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http://www.iqons.com/iqons.php?fct=page&i=44
Excerpt:
RJ: How long have you been at Vogue Italia?
FS: Since July ?88. It?s been 19 years.
BG: Did you start at both Vogue Italia and l?Uomo Vogue from the beginning?
FS:I started with Vogue. L?Uomo is only recent.
BG: They are such very different things, how do you see them?
FS:
I?ve been at L?Uomo as managing editor since ?94. I really took it on
and revamped it, coming out with a specific concept. I wanted to reach
a broader audience than the fashion community. Because men don?t
function in the same way women do. Women look at an image and dream.
Men want to read, understand, they want a new style. So, I eliminated
the models. I didn?t use models anymore. I didn?t want people that
weren?t real, that didn?t do something. Then it becomes transversal. I
go from the new New York band to the 70 year olds.
RJ:Men look at a product and then want to get some cultural information, news, etc.
BG:Men see a person of their own age, from their group, and say to themselves, ?See, even at your age you can be cool?.
FS:For
example, we wrote about Alec Guinness who is more than 70 years old and
has done so many things, he restructured buildings and gave them back
to the government? because they like hearing about people with a long
history. Then there?s the new band, the kid, whose history is only 6
months long. But they interact, because people don?t have to read from
the point of view of an old person or a young person. You have to mix
it up. Today there it isn?t a question of age. People are more
concerned with what you do.
RJ: In your opinion, how would you define the current direction of women, of Vogue Italia and also of fashion in general?
FS:
Given that over the past few years anything would go, anyone could sew
together a few rags and it became fashion. Also because the system
changed. Since the beginning of big distributions like Zara, H&M,
Topshop?etc., the situation has changed. You are not making fashion;
you are making an industry that runs on the concept of fashion. You are
not creating; you are industrializing the ideas of others. It is a
completely different method of approaching the consumer. Before, you
would reach them because they dreamed of something extraordinary and
they wanted exactly that dress. Today you understand that you can have
anything at a competitive price.
RJ: It?s a little bit like when Prêt-à-Porter came out in contrast to the Haute Couture.
FS: A little. It?s like the difference between the first and second line of a designer.
RJ:That already existed in the 90?s?
FS:And
that still exists, in a certain sense. The thing is that things must
turn back to creativity, to research. Because having gotten used to all
this commercial stuff, selling what the public wants, everything is the
same.
RJ: There was this very
interesting article in WWD by Cate Corcoran, which described fashion as
currently living the most media-powered moment in its history. Wouldn?t
it be a way out? For a lot of people, the way out of this system is
through media.
FS:
Actually, we tell the kids at the moment in Who is on Next to send us a
video for example, as if they were doing an interview, because today
you cannot be isolated. Today you are the media. There is nothing you
can do about it. You have to communicate with people. It would be nice
to keep the communication and rediscover the creativity. But, this is
rare. Sometimes we make icons out of people who aren?t even creative
but who get so much publicity, whose name and logo are so strong, that
we prefer to follow them?
RJ: And this is the dark side of the power of media.
Creativity, Rei Kawakubo, Young Designers
BG:Can I ask, who is offering strong creativity in this moment?
FS:
Rei Kawakubo, for example, continues to innovate every season after so
many years. You might not like it but she continues to create. She has
been so good, she is my Icon, because each season she creates this
dialogue of research around herself, but she has also offered the
opportunity to others like Tao, Undercover, and Junya Watanabe, to
bring out their own personal creativity and take advantage of it.
RJ:I
totally agree. Rei Kawakubo is my Icon too. I worked for Comme des
Garçons for several years and it was the most enlightening experience
one can have in fashion. Even with a modern subject, such as
communities. IQONS is a Web 2.0. community, and I realized seeing Dover
Street Market that Rei Kawakubo had understood well before many people
the concept of community in her own way inviting other designers to be
at Dover Street Market. Online Communities are a quiet social
revolution going on now and it is changing the way things work. Since
we started IQONS, we could see the power of it.
FS:
She?s even too far ahead in design because, sometimes even I say that,
I would never wear certain things she does. I buy them because I
believe in her, and then a few years later I will find myself wearing
it!
RJ: Her designs are so far ahead of times or is it that most people are behind?
FS: Yes, she puts things out there and she puts all of her energy into it.
RJ:In
terms of young people, I would say that they are returning to a
silhouette that is rather traditional. There are complex details and
adornments but everything is much more classic and feminine in a
traditional sense.
