Photography by René Habermacher.

Styling by Suzanne von Aichinger, with Maison Martin Margiela.
Concept by Antoine Asseraf.

Transcribed by Amandine Flament. Translated by Edward Siddons.
Assisted by Amandine Flament & Ed Siddons.

read more on PARIS IS DEAD.COM

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

This season, the themes are goddesses, fine porcelain and… Lee Radziwill makes a sublime and subliminal appearance.

Giambattista Valli Haute Couture 5

After vanishing for two years from the Parisian catwalk, he returned with a vengeance and presented his new collection to an audience that awaited his return, with mix of patience and restlessness.

Inside out: Undercover dress with entrails, bone and skull lace, a heart on the right spot for the scary cute.
Photo by René Habermacher.

The show at the intimate venue of the Institute Pasteur started with much delay, yet the undercover flock of disciples, among them the devoted Grace Coddington, awaited patiently what was to come from behind the antique glass-panelled doors: scary kittens with bunny masks on ponytailed shoes, wearing their insides out, ribcages and organs on outer display. Skeletal hands grasping waist lines, vintage lingerie elaborately piled-on to sleeveless evening jackets. Little dresses with what seemed to be ruffles at first glance, turned to be a romantic interpretation of entrails slung around the décolleté and a sparkling crystal studded heart.

Surprising,- or in the case of Jun Takahashi actually not- the arch from the drama of the unique pieces to the extremely wearable parts of the collection: googly eyes on a waxed trench coat, or the return of Undercover’s signature pieces, the perfecto, and the trench, with double collar and worn as a dress.

This is where the strength of Jun’s subversive vision lays: there is no friction between the everyday pieces and the elaborate constructed parts of his universe. Seamlessly he migrates between outfitter to the urban hipster to action art performer creating his giant Grace dolls from vintage plush toys in front of a bedazzled audience. The Graces, creatures from outer space were originally created for the presentation of the Undercover collection SS09 became somewhat of the labels mascot.

Starch undercover: special pieces made from deconstructed men's white shirt collars. Photo by René Habermacher.

René Habermacher: How is it to be back in Paris?

Jun Takahashi: It’s very exciting! Its been two years since we had the last show, so I am so happy!

You received well deserved great critics for this show of return.
how did you start with this collection, and how did it evolve and what is the narration?

Last season when we came back to paris having just the showroom, I made seven special crafted pieces. It’s been a while  since I’ve made such a creation and enjoyed it a lot.
It was just for the showroom, but this season i wanted to present a collection on the runway to show it to a broader audience. That’s how I started this collection.
The theme of the collection is about internal organs and bones, showing something from the inside exposed to the outside. Like lingerie that is usually hidden underneath, I used to make dresses and so expose them to the outside. That’s kind of the theme of the collection.

Why did you decide at this moment to take the inside to outside?

I don’t know why (laughs). It’s been a while I wanted to show the “inside”. This is very undercover. It’s easy to express “Undercover”.
The motifs of organs and bones have something grotesque and scary in peoples minds. I take this and make it cute. It’s about both sides: not just scary, not just cute. we have both sides in the brand.

Pile-on vintage lingerie evening jacket. Photo by René Habermacher.

Are you a story teller?

(laughs) To me show is one big story,  one drama, one stage. In a way I am not just making clothes, but one big tale, a story.
Since I was little I preferred the scary stories. I like Hitchcock movies. I am not necessarily into the ghostly but prefer the mental story.

Another aspect is a strong sense of subculture evident in your work.
It is very different today then when you started off. What is subculture for you today?

Most of he people surrounding me in Tokyo come from subculture, its a normal thing for me – its music, movies etc. not the mainstream. People in subculture are not specifically specialized in something – they don’t have mass-apeal. I like that. I source from this and then present my version in the “mass-area” like Paris.

Do you think exposure is dangerous for subculture?

The dark side of sub-culture! (laughs)
I take this positive. We always want to have information very quick- and I find this bloggers taking snapshots in the street very interesting, it’s really like I use the internet. How quick they are, it’s impossible for the print to catch up. Myself I like to post on Facebook and use the internet as a communication tool.

Is the “season” still relevant to you?

When I design i don’t really think of the season. But when it comes to selling, we have to take this into consideration. For example in Japan we start selling FW collection in July, which is very difficult to sell Winter clothes because its still very hot for another 3 months until October.  So we have to think about the balance between the creation and the business.  So that’s difficult.  We cannot completely ignore the seasons but not only thinking about seasons.
The runway shows’ timing are getting earlier and earlier and it takes time to actually get in the store.

Undercover signature: the trench. Right: Pile-on vintage lingerie evening jacket. Photo by René Habermacher.

How is Japan to you today with the changes the country had been affected with the tsunami and the Fukushima incident especially?

Since the disaster was such a big thing and with the economical situation everybody’s feeling was like “hit the bottom.” We cannot be worse anymore. But now the people are actually trying to go up to be positive, they step back and reflect what can we do to recover from such a disaster. Maybe the government is not helping us that much, but people are trying to do something themselves, try to get the economy back and be positive.

How do you imagine the future your kids are growing up into?

They are little kids right now, but they are starting to have their own will where they wanna go. I am not so worried about them because they will find a way by themselves. We’re concerned about the future and the nuclear problem in fukushima, the earthquakes and what kind of effect this will have on us, but my kids will find their own way so I am not too much worried.

Are you still telling your kids stories of Grace? How is Grace, will we hear again from your creature?

I will continue with Grace- but Grace is not for little kids. They get a little scared… with one eye and all that.
I have a Grace doll in my house but at the beginning the kids were a little scared.

But if you were a kid you would not be scared…

It’s scary – but there is an attraction too!

What’s next?

Showing the next collection in Paris again!

What is the last thing that stimulated you?

So many various things! conversations with friends – it’s not just one – it’s many different things.
I absorb everything. Family and friends are important. It’s important to have close friends that are straightforward in their opinion what they think about me, instead of just hiding things. It’s important to me to listen to them. A lot of my friends are creators, photographers doing their own thing. Their opinion is very important to me.
As I get older I get inspired and stimulated by more and more things. I can accept anything like a bus ticket.

Trilogy in white starch: dresses from deconstructed men's white shirt collars. Photo by René Habermacher.

http://www.undercoverism.com

The choice of name for the label is perhaps the most telling. John Lawrence Sullivan, the man, is a heavyweight boxing champion, also known as the “Boston strong boy,” and godfather of sorts  to Arashi, who quit a promising boxing career to fight in another type of ring. 

Ever since entering the seasonal arena of fashion week in Paris, he’s championed his collections in the eye of attention, with the likes of Suzy Menkes a constant follower. In this context, Arashi’s unconventional vision of the sharp tailored sportsman is most compelling.

Arashi Yanagawa backstage after his John Lawrence Sullivan presentation. Photography by René Habermacher

René Habermacher: Hello Arashi, how is it being back in Tokyo after your last show in the ring fight of Paris fashion week?
Arashi Yanagawa: I’m getting ready for the next match in June. While I’m always relaxed in the end, I also always begin thinking about the next collection right away. It’s exactly the same as in boxing.

RH: In your work, specially your most recent collection, I sense a strong fascination with British culture.
but you’re successfully showing your 3rd collection, you chose Paris to present it…
AY: I believe Paris is the most important location for fashion in terms of the both the culture and the history of the industry. Paris has a special eye for beauty and elegance. No other place draws as many journalists, buyers, and fashionistas. All of this naturally makes Paris a very attractive city for presenters, but I also appreciate how strict everyone in Paris is towards creativity.

RH: And what is it with you and London? 
AY: London has street fashion just like Tokyo, but it also brings history and tradition into the mix. I’m impressed by the way all of this culture has just naturally rubbed off on the younger generations. Another example of something that has really moved me is the culture of the London market where you see young people today buying and even demanding clothing designed a century ago.

Rehearsals for John Lawrence Sullivan FW13. Photography by René Habermacher

RH: how do you decide for what you’ll go next? what is your creative process?
AY: I input the “sense” of the things I see or hear in my daily life and stockpile them. These could be colors, silhouettes, light, or even materials. But, I make an effort to express my own sense of the now rather than just making things based on historical research.

RH: For the current summer collection the theme was influenced by the Bauhaus movement.
Why did you feel the urge for this now, and how did you translate that into the clothes?
AY: I had a chance to go to Berlin, so I paid a visit to the Bauhaus school in Dessau and took in the artwork there. I found the combinations of wood, leather, and metal used in the products there particularly interesting, and thought it might be fun to try doing the same things with apparel. So, I made the theme “Bauhaus” and began putting together the collection while referencing architectural cutting, artistic colors, and product techniques.

John Lawrence Sullivan's "Bauhaus" inspired collection, SS13. Photography by René Habermacher

RH: can you tell me more about “ELECTRIC AFRICA”: theme of the collection FW13/14, you just showed in Paris, what ideas are behind it?
AY: “Electric Africa” is a coined phrase. I had the idea to create a new, modern vision by combining tribal patterns associated directly with Africa with flashy colors instead of the standard earth tones. Tribal (triangular) elements were worked into various items and aspects like the cutting of the tailored jackets or the placement of the buttons. I also added a spacey essence reminiscent of the crop circles that suddenly appear in fields to the accessories, colors, and textures.

RH: This collection also sports extraordinary footwear. Your sneakers have been hailed throughout. How did this design come together?
AY: I wanted create something akin to sneakers or trekking shoes, so I used Vibram soles. I also combined the base colors of the seasonwith highly contrasting hues in order to bring out a sense of Africa. I worked with a brand called ORPHIC when making the shoes.

RH: Since you dropped your boxing for founding your label, fashion in Japan underwent quite some changes. How do you see the japanese approach today, what is your viewpoint and what influenced you over the course of time?
AY: When I started my brand in Tokyo my image was much more aggressive. I feel like back then many of the magazines adopted a fashionable approach, and that the buyers tried to answer the challenges the designers undertook with respect. But, as the economy got worse the magazines switched to much more easy to understand catalog-like appearance in order to make sales, which in turn influenced buyers, whose customers were influenced by this, to become much more conservative in their selections. So, there were a lot of negative things occurring in fashion here. The Tokyo runway shows were no different, as the focus shifted conspicuously to more “real” presentations rather shows with a bit a fantasy or elegance to them. Feeling all of this made me want to do my shows somewhere more stimulating, so I chose Paris.

"Electric Africa", John Lawrence Sullivan FW13. Photography by René Habermacher

RH: While developing your collection, are you having a specific type of man in the back of your head?
AY: I always imagine a man who possesses both beauty and strength in terms of appearance and mind. If I were to provide a sportsman as an example, there is a certain boxer who comes to mind…

RH: Are there any parallels you can draw between your sports career and the one in fashion? 
AY: One thing I realized when I first started working in fashion is that there is a common trait shared by boxing matches and fashion shows that only I seemed to notice. This was the way in which you worry over something that will last only few minutes on a single day for months in advance, battling with your anxieties and, as long as you don’t give up, preparing for the next match as soon as it’s all over regardless of whether you won or lost. The way everything seems so fleeting and transient once it’s all said and done is also the same.

RH: The understanding of classic tailoring is a very strong element in your work. Now you started your women’s line: how does this apply here? 
AY: Incorporating classic tailoring into women’s fashion is one of the most important elements for John Lawrence Sullivan. This isn’t something just any brand can do, so it’s something we will continue to actively working with in the future. One of the differences between men’s and women’s fashion for me was the way in which things like esthetic elements concealing points I had complexes about confused me a bit at first. Now I feel that I have learned to use men’s techniques to deal with these things.

Showboard with looks and cast for "Electric Africa". Photography by René Habermacher

RH: As you added another collection to your house – your work wheel must spin faster evidently, with 4 instead of 2 presentations.
AY: I always think of how I can break down the restrictions of the tailored look when I do my men’s designs. While there is the sense that I can be confident in breaking these restrictions down precisely because they exist, but with women’s my process is one of imposing my own restrictions on the things I design freely. So, there is a sense of mutual stimulation between my men’s and women’s lines that has been a good influence in my opinion. That said, I am definitely much busier than before…

RH: Do you feel urged by the increasing numbers of pre-collections and cruise collections that the big houses lately launch?
AY: This is most likely just a sign of the conservative sales trends we’re seeing worldwide right now.The big houses are just doing this as a way of making sure they continue to pull in revenue. I too feel that JLS must do the same if we are to continue showing in Paris, so I’ll be considering various strategies for this in the days to come.

RH: With clients all over the globe in different climate zones: do “season oriented” collections make still sense to you? (already the weather in Japan is quite different to the north american or european)
AY: Breaking things up by season allows designers to change up their mood and add depth to the presentation, so I most definitely think it has meaning. But, I also feel that in terms of actual sales it is often seasonless items that perform the best.

"Electric Africa", John Lawrence Sullivan FW13. Photography by René Habermacher

RH: How do you perceive the present of fashion?
AY: I think what we are seeing is a mixture of various styles coming together.
This is also exactly why I feel that you can’t make it in this day and age unless you believe in yourself and keep making bold presentations. I guess you could say I feel we’re in an era where only the essentials survive. I want JLS to continue to be a brand that always takes up the challenge of presenting in Paris.

RH: What is up next? 
AY: The designs for my women’s exhibition in March and preparations for the 2014 S/S season.

RH: What is the last thing you saw, read, heard or felt that stimulated you?
AY: Tadao Ando, James Turrell, Donald Judd, Taro Okamoto, Talking Heads, Pixies, David Bowie, Wes Anderson, Jim Jarmusch, Kinji Fukasaku

Website: John Lawrence Sullivan

You can ask Kenzo Takada, Martin Margiela, John Galliano, Valentino Garavani or Helmut Lang – designers who, for various reasons, left the company which bears their name, and then had to make themselves a new name, in fashion or elsewhere.

Or you can ask Monsieur Hervé Léger, the legendary French designer who took fashion by storm with his body-conscious designs, ultimately embodied by the “bandage” dresses. Monsieur Hervé Léger does not design for Hervé Léger, the company. Monsieur Hervé Léger designs for Hervé L.Leroux, a nom de mode suggested by Karl Lagerfeld.

Photography by René Habermacher

Filep Motwary, who met Monsieur Hervé through model and muse Suzanne Von Aichinger, talked with the designer as he prepared his new couture collection for Summer 2013, now on display in Paris in Colette and on presentation in Monsieur Léger’s new but history-laden atelier.

Filep Motwary: So, how is your day so far?

Mr. Hervé Léger: Well it’s cool. I am peaceful today. Yesterday I was not, but today I am.

F.M: You are getting ready for your Couture collection ?

Mr.HL: Yes, you see I am a professional, I try to do everything in the right context and I do not like to keep my people working at night and we are trying to be efficient and of course we will be ready on time. You know I’ve been creating for a long time, but because I didn’t want to make shows, my comeback is under new conditions. And it figures that some people always followed me and now I sell worldwide. Business is good now finally again and I am pleased.

(As we speak, Suzanne Von Aichinger and René Habermacher are working in the showroom photographing the garments),

F.M: I understand. Do you mind if you help me fill some gaps of your life’s storyline, because it’s out there, but not fully completed… So, it was during the late 1970’s that you started-off your career as a hat maker and hairdresser?

Mr.HL: (Laughs) It’s a crazy story, but… I’ll try to make it short. I had done some studies like everyone, I went as a young man to the Beaux Arts in France though I only stayed for one year as it was the 70’s and France was all about manifestations at the time and intense political changes. As students, we were on the streets demonstrating and I wasn’t learning a lot since everything was on strike.

I also wanted to be independent from my parents and wanted to do something by myself, to work. I am very good with my hands; I am a craftsman and can do everything with them in terms of creation so I decided to be a hairdresser. Although I didn’t study hair, I learnt the job very quickly by opening the door of a hair-salon telling them I wanted to learn. They took me and stayed there for a while. Then I started to make hats, after finding a book at my grandmother’s house, which was full of illustrations on how to make them. The first customers arrived and I was working at home. So there goes the “hat story”.

Then one day someone who was famous in the 1970’s asked me to do a very particular hat, a-giant-sort of “Belle Époque” hat with a lobster on it (laughs). The guy’s name was Tan Guidicelli, whom you probably might know. It wasn’t long enough until he asked me to make three dresses for his show because his atelier was very busy and his show was in three days. Although I had never designed any dresses before, I said “Ok, I’ll do them” and when he saw them he said “ you got a real sense of fashion and you should stop hairdressing and come work with me”. So that was my first fashion encounter.

Of course I dropped hairdressing and started to learn sewing. Later I went into design. My second big encounter was Karl Lagerfeld.

The 1980’s were an easy time. You could easily meet someone. People were more open. Even during my days as a hairdresser, with my friends, you could end up having dinner with Claude Montana, Mugler, Lagerfeld etc. It was not such a big deal as it is today. It was proper dinners you know, not charities. So at the time I met Karl at the house of a journalist friend and something happened immediately. We started talking about corsets (at the time I was fascinated by corsets). So that was on Saturday and on Monday my friend from “Woman’s Wear Daily” called to say “Karl wants to see you.” So I went with a few sketches and he said, “ Well, I don’t care about your sketches, I’m looking for an assistant at Fendi in Rome” and I said “Yes!”.
So by next Friday I was on the plane flying to Italy.

Then I went to Chanel for one year and worked for him until I was fired.
I created my own label in 1985 but the bandage dresses came out only in early 1990’s. I don’t consider the beginning of my career started in the 80’s. My career, as I see it started in the 90’s.

F.M: Tell me about the bandage dress…

Mr.HL: The real story of the bandage dress is important as a fact of my work storyline. I was having a show at Angelina Tea Salon in Paris, and I wanted something glamorous for the finale. I didn’t have the fabrics. A few days later, I went to a factory and found some bands of metallic yarn, sort of lurex. I asked, “What is this?” and I was told “its for the garbage”. So I took that and I started to put one yarn next to the other and started molding the bands on the dummy, exactly like you do hats. And that’s how the first bandage dress was born. I did the show and it was a success.

I was hooked on these new for me materials and started to experiment. In the beginning, I did not want to put any zippers because I wanted to create a dress with no seams. The problem was that I did make the dress with no seams but when one of my clients got herself in, she couldn’t get out (Laughs).

Then came the presentation of nine dresses in the office of my press attaché at the time. The fashion journalists from American Elle made pictures and became a success very quickly.

F.M: This technique you are working on, the way you make your garments is really one of its kind. Allow me to say that I see them as dresses for women to please men…

Mr.HL: It’s true! Its because they make women look great. The fit is great because it shapes the body. For example, the body of a young girl is not my cup of tea. I like bodies with a bosom, with a waist, curves…

My dresses can give a shape even to bodies that are not perfect. This is why I think men love them the same that women who wear them. They seem almost like a modern corset with no bones. The fit that a woman experiences at Herve L.Leroux is the fit I invented at Hervé Leger. Even in my couture dresses today, I use the bands and my own technique, the one I invented then.

F.M: Hervé, I want to ask you about the true story about what happened. How did you lose control of Hervé Léger in 1999.

Mr.HL: People say that I sold it. That’s a lie, I mean I wish I would have sold it.

When the bandage dresses started to be famous, a man that was fascinated by them approached me. He said to me “I went to a party in Caracas and a woman arrived in one of your dresses and everybody went crazy.” He “chased” and sent me some bankers asking to be my partner. Of course I said “Yes” because I wanted to develop this business and I didn’t have to run after any partner anymore…

It was a nice combination and it was Seagram, a very powerful group who invested money and soon Hervé Léger became a major house.
Though I had to be very conscious about the number of sales, otherwise they would drop me. The story is that the guy from Seagram decided to get rid of a few companies they had in order to invest on a bigger French company called Vivendi. At the end he sold everything, including me, although he assured me before that he would find me a new partner and he would help to finance the changes.

I had someone who wanted to buy the company from Seagram, they put the dossier in the bank’s hands and then they sold it to Max Azria. So he bought it, though I tried to make it work but it fact it didn’t. At the time I was only left with 5% of the company…
When people invest in a company, especially in the fashion industry, the designer or the name behind the company, has to stay part of it otherwise it won’t invest.

Some people like Donna Karan, did it in a very clever way for example.
I guess it didn’t work for me because I didn’t have good lawyers at the time…

I didn’t agree with the strategy and they fired me from the house I had created. The worst of it all was that he didn’t know what to do with the house of Léger for a long time. In 2007, which is quite recent I may say, at the same moment when I decided to do ready-to-wear again, he opened the archives he started to re-do my dresses from back then for Hollywood stars and the bandage dresses were successful again.

F.M: And what did you do?

Mr.HL: Wolford contacted me and they asked me to work for them… Then came my shop. The problem was I couldn’t use my name anymore. It’s Karl Lagerfeld who came up with the idea of Hervé Leroux. He said “you’ve got red hair” so it has to be called Hervé Leroux and put the “L.” in the middle, who knows one day you can do again “Hervé Léger Leroux.”

F.M: So, back to your collection. How did you start again?

Mr.HL: In 2000 I did a comeback with ready-to-wear and I had immediately lots of customers coming, especially from America. Then came another incident, 9/11. No one came after that.

It affected everyone and the business went downhill. That’s when I decided to stop ready-to-wear as it was very expensive to create, have production control, distribution etc… So since then, I focused on Couture until 2007, only for private customers and some shops that wanted to buy a few of my pieces. It was a difficult time but I survived.

It was in 2007 when my customers wanted my ready-to-wear again and it went very good. We are in Colette and so many other prestigious boutiques around the world now. I am very satisfied.

F.M: You are a designer that works with couture methods, a real artisan. How do you see the use of “future” references and approach in fashion in combination with technology?

Mr.HL: I think moving towards the future is good for this business, generally speaking..

Sewing a dress is always sewing a dress.
For me what is more important is that the clothes look good and made with good materials. I know nothing about technology whatsoever. I know that my clothes are very true; I use very particular techniques to make them. I am more of a couturier rather than a stylist. I don’t go scouting for old clothes to re-do them, I don’t search for ideas around. Even at moments when I wanted to copy someone, I just couldn’t do it you know?

Other’s people’s clothes don’t inspire me. I am obsessed by my own ways of creation and I feel lucky to have customers starting from 16 to 70. I am never about trends; I see no use in them. Today I have the feeling that it is all about money. Designers today don’t spend hours fitting a dress on a body. They do it on dummies. I feel comfortable with the way I work.

F.M: How were the 1980’s and 1990’s fashion scene compared to what we see today?

Mr.HL: Oh my God, things were so happy back then, so happy. The 70’s, the 80’s and the 90’s. People were passionate and they could make money from that passion. Bankers, investors or whatever you call them didn’t really exist then so designers were freer. Only one thing Filep, the aesthetic of the girls then is what is missing from today.

Or the power the shows had back then. Think of Montana and Mugler!! Oh my God, the girls were so beautiful, the way they walked. I feel lucky for living through that era working with all of them; from Linda to Cindy… I had them all.

And they were so full compared to today that everyone is so skinny. And all my models loved the clothes; you know a lot of clothes would disappear after the show (laughs). Even during fittings those girls would feel the clothes, they were posing.

Today my favorite show is Victoria’s Secret because it’s a happy one. I am not saying girls are not beautiful today, I just think shows today have become boring and less inspiring. They look like robots and there is no charm. I really wonder if I was to do a show today how I should do it and not look ridiculous and dated.

And sometimes I speak with journalists and they are bored of the current situation too.
Anyway, I am not ready to do a show now also because I am not a kid. If I do a show it has to be made the right way as a good show also costs a lot of money.

F.M: Maybe you could do a little show in a Hotel Suite like couturiers used to do back in the 50’s.

Mr.HL: Hmm, yes. For this season I just wanted to show the work the way it is. Starting on Monday, Colette will have 5 of my dresses in the window and on Thursday I am showing another 12 pieces in my showroom as I have been invited by the Chamber of Haute Couture and it feels wonderful.

F.M: What is this collection about?

Mr.HL: You know I never start saying “I’m going to do this and that”. I just grab my fabric and start working. All I can say is that 80% of the collection is done and it looks like a walk in a Japanese garden. The drapes are very graphic in the sense of Japanese design…

F.M: Why does couture still breath? Is it merely a question of tradition? Why does it still interest people?

Mr.HL: It’s exceptional I would say with an excellence. Although the world has changed and we are in the middle of a crisis, luxury is always surviving. What is luxury about today is another story than what it used to be. There are a lot of luxury houses that produce clothes or bags in Taiwan etc. but, there are still women who want to dream. I see my clients… And the movie stars I dress – of course they don’t buy the clothes (laughs).

There are still women who are not in the spotlight, not in the newspapers yet they prefer couture because it is special. They are in search of the perfect fit and for me the fit is something important.

F.M: Why is couture so personal as it requires the customer and the designer in a very private session?

Mr.HL: There are less and less couture houses as time goes by. Chanel is a real Couture house for example because they have the right hands to do the artisanship, Gaultier also as well as Dior. Couture has a certain way of doing it, it has its own rules, and also the fabrics are richer. Everything is on made on perfect scale. There are more and more rich people and the opposite, which I find very depressing. We can say there are people who are rich today and they are richer than what the term “rich” meant 20 years ago..
Those who spend, really spend…

F.M: What provokes the strongest emotions in you nowadays, compared to what made you emotional in the past?

Mr.HL: When I was “Hervé Léger” I was never satisfied. Nothing was good enough and I always thought I could do better. Today, although I still want to do better I become emotional by looking at my own dresses, a feeling I never had before.
I am happier today because I don’t have anybody else involved in my business; I have a great team of loyal people working with me. Also what is very emotional for me is when I see women trying my clothes on.

F.M: What is next for you?

Mr.HL: I’m working on developing my business. A perfume that I am working on. I want to start doing accessories, shoes, lingerie and swimsuits. Also my customers locked me in my atelier designing dresses – at least I am famous for something (laughs)- but you know I am very good in designing suits, coats, pants and blouses…

Basically when you are wearing Herve L.Leroux, is for the evening. I want to make day-wear too. Although every time I do they never buy it, but I’m going to push.

The interview is a collaboration project between Un nouVeau iDEAL and The Stimuleye.
interview FILEP MOTWARY
photography RENE HABERMACHER
fashion editor SUZANNE VON AICHINGER
hair PANOS PAPANDRIANOS
make up YIANNIS SISKOS
model ANNA MARTYNOVA@ NEXT MODELS

thank you VERSAE VANNI @ NEXT PARIS

We nominate Margiela at Schiaparelli and order him not to make any collections to preserve the surrealist spirit of the house.”

Curator Olivier Saillard hosted another one of his legend-in-the-making performances during couture week, this time in the intimate setting of the APC headquarters.

For 30 minutes, Saillard and his collaborator Violetta Sanchez pushed the classic man’s grey blazer to the limit (and beyond) by showing 25 ways it could be worn, while reciting a surreal list of nominations that read like a “who’s who” and a “what’s-wrong” with today’s fashion scene.

Can’t wait to see what Saillard comes up with next.

Forget the market.
For founder James Brett, it’s about special things, made by special people, people who haven’t gone to art school or thought of showing their work, much less of selling it.

Antoine Asseraf: What started you on The Museum of Everything project ?

James Brett: I don’t come from a particularly artistic family and my parents never taught me what creativity meant – but as a child I had a lot of it and it always got in the way.

And so I worked in different industries and was working in film, and I remember meeting a very interesting photographer, the late Bob Richardson. He was the father of Terry Richardson. Terry’s a terrible photographer (sorry!) but Bob was a genius. He was the first person who really told me that “You don’t choose it, it chooses you”.

In the same way, I can’t really tell you why I started The Museum of Everything. I didn’t set out to do it, I wasn’t interested in art, exhibitions, nothing. But I was working in film and I know film very well, I studied acting, so I’m creatively interested. And in my travels I started to see artworks, first of all by people in the American South, that was just cool and graphic. I always liked graphic novel and comics as a child – and as an adult frankly – and they started speaking to me.

The artworks were cheap, really like 20-25 bucks, and the more I looked the more I found. I started finding better examples, and realized there was a whole history in America of folk art, African-American art and self-taught art which seemed to come from the individual, it didn’t have the pretension or the words of formally-trained artists, and it was immediate. As a film-maker I loved that, because I’m not really interested in what you are or what you say, I’m interested in the stuff, in what you do.

As I continued I saw there were some other areas that had a great psychological depth. For example, the work of Henry Darger. I discovered there was a word for it, Art Brut, of which Dubuffet was the proponent. And that also interested me because in my youth, I was fascinated by the mind, how the mind works, and why we make the choices we do, all of this sort of existential philosophy of life.

Prophet Royal Robertson
untitled (NO DIVORCE WHORE's ALLOWED), c 1980
© The Museum of Everything

Henry Darger
untitled (Mascot Girlscout 20th Grade), c 1940/60
© The Museum of Everything

I also saw there were no museums in Britain that really showed this work, and when a big museum did a show, it kind of fell short of the truth and beauty of the work because historical curators often do not present this art with life or communicate the life and passion of these artists. They neutralize it, and contextualize it and dampen it, instead of this great glorious sound, you hear this “eek eek” tiny squeak.

I got to know a few people in the art world, like Hans Ulrich Obrist, director of the Serpentine Gallery, who encouraged me. We then found an old building and put lots of art inside it – and because I had a feeling nobody would come, I contacted lots of contemporary artists who I knew liked this work, people I knew personally, from Mamma Andersson, Ed Ruscha and Maurizio Cattelan, to people like Hans who I knew had an interest….

I said “Would you write about these artists, would you say something to help put this into a context?” – and that became a very interesting contextualization, because it meant I could let others speak for these unknown artists. And because the artists we were showing tend to be more anonymous, less verbal and more immediate and emotional, it was a fantastic mix.

We opened the doors during Frieze in 2009 and we had a monster hit. People wrote about us, we were going to be open for a few weeks and stayed up for 4 months. The show went over to Italy, then we did another one in London with Sir Peter Blake, and the more we did it, the more this thing we created had a life of its own and showed it could do some fascinating things.

WILLIAM HAWKINS, untitled (AtLAS BUI1dINg), 1980
THE MUSEUM OF EVERYTHING, EXHIBITION #1.1, PARIS, CHALET SOCIETY
PHOTO: NICOLAS KRIEF © THE MUSEUM OF EVERYTHING

We also did some unusual projects – we did one in Tate Modern where we advertised for self-taught and marginal artists, if they had a vision, if they had a disability, if they were somehow not within the main sphere of art, we said come show us the work, if we like it we’ll hang it up, we’ll do a temporary exhibition – it starts empty and it creates as we build. And people came ! There were so many people at the Tate, it was quite phenomenal! We met people you wouldn’t dream of meeting.

We also did a major show in London in Selfridge’s, which is a department store. They gave us this amazing opportunity, so we decided to use it to say something big – and what we did was go around the world looking for studios and ateliers for artists who have something wrong, what you’d call a learning disability, a handicap, but what other people might say is just a different ability, a different intelligence. It’s a euphemism, but how does the brain work, how do we communicate ?

For these people art was a language, even if they didn’t have a language. And we had every window of the store, so we put their work in the window, presenting them simply as artists. It was a huge show with almost 500 works and we made all kinds of products, because we thought “Fantastic, let’s communicate to the marketplace too”… it was huge hit and in hindsight, a very radical statement.

More recently we just came back from Russia, where we did the same thing we did at Tate. We built a mobile museum, we traveled from Yekaterinburg to Moscow, advertising for artists to see if they would come. That’s a another slightly radical idea – and we’re keen on doing this elsewhere in the world!

Aleksander Lobanov
untitled, c 1970/80
© The Museum of Everything

AA: What is the point where you thought you had a critical mass of art ? How much of this is stuff you collected ?

JB: I was pretty interested, but I’m fundamentally not a collector. Collecting is not interesting. If you ask me who the important collectors are, they’re the ones who actually did something, the great collectors who started the greatest museums of the world. It doesn’t matter if they’ve got 10 euros or 10 million euros. It’s the contextualization.

Absolutely my favorite museum in the world is the Casa do Pontal which is in Rio, started by a Belgian collector, interested in figures created by the local Brazilian artisans, it’s the greatest museum… Sir John Soane and his Soane Museum, unbelievable, filled with objects from around the world – these places are inspiring. They came from a collection, so there is a relationship.

Josef Karl Rädler
untitled, 1912
© The Museum of Everything

AA: I was wondering about the process of finding these works – I see a lot of things from Austria, is it because you’ve had the opportunity to go around Austria for while ?

JB: It’s a bit random, truth be told.

There’s often America because America is a big place with a good distribution system, plus there’s the haves and the have-nots so there’s two societies.There’s a lot of cultural values that come into play.

America’s interesting because I realized this work actually had a great similarity to Jazz and the Blues, so much of it was an African American story, and spoke of that particular migration, but it hadn’t been celebrated it in the same way. If you go to the Whitney, they’ll talk about the history of American Art, but you won’t find any of the self-taught African American artists there, they’ll tell you to go to the Studio Museum in Harlem.

Coming back to the question, these artists are everywhere. Not all of them are talented, but they’re everywhere, and for every 10 that are OK, one will be phenomenal. It’s a question of finding them, valuing them, privileging their work, trying to present it in a way that means something.

I come from film, I’m used to mise-en-scène. The thing to do when you make a film is not to keep the script in your head but to be in reality. Actors might be doing it very differently, so you’ve got to adapt, it might not be what you imagined when you wrote it. So when we’re putting on a show, it is equally important to let the building tell you what it wants you to do…

THE MUSEUM OF EVERYTHING, EXHIBITION #1.1, PARIS, CHALET SOCIETY
PHOTO: NICOLAS KRIEF © THE MUSEUM OF EVERYTHING 

AA: Talking about the building, how do you find a space like this ? Looking for a specific neighborhood ?

JB: No no, it’s a chance situation. Our first show in London had been in a similar building that we played around with. Of course I wanted to come to Paris, I was really interested. Marc-Olivier [Wahler, former director of Palais de Tokyo and founder of Chalet Society] had visited the museum. We had a chance encounter in Marrakech [Biennale] where we sat down and he told me what he was doing. He said “I’m creating this new sort of art space, do you want to come see it ?”.

Chalet Society, which is his space, was a temporary space here in Paris, so we came here, I looked around, and it seemed a fantastic fit. So there was no looking – in the life of the museum chance encounters are the way it tends to work – it was Marc-Olivier Wahler’s relationship with the building, they lent it for the project, that’s how it came to be. I couldn’t ask for anything more. He’s my host, I’m the lodger. And when I’m gone there’ll be another better looking lodger…

 MORTON BARTLETT, untitled, c 1950/60
THE MUSEUM OF EVERYTHING, EXHIBITION #1.1, PARIS, CHALET SOCIETY
PHOTO: NICOLAS KRIEF © THE MUSEUM OF EVERYTHING 

AA: What changes did you make if any, how did you curate the content for Paris, some things that would speak more to the people in Paris ? I guess at this point you’ve already had several exhibitions and you have a larger amount of art. Or did you just see with the space ?

JB: Less French things. And more French things. For example here there’s a strong history, an intellectual appraisal of self-taught and outsider art and Art Brut. There are other great spaces here in Paris, a great collection at ABCD, Antoine Galbert’s Maison Rouge, they’re all interested in this kind of material… They’re fantastic places but they tend to speak in a more narrow form. I thought it was important not to double on what they already did, not to present artists they’ve already shown, because we wanted to get past the idea of Art Brut, because it’s a limited idea, if you rely on that you don’t go anywhere.

Both Marc Olivier and I are interested in much bigger ideas, philosophical ideas about art and creativity as “what does it mean ?”. I believe you can answer this question with the artist who makes something for himself or herself, without thinking of the terminology and the words. It gives form to enormous ideas which have not been brought into common art culture. In my opinion, they’re hidden inside Art Brut but they’re much bigger than Art Brut.

William Scott
untitled, 2009
© The Museum of Everything

The best example is an artist with a learning disability who can make phenomenal work without any cultural knowledge or context. It’s a language. And the only word you can give to it is art. I guess that’s what’s important to do, and the artists were chosen with these philosophical ideas in mind.

It’s very subjective, but at the same time we worked with the building, trying to find the right alleyways, pathways, spaces.
It’s a dialog, but I thought about what has been, and what could be, and what’s fascinating now that the show is open is that we’ve had so many major artists here, thinkers, talkers … and they all say yes, they all see what we’re trying to say.

Because I come from film I always try to create a narrative. People change as they walk through the show, from the moment they walk in at the top of the stairs and then as they make their way down. They become different human beings and that’s very interesting to me.

George Thaxton Miller
untitled (broke!), 1965
© The Museum of Everything

AA: Your exhibit made me think of the book “Beautiful Loser” about the art which derived from skater culture, made mostly by people who also lack artist training…

JB: As our project evolves, my thoughts evolve on the process: the thing about Russia, we met 100 artists a day, some not of interest, some of incredible interest – and so many of them had so much to say.

Some would put a matchstick down and talk for 20 minutes… the smaller the piece the longer the talk! Everybody’s busy expressing themselves, we live in a culture where that’s encouraged, but mere expression is not enough, I mean have you ever sat through those movies and 2 minutes into the movie you want to kill yourself, 10 minutes into it you’re pulling your fingernails and your eyelashes off, and 20 minutes into the movie you’re writing shopping lists for the next 2 years of your life?

It’s a travesty of modern times, that expression is important. Well it is and it isn’t. You don’t have to force people to engage with your ramblings on life unless of course you’re fascinating, unless of course you’re that special person who has that gift, and we all wanna know, and we all wanna see it and love it.

THE MUSEUM OF EVERYTHING, EXHIBITION #1.1, PARIS, CHALET SOCIETY
PHOTO: NICOLAS KRIEF © THE MUSEUM OF EVERYTHING 

AA: I guess that’s the limitation of film, you’re forcing people to look at it in this framework with this time, whereas a museum if you don’t like it you just walk faster and get out of it.

JB: You are so correct. I love the lack of the sensation of time in a museum. You can walk through this museum in 5 minutes or less. You can take 5 hours. You choose the amount of time you choose to engage with any work. It’s completely in your hands, the opportunity to stay is there for you and that’s a phenomenal advantage.

I don’t believe there are any bad movies in this show, but if there are, you can just walk past them. I think my point though is about expression. Everybody has something to say. Our job at The Museum of Everything is to find those creative voices, the ones that are truthful, that are hidden, whatever hidden means, or ones which somehow connect to this bigger idea of “Why do we exist ? Why does creativity exist ? What does it mean ?”

For me, I keep going back to the artist with the learning disability. I’ve met many now, and some you really want to communicate and connect with them and it’s very difficult. But you can do it through their work, you can see it, you can feel it no matter how abstract, you can feel the energy and the way their minds work and their bodies. And to me that’s the most beautiful part of it.

It’s not the same as a child, because someone with a disability is not a child, they’re adults, but they’ve developed in a different way, their intelligence is unusual.

