool” human interest photographer.

What is the last thing that stimulated you?
I saw the movie IMPORT/EXPORT last night on Arte. That really moved but also disturbed me. It reminded me of photos of Antoine d’Agata. His book STIGMA is one of the best.

The exhibition “From Konrad A. to Jackie O.” runs to 31.07.2011 at the Willy-Brandt Haus in Berlin
Tuesday to Sunday 12.00-18.00, Willy-Brandt-Haus, Wilhelmstraße 140 / Stresemannstraße 28, 10963 Berlin-Kreuzberg