FS:I
think that the young people are embarrassed to wear ?fashion?. They
want to wear what the others are wearing, or else to be ?well-dressed?.
But they are embarrassed to be a ?Fashionista?. It?s not that they are
embarrassed to express themselves; it?s just that they find it to be
passé. My son, who is 23, keeps telling me, ?that?s really ?80?s, it?s
old?.
BG:London it?s a little
different. You can find a lot of young people, very dressed people:
there?s the one dressed in 1980?s from head to toe, with pearl earrings
and everything.
RJ:Yes, also
London is fresh because the clothes are not necessarily from designers;
kids create their own look from vintage and any range of stores. They
do a lot of research.
FS:If
the kids do it, it?s different. What I find unacceptable today are the
fashion editors, the designers and fashion people dressing that way. It
looks old.
BG: Paradoxically, all the designers I know in London are dressed as simple as possible!
RJ:Yes,
this generation is not really keen in looking too fashion?. Still
brands like Dior Homme have a lot of success with young people. It
gives them clothes that aren?t too ?fashion? and they say? Most of the
clothes are over designed, I think myself, but their jeans are the best
and basics are good and so popular.
FS:It?s
the same in terms of what Paul Smith has done. He pulled out everything
that people wanted in that moment and they are basically street
clothes, they are not ?designer? clothes.
RJ: So, where do you think the creativity lies in all this?
FS:Creativity
doesn?t mean being ridiculous. It?s like putting together a magazine.
It?s not that if I put a naked man on the cover I?m creative? Or if I
put someone in tails, I?m old. Creativity is understanding when things
change. When I wanted to change L?Uomo Vogue 6 months ago it was
because we had seen too much of the intimacy of men. Men had been
stripped down too much! Always in a jacket without a shirt underneath,
the shirt tied at the waist, the sweater tied at the hips, it was as if
being modern was being embarrassed about getting dressed. If you
dressed men, you were old. But that was a phase and the phase has now
ended. Now, you want to see men well-dressed, but it doesn?t mean a
blue suit, it means dressed with things that have been researched, even
extravagant things, but extravagance can be very diverse: the 18th
century was extravagant, the beginning of the 20th century was
extravagant. Why does extravagance today have to mean being badly
dressed?
Men Dressing Up
BG:There
was also the big prejudice that?s disappearing now, that if a man cares
about how he?s dressed, he?s gay, in term of his image? because kids
always said it, but not now.
FS:But this is the result?
RJ:I thought gay men didn?t dress anymore.
FS:
It ended because of the sexual revolution that took place in the 80?s.
Now, who cares about how you have sex? That?s your own business, no?
What is interesting is aesthetics. If you see well-dressed people every
once in a while, wearing things that might be a little bizarre but that
are mixed together in the right way, it?s a pleasure! It doesn?t seem
strange? it?s about personal research, it?s about not being banal.
Then, it?s normal that a kid protects himself within a group. And it?s
not the kid that buys the magazines. The kid buys a certain type of
magazine one in ten times; therefore there isn?t a loyalty of
readership? When you start to achieve a certain faithfulness in
readership, you see that one dresses in jeans while the other is
wearing a brocade vest and tails, because that looks good too. Young
people, for instance, love wearing tuxedos.
RJ: Yes! You can see them everywhere.
FS:
Because it?s fun! They like getting dressed up since they?re usually
dressed in jeans. So seeing someone every once and a while who wears a
mix of things, of materials, colors? someone wearing a strange top, you
look at them! It?s clear that black solves everyone?s problem. You
dress in black, but in my opinion ? especially with men- dressing all
in black, not a tuxedo or a suit, but t-shirts, etc? you end up looking
like someone from the ?80?s or at any rate not from today. We like
seeing a guy with something a little different. The other day in NY I
saw a guy wearing a strange vest, a shirt, a sweater, a big jacket. He
looked great. He must have been 25 or 26. To be expressive means
neither being gay nor the banality of whatever is supposedly ?trendy?
that you can?t stand. Who cares about those images where you just see
men in their underwear?
RJ:This is what you see a lot of at the moment, in everything.
FS:
I like to think that one person dresses well, another strangely,
another badly, another formally? and to mix them all together in the
same issue... I am crazy about Snoop Dogg, how he dresses, I find it
fun?
RJ: I like him very much. I heard when he came to London recently, he wasn?t let inside the country. What a pity.
FS: He?s great because he?s created a character. It?s not that everyone needs to create a character like he has, but?
RJ:?he?s been pretty consistent over time.
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