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On what a creative director of a house needs to be today and an idea about creative director yearly rotation, which Jean Paul Gaultier (Ghesquiere worked with Gaultier in the early 90s) suggested - something which oddly Versus is already trialling out with J.W. Anderson as a guest designer...
"The creative director has to be someone 'promotable.' I've heard this a lot: 'This one is promotable and this one is not.'"
"I remember Jean Paul Gaultier saying, 'We should assign one designer for a year to develop their interpretation of one of these signature brands. We would get a different interpretation of the legacy and repertoire every time.' I thought it was a such a smart and powerful idea. Anti-business but also not entirely crazy."
On treating Balenciaga like a design laboratory, which makes me wonder how many of these "laboratories" are left in the high fashion world where unfettered experimentation is encouraged...
"I cherished the idea of a laboratory. I've been told - and was also criticised for it - that Balenciaga can appear overly avant-garde, perhaps even elitist. My answer was firstly that the label deserved no less. If you ask me, there is only one place where there's real research and that's Balenciaga."
On fashion being too fashionable, Ghesquière echoes the thoughts of others who feel the same way but seems to be enthusiastic about so-called democratisation...
"Fashion has never been so in fashion. All of a sudden we've arrived at a place television, music, media, and advertising have enjoyed for a time; fashion has been vastly democratised, which is excellent, but it's also become pop culture. Everyone wants to be part of it, or to own a piece of it, to appear interested and aware. The fashion world used to be relatively marginal. it could be prestigious, but it was also considered to be a toxic world of crazies - was it not dangerous and unwholesome in a way?"
On the 'Carrie Bradshaw' stock stereotype in fashion, which makes me cringe when I think of the peak of that show, where women were running around imitating those characters...
"Globalisation has brought many things, including the internationalisation of a feminine aesthetic that i boild down to the character of Carrie Bradshaw in Sex in the City. Whether in Japan, or China, in the U.S. of course, and in Europe, there is a cliche of the fashionista whose primary concern is achieving that girlie stiletto look, never mind if it's fashionable. It did nudge a number of women, and girls, to risk wearing clothes they ordinarily would not have but it has standardised things and I'm not sure it's all for the better."
Furthermore Ghesquière sees this stock character as a caricature which gets in the way of a masculine attitude in a women...
"I like a masculine attitude in a woman, which can be very sensual and sexy. Her femininity should go unquestioned, but at the same time, it shouldn't be obvious. Mostly, I think fashion today likes travestying women and it's a caricature that truly disturbs me - the bimbo. There are bimbos that I find inspiring and amusing, when they are completely in control."
On H&M's fast fashion process and how luxury groups would love to get their mitts on this type of machine...
"Their process and production speeds are incredible, and I think they have the big bosses of luxury drooling because everyone fantasises of achieving that level of efficiency."
In System magazine, Ghesquière also wonders whether H&M or a Zara could become a luxury group themselves...
"Someone said something interesting to me recently: 'The next classic luxury group will be H&M or Zara.' It might well be the case. Beyond the collaborations they do at the moment, they will actually employ big designers for the long term. Basically if they know there's nowhere left for them to go in their current sector, they might end up stepping into the luxury domain."
This might seem like extremely belated given all the web hoo-ha when Nicolas Ghesquière officially broke his silence with his interview with the inaugural issue of System, with key excerpts focusing on his relationship with the house of Balenciaga and why it ultimately fell apart, published in The Business of Fashion. Then Ghesquière went for a double-whammy with another massive cover feature for the ever-wonderful 032c magazine. I only managed to get my hands on the latter a week ago and after reading, and re-reading both hefty features (System's comes in at 14 pages excluding images and 032c proffers a 14,000 triumph). If I'm honest, I preferred Pierre Alexandre de Looz's line of questioning in 032c, which felt more indepth with regards to Ghesquière's process, in comparison to Jonathan Wingfield's for System but essentially, System got the "scoop" as it were when it came to going deep into why it wasn't working out at Balenciaga and Ghesquière's dissatisfaction leading up to his departure.