Today we realize that in the diversity of the human experience in the 21st century, education and language can be barriers, as much as they’re enablers. One of my favorite writers, William Burroughs, says: “Language is a virus from outer space”.
I love words, I use them all the time, but sometimes it’s better to shut up.

Museum of Everything founder and director James Brett, by Antoine Asseraf.

AA: What are some of the upcoming projects after Paris ?

JB: We’re going to go back to Russia, because we traveled through the country, but when we arrived in Moscow the place wasn’t built yet, so we’ll go back to put on the show, which hopefully will then travel…

And anyone reading this on the blog is free to invite the museum somewhere – half the time we use the museum as an excuse to visit places we haven’t been to! I love the idea of the museum becoming an international force in the promotion of creativity as a human right. We’re wide open!

AA: I think what’s interesting is that you don’t question whether this is “craft” or whether this is a tradition which is being repeated…

JB: Sometimes you meet artisans, but what’s interesting is when they change. Michael Gerdsmann is a registered blind artist from Germany. He was taught knitting to do covers for teapots and was selling them in the market, and thought “What’s the point of this? I need to do something better!”. So he started making covers for iPods and headphones, electrical equipment, and had this idea that somehow these two were well-matched. So he started as an artisan and became an artist.

AA: Today we think “this is an artist, this is his expression, and we value his expression” because it’s the Artist. In other countries there is still traditions, and who makes the one particular object doesn’t seem important in that context, it’s more about the history of the object…

JB: There is a difference between the person who makes for himself and the person who makes for the market. I wouldn’t talk about artisans, I would talk about who the work is being made for. Trouble is, according to that theory, Jeff Koons is an artisan and Damien Hirst is an artisan… and by the way, I think they are, they’re very good artisans!

[My mother arrives and the conversation turns to cheesecakes].

The Museum of Everything – Exhibition #1.1
at Chalet Society
14 Boulevard Raspail 75007 Paris
Until Christmas 2012

Until February 24, 2013.

Miss Marion Hopscotch performance
Saturday November 10th from 3pm-6pm

For 23 years now, the ANDAM prize, created by Nathalie Dufour and presided by no less than Pierre Bergé, has rewarded promising Paris-based fashion designers, regardless of nationality.

The first winner : Martin Margiela in 1989.
Since then, Viktor & Rolf, Christophe Lemaire, Felipe Oliveira Baptista, Gareth Pugh and last year Anthony Vaccarello have received the prize which includes not only a huge amount of money, but industry connections whose worth money cannot measure…

The Stimuleye presents : ANDAM 2012.

ANDAM
Association Nationale pour le Développement des Arts de la Mode
2012 FASHION AWARDS
05/07/12

GRAND PRIZE: 230 000 EURO
Nominees: Cédric Charlier, Julien David, Thomas Tait, Calla Haynes, Vika Gazinskaya, Andrea Nicholas Taralis
Winner: Julien David

FIRST COLLECTION PRIZE: 60 000 EURO
Nominees: Calla Haynes, Pièce d’Anarchive, Céline Méteil, Jacquemus
Winner: Pièce d’Anarchive

more info: http://www.andam.fr

Alongside a special Cristobal Balenciaga Collector exhibition contrasting the 20th Century designer’s creations with unseen objects in his personal collection, Saillard was putting together a second exhibition more anchored in the present, and even in the future:

WHITE DRAMA, an exhibition of Comme Des Garçons’ current SS 2012 collection, with an eye-popping scenography by Rei Kawakubo herself…

a PREMICES FILMS production
Directed by: Antoine Asseraf
Assisted by: Thibault Della Gaspera
Sound by: Pierre Emmanuel Martinet

COMME DES GARÇONS WHITE DRAMA /
CRISTOBAL BALENCIAGA COLLECTOR

Cité de la Mode & du Design / Les Docks
34 Quai d’Austerlitz, Paris,
Until October 7, 2012.

Marc Turlan: protest board 1 and 2, a collaboration with british photographer Timur Celikdag.
Courtesy gal Anne de Villepoix

Marc Turlan: Statement Carpets. Courtesy gal Anne de Villepoix

Left: Marc Turlan's "Star Rack", and right: the artist himself

The first room of EXO STAR with "Home Star-Gym". Courtesy Gallery Anne de Villepoix

The collage sonore / sound collage installation in room 2. Courtesy Gallery Anne de Villepoix

Object in room 3 at Gallery Anne de Villepoix

Travelling, the outlook to discover new and exotic places are something that stimulates us and we look forwards to.
How we could have left that out at The Stimuleye? I don’t know, it’s almost a crime!

So we decided to start another series of special places that inspire and enlighten in one or another way. Off track, from a beach bar on a secluded island in Kenya to a spooky ryokan in Japan. And we’ll include food in addition that seems an important part of this experience. Specially considering that Stimuleye Antoine Asseraf had ran a blog around food: FOODGEEK, one of the godparents to The Stimuleye. That might all sound very TAMPOPO – and yes that’s exactly where we’re going with this.

So learn about the addresses for the best Japanese rahmen noodles or Mexican bull-meat tacos, Greek homemade pies, hefty Cuban mojitos or the perfect ring formed bread that’s handed out hung on thread to hold it best, since it’s hot and oven-fresh!

You might stay home during the summer, but nevertheless and hopefully, one of the places we’ll cover in this series starting from tomorrow, will be near you to discover. If you have a tip you believe should be shared and not left out, let us know!

Scene from alltime ultimate Japanese foodgeek movie TAMPOPO. Directed by Jûzô Itami, 1985

Abdel Bounane at AMUSEMENT gallery, by René Habermacher.

Antoine Asseraf : So where are we, there’s a store downstairs, but this is something else…

Abdel Bounane: This is the space where soon we will offer services and events linked to the store, and to the magazine.
The service part is probably the most interesting, because this is going to be the most original part.
For the store we try to have some original products, but for services, starting in May, you’ll be able to order a tailor-made video game.

You make an appointment, meet with one of our consultants, and give your craziest ideas regarding what you want from a video game, and we’ll be able to materialize it. It can take a few days, a few weeks, or sometimes a few months, it can cost a few hundred or a few thousand euros.

It’s a world first.
It answers the question “if you want to make a space linked to the digital world, how do you offer something original and human ?”

Something that doesn’t lag behind the virtual world.

Exactly. What is the use of being in the real world when you’re talking about the virtual ?
So for me, it is the meeting with people, the ability to explain face to face your ideas, a human and interactive touch, it’s fundamentally linked to a physical place. It wouldn’t be the same thing by Skype.

That’s one part of the services we will offer.
We will also offer a gallery side.
People have been trying to sell digital art for decades now, and they haven’t really been able to, except for installations which hard to sustain. But now tablets are here, and I feel that tablets are a good media for that art, like a canvas.

The ressource center of the Gaïté Lyrique. By René Habermacher.

That makes me think of that bloom application for iPhone, by Brian Eno…

Well, Brian Eno’s been here !
What we’re developing is the sell of pieces on tablets, offline, and also an online store of limited edition digital content, with a certificate of authenticity on our servers.

How do you co-exist with the Gaïté Lyrique proper?

Well with the digital art we’re going to be working a lot with artists from the Gaïté, such as Matt Pyke/Universal Everything,
They do a lot of cool particle effects, very pop, very colorful, and they’re don’t want something that is all over the internet, just something that is visible physically at the Gaïté, because it’s a site-specific installation, and potentially sold digitally.

That’s where the logic of the Gaïté comes in, it’s not a museum, it’s a creation center.
So it’s perfect for us, we become the distributors of content that cannot be found elsewhere, and digital limited edition fits the Gaïté perfectly.

We’re not only the commercial arm of the Gaïté, we’re here to play with new ways of crossing art and digital, video games and one-to-one distribution, or take a mass media like video games and make it personalized, how do me make something pop more haute ?
How to legitimize a physical location, with launches, workshops, etc.

Gaïté Lyrique communication.

I think it’s perfect that this place was launched now, in 2011, because today there is a mix of the digital and the physical worlds.
We’ve experienced a very de-materialized digital world for the last 15-20 years, through computers only, but as the intelligence of the network become more miniature, we’re going to unperceivably go back into the physical, with walls that give information. Tablets, smartphones, nano-technologies, that’s what they’re all about.

From the 60’s mainframe, to the 80’s Personal Computer, to the connected personal computer with a more diffuse intelligence, to the smart phone and the tablet which are more disseminated… I think think there’s already twice as many smartphones as desktop and laptops combined.
This year is the first where more smartphones are being sold than computers.

All this means that intelligence is more diffused into the real physical world, so if you look forward, it means this place will become even more pertinent.
More experiental, more subjective, about participating in a world that was created for you.
So if you combine that with the more diffuse intelligence, you get a place where you can live unique experiences.

Matt Pyke / Universal Everything for MTV.

Was AMUSEMENT magazine influenced by the 1990’s French mag univers >interactif ?

It’s funny because a blogger asked me that, “do you know >interactif, what do think about it” ?
but in fact I only knew it by name, it knew Ariel Wizmann had made it, and I had seen maybe 2 covers.
But people have told me that Amusement seemed like the >interactif of the 2010’s.

So since then I went back into >interactif, and I can see the connection, editorially, visually…

I remember especially the cover with a chick wearing a Nintendo Power Glove.
Almost all the covers had chicks on them as much as I remember.

Left: W< by Jean-Baptiste Mondino for >interactif magazine, 1995?. Right: Excerpts from >interactif magazine.

Actually there was one memorable cover by Mondino with a guy in a W&LT latex suit with some phallic balloons…
The connection between the fashion editorials and the content was sometime a bit forced (laughs).
The funny thing with >interactif is that when it came out, in 1995, no one had internet. Something like 3 people in France.
But did you know WIRED then ?

Yes, Wired I read since the beginning, since 1993/94.

How old were you ?

12 or 13 years old. I used to go to Brentano’s [American bookstore] to get it.
I was also reading EDGE, a UK video game magazine, which back then was a world reference.

Once as a high schooler I bought EDGE and sold the translation to French magazines (laughs).

You’re not the only one, some real journalists got into trouble for ripping off articles from THE FACE.

So WIRED, EDGE… It was complicated, I didn’t really get all of it, but it was like a film addict, you go see it even if it’s in Chinese.
I was fascinated by these magazines even though I didn’t speak English.
The UK press is sophisticated.

The content and the visual as well…

Those magazines had a completely different artistic direction.

How does the AMUSEMENT store affect AMUSEMENT as a magazine ?
By the way I went to your website and I loved that there was no blog, just the best of past issues.

It’s a real question (laughs).
I always wanted to ensure the legitimacy of the paper magazine as a format.
But now, in this post-tablet world, AMUSEMENT will become a bi-annual, because the tablet has further de-legitimized paper.
So we want to make it more high-end, more of an object, a book, 400 pages.
Less of a magazine.

We’re going to create connections between the AMUSEMENT store and the web, in July.
And everything I was telling you about online digital art stores is something we’re also working on, maybe not for 2011, but it’s in the works.

Amusement magazine.

I think it’s also interesting to go for a book/object format, because it voids the question of the iPad format … you really can’t compare an iPad magazine to a book/object.

I’m very open to the idea of iPad/tablet publication – once it becomes a real business, once there’s a 100 million of them out there.
Right now it’s only something that CondéNast can do, for image.
But how many GQ do they sell on iPad ?? 5000.

So right now, either you’re a huge publisher and you want to show that’s you got it, so you do an iPad version at a loss,
either you’re independent and it doesn’t work.

What about something like Flipboard ?

You become a moderator, aggregator, art-director – you’re creating a moderation platform.
I would love for Amusement to go in that direction as well.
We try to be high-end in the design, but I’m interested in the idea of the opposite, of letting people appropriate the content.
That’s a challenge that I would like to tackle with AMUSEMENT.

Because the richness of internet is not the platform as much as the humans.

In AMUSEMENT, there is one side which is very “we’re speaking to you, you have to listen, it’s our art-direction, our pictures,” there is no feedback, a bit like a dictatorship — that’s actually attractive because it’s megalomaniac.

Then there’s the opposite, which is create a platform and let people move it forward…

Yet I feel that today a lot of the internet, with the advent of blogs/Facebook/Twitter, has become only about discussion, and that very few people have the time to do a megalomaniac project of creation.
With a magazine you make it, you step back, improve it, you don’t have to constantly ask everyone if they “like” it or not.
T his applies especially in fashion.
Every month you were waiting for some new images coming from new issues of magazines.
Now the blogs bring a constant flow of magazine articles from all over the world, self-styling pics, etc – it’s like a deluge of images from which nothing can stand out.
How many articles per day can you stomach on “what to wear” ?

Do you think that nothing stands out, or that different things stand out ? That’s what’s interesting.
What is true is that there is less in-depth reporting, because there are less producers who invest.

But I think there are still people out there who create and innovate, without necessarily a lot of means.

Yes, there is an ocean of repetition – but only because someone created something in the first place.

Left: detail of the Gaïté Lyrique entrance. Right: Amusement shop entrance.

AMUSEMENT creative shop
3 bis rue Papin
75003 Paris
Metro: Réaumur-Sebastopol

Matt Pyke & Friends @ Gaïté Lyrique
April 21 – May 27, 2011

AMUSEMENT magazine

It’s an exuberance of arabesque forms, a visual melody played out of his hand, that remind us of the great gestural and physical richness of action painting. Famous for his meticulous inks on parchment, this “liberated calligraphy” is worked across a variety of extremely different surfaces — from canvas, brass, wood, melamine and papyrus to skin. Though It seems like writing, it is not. It is rather an interlacing of a dialectic relationship, also found within Western abstraction.

Naomi Campbell in Azzedine Alaïa for Numéro Magazine. A collaboration between Nja Mahdaoui and René Habermacher

I came across the work of Nja Mahdaoui the first time, while researching calligraphic styles on a project for the French magazine Numéro on a piece about Azzedine Alaïa to which Babeth Djian incited me. The visual impact of Nja’s work struck me at first sight.

Slightly intimidated by the references of the rich body of his work, I first hesitated but then thought to give it a shot, and contacted him. To my surprise he answered me instantly by email, and called me shortly after. Our collaboration was set — and we created a story of imaginary movements around Naomi Campbell as a dark gazelle, in sheer and revealing Alaïa.

But I only met Nja Mahdaoui in person two summers ago in Tunis. It was an all-embracing, hot and sultry August day that lay heavy on the city, matching the emotional state of its people.

Nja Mahdaoui wit the first prototype of his most recent sculpture. Photography by René Habermacher

A couple of months after the “Jasmine revolution” took place, Nja arrives in full swing to our meeting at a café in sunny, springtime Paris.

He’d come with his daughter Molka Mahdaoui to work on another of his new projects, yet is consumed with excitement by the events. He reacts immediately and impulsively to the question I usually ask last on conversations for The Stimuleye: What is the last thing that stimulated you?

“Stimulated? You’re asking a Tunisian? (laughs). I don’t know if ‘stimulated’ is the word, but it’s the explosion of a generation, I’m completely into it — for us it’s the event of the century!”

Nja Mahdaoui: "Graphemes on Arches 2", 2009, Ink on arches paper; 135cm x 135cm.

With us at the table are the collaborators involved in the process of making his latest project, a sculpture, the main reason for his trip north. Nja loves collaborations – his eyes glow while he talks energetically about upcoming projects. An energy I felt the first time I saw his bold and highly rhythmic work: “a dance of calligraphy”, with Nja as the choreographer of imaginary letters, to which he refers as ‘graphemes’, devoid of actual textual meaning:

“To a non-Arabic speaker it appears as coherent text. In fact even Arabic speakers assume at first that it’s a text with meaning. But when they start reading it they realise it is not an actual word.” he says and recalls an experience:

“It is not easy to write letters in a disjointed way — that is disjointed to not mean anything — and focus only on the aesthetic. There was a study at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. They connected me to a machine in order to test the levels of stress my body was under when I was writing proper words and when I was writing words without meaning. The study showed that my body was 2.5 times more stressed when I was working on words without meaning. So it is a very conscious attempt to create art. I tell people I’m not a calligrapher, but an artist.”

To me his body of work is so vibrant and remarkably innovative that I first had assumed Nja to be in his early 30’s the most, yet he was born in La Marsa, Tunisia, in 1937. As Molka, a filmmaker herself, puts it during our conversation: “sometimes i have to remind myself: Molka, you are thinking older than your own father!”.

Nja Mahdaoui: Design for Gulf Air 50th Anniversary. Image Courtesy of Nja Mahdaoui

Indeed his energy is striking, he takes part vividly in public life in constant dialogue and is virtually hooked to Facebook, like a teenager:

“Blogs are not simple, it’s in between the magazine you buy, the TV news, and the private lives of people. To balance it out you need to create a dialog, create communication in a domain. Who’s the most motivated? Communication is very important. In Tunisia, a great part of the revolt was started by bloggers: The main one was jailed, he’s a good friend of mine, his wife is a filmmaker […] He was a hacker, a net-pirate, and today he is the Secretary for Youth. Seems like a joke!

On the eve of the revolt in Cairo, young Tunisians were able to get around Egypt’s net blockade, and pass information along to people. Internet has developed a lot in Tunisia, we’ve had cheap access for everyone for years, so everyone is connected.”

And Nja stays very connected- to these very times on which he checks repeatedly with his iPhone during our conversation- the recent uprising in Lybia for example: “I love the Libyan people, but there’s very little connection with Tunisia.”

Ferid, a friend of mine that had met with us at our first meeting in Tunis in 2009 was astonished by the freedom of speech Nja took for himself and the cause of others, even under the regime of president Ben Ali: “He can say things that no one would dare, even on TV!”

Nja Mahdaoui: Window screen for the Kaust Mosque in Thuwal, Mecca. Image Courtesy of Nja Mahdaoui

“Tunisia is a country where, out of 10 million inhabitants, over half are young, and where since independence, education has been a priority. We’re in a country which has invested in culture and knowledge, and has many unemployed graduates with diplomas. Our problem is to have thousands and tens of thousands of graduates for which we need to find positions. Especially since we don’t have any oil!!! I think it’s a good thing not to have oil, it seems like a poisoned gift… Anyway nature has decided for us. But there is the black gold of intelligence, knowledge and communication!”

“Our network is amazing. The new boss of the Central Tunisian Bank was until recently an economics professor in the USA. One of the first things to do is to have an assessment. He determined in a report that 23 kilos of gold had been used for medals. Some of these medals are given by the Ministry of Culture – I’ve received some myself.

[After the revolution] I immediately made an article, “The Medals of Shame”: we thought these medals were a distinction, but if we learn that they were made with gold stolen from the people’s money, I propose that we give these medals back to the Central Bank and have them melted to create some funds for those in need. Some artists wrote back to me “these medals are our diplomas”! Que Dio! Aren’t they ashamed of themselves!”

The Susse Foundry in Paris and Nja Mahdaoui at work. Photography by René Habermacher

Time has come to move, and we leave the sunshine of the cafe’s terrasse to the Susse Foundry that was created in 1758, where the draft of Nja’s sculpture is awaiting us. Nja going ahead: “The Susse Foundry is the most ancient in France. In the world of art, it’s a reference. They make objects as if it was 1901, so they’re a bit shaken up by what is going on today — it’s the first work they make with a technical team from the future.”

Susse’s workshops are in an undistinguished building. Only a bronze shingle identifies the door next to a partly frosted glass window through which one can glimpse a plaster angel negligently hung upside down. Some of the finest sculptors of the 20th century have produced here: Jean Arp, Henry Moore, Germaine Richier, Picasso, Giacometti, Braque, Dali and Chagall.

Manuel Delétré is a meticulous craftsman and joins us at the door with Hubert Lacroix. The foundry’s halls are softly lit through ceiling windows — stacks of molds, sculptures and work-tools fade into gloomy shadows towards the dark embracing walls.

Nja Mahdaoui: Ink on Paper for Cahier Horizons Maghrébins.

The techniques employed at Susse are ancient: ‘lost wax’, the method of classical and renaissance sculptors and ‘sand casting’ for which Susse uses a sand found only in the Seine basin.

And here is Nja, breaking into this world of great heritage with fresh vision and the help of modern inventions:

“In my path I’ve tried sculpture, but not in a classic sense with clay. I’m not a sculptor, but I am for contemporary creation. I go full steam ahead, without hesitation, when it comes to technical challenges. We started with a 2D graphic, but spun it around constantly to get a 3D volume. I’m so happy to say ‘don’t be afraid ! it’s the future !’ If there’s a way, if it exists, then to turn your back and close your eyes is idiotic. It captivates me!”

He shows us the first model of his work, in one of the back rooms where the blue prints to many great works are stored.

Nja is captivated- following the lines of the sculptures with his hands- as caressing it and finishing off the strokes of his calligraphy drawing in the air: “The total piece consists of 22 separate elements that are arranged around the axis” he explains. “The sculpture is meant for… the love of creation”. The final cast will be moulded in June, followed by the process of applying the patina, for which Susse is famous – applying secret acids in order to produce mordant greens, equatorial blues and a glossy black.

In 3 months from now, another circle will becoming full: “We had been looking for years for a graphic designer with the knowledge to go from 2D to 3D, until then all we had been able to do was to give depth, to make an extrusion. It’s the quest of innovation, the challenge of going further.” He has found the process liberating, being free from the confines of two-dimensional space. This is reflected in the energy and dynamism of the new piece.

Nja Mahdaoui: "The sculpture is meant for… the love of creation" Photography by René Habermacher

Over lunch Nja introduces me to another project he is working on, a collaboration with with the Tunisian gallery ‘El Marsa Gallery‘ and the American gallery ‘New Sahara Gallery‘ and CSUN (California State University Northridge):

“For CSU Northridge, I’m putting together the idea of the Behaviour of the Other, the Look of the Other, using all means of communication. So in this installation I’m installing a giant drum, like the one in the British Museum. I’ll bring with me Tunisian sand from the Sahara, a handful to put into a pile of American sand and I mean to have 6 dancers, to whom I am not giving any further instructions. The dancers will listen to these sounds [of the drumsspun], and we’ll try to film the behaviour of the dancers, sitting in front of this drum, and see how long they can resist the urge to dance. Some of these rhythms will get them in the gut. I want to see their automatisms!

From this demand, I await for them to interpret and make their own decisions, decisions of a cultural and political nature. I’m curious to know if [UCSU Northridge] chooses 3 women and 3 men, African-Americans because I’m Tunisian and for them Tunisia = Africa. I’m curious if it’s going to be as mixed as LA is…”

Nja Mahdaoui: Double membrane drum. Collection of The British Museum. Images Courtesy of the British Museum

As knowing Nja I am quite certain he’d prefer this last scenario. Multi-facetted as he is, merging the most diverse inspirations and cultural influences into his work. Collaborating interdisciplinary he recalls an experience at the University of Tokyo in which he and three others from China, India and the West spent hours talking to each other about calligraphy, lettering, styles, forms and mediums — without having a common language.

We ended the day in a pizzeria of the 3rd arrondisement- a loud and hectic place that accomodated our conversation till late at night. Molka joined us again, so did other friends- and among the last guests leaving, Antoine and I accompanied Nja on his stroll home. He insisted to part at Républic: “Paris, this is my City. I know it by heart”

Nja’s exhibiting ‘AZIMUT’ in Los Angeles will run from April through May 2011 at the New Sahara Gallery.
In addition to the exhibit there will be 3 events:

2 events at CSU Northridge University:
– “AZIMUT“ performance at the CSU Northridge University theatre, Tuesday April 12
– a lecture at CSU Northridge University, Thursday April 14,
– a talk at UCLA