Reading both interviews, I found myself nodding in agreement with pretty much everything Ghesquière was saying. These are the most indepth interviews I've read about him and now free from a house and press relations protocol, he seemed at ease with discussing everything from the state of fashion today, his views on what makes something luxurious and his own heroes (Miuccia Prada, Azzedine Alaïa and Rei Kawakubo if you must know) and ideals when it comes to the industry. These are the topics which I found most enjoyable and insightful when expanded upon. Given that neither interviews have been published in full online (as far as I'm aware...), I thought I'd round up the bits which had me nodding away, thinking how lucid and sage-like Ghesquière is at this point, and wondering of course whether he can create a project/label/happening/entity (we're not sure what he's working on yet but it certainly isn't going to be conventional) that goes some way towards solving some of his grievances.
**Warning** This is a mighty chunky read without any pictures. I trust you can all handle that.
Reading both interviews, I found myself nodding in agreement with pretty much everything Ghesquière was saying. These are the most indepth interviews I've read about him and now free from a house and press relations protocol, he seemed at ease with discussing everything from the state of fashion today, his views on what makes something luxurious and his own heroes (Miuccia Prada, Azzedine Alaïa and Rei Kawakubo if you must know) and ideals when it comes to the industry. These are the topics which I found most enjoyable and insightful when expanded upon. Given that neither interviews have been published in full online (as far as I'm aware...), I thought I'd round up the bits which had me nodding away, thinking how lucid and sage-like Ghesquière is at this point, and wondering of course whether he can create a project/label/happening/entity (we're not sure what he's working on yet but it certainly isn't going to be conventional) that goes some way towards solving some of his grievances.
**Warning** This is a mighty chunky read without any pictures. I trust you can all handle that.
On what a creative director of a house needs to be today and an idea about creative director yearly rotation, which Jean Paul Gaultier (Ghesquiere worked with Gaultier in the early 90s) suggested - something which oddly Versus is already trialling out with J.W. Anderson as a guest designer...
"The creative director has to be someone 'promotable.' I've heard this a lot: 'This one is promotable and this one is not.'"
"I remember Jean Paul Gaultier saying, 'We should assign one designer for a year to develop their interpretation of one of these signature brands. We would get a different interpretation of the legacy and repertoire every time.' I thought it was a such a smart and powerful idea. Anti-business but also not entirely crazy."
On treating Balenciaga like a design laboratory, which makes me wonder how many of these "laboratories" are left in the high fashion world where unfettered experimentation is encouraged...
"I cherished the idea of a laboratory. I've been told - and was also criticised for it - that Balenciaga can appear overly avant-garde, perhaps even elitist. My answer was firstly that the label deserved no less. If you ask me, there is only one place where there's real research and that's Balenciaga."
On fashion being too fashionable, Ghesquière echoes the thoughts of others who feel the same way but seems to be enthusiastic about so-called democratisation...
"Fashion has never been so in fashion. All of a sudden we've arrived at a place television, music, media, and advertising have enjoyed for a time; fashion has been vastly democratised, which is excellent, but it's also become pop culture. Everyone wants to be part of it, or to own a piece of it, to appear interested and aware. The fashion world used to be relatively marginal. it could be prestigious, but it was also considered to be a toxic world of crazies - was it not dangerous and unwholesome in a way?"
On the 'Carrie Bradshaw' stock stereotype in fashion, which makes me cringe when I think of the peak of that show, where women were running around imitating those characters...
"Globalisation has brought many things, including the internationalisation of a feminine aesthetic that i boild down to the character of Carrie Bradshaw in Sex in the City. Whether in Japan, or China, in the U.S. of course, and in Europe, there is a cliche of the fashionista whose primary concern is achieving that girlie stiletto look, never mind if it's fashionable. It did nudge a number of women, and girls, to risk wearing clothes they ordinarily would not have but it has standardised things and I'm not sure it's all for the better."
Furthermore Ghesquière sees this stock character as a caricature which gets in the way of a masculine attitude in a women...
"I like a masculine attitude in a woman, which can be very sensual and sexy. Her femininity should go unquestioned, but at the same time, it shouldn't be obvious. Mostly, I think fashion today likes travestying women and it's a caricature that truly disturbs me - the bimbo. There are bimbos that I find inspiring and amusing, when they are completely in control."
On H&M's fast fashion process and how luxury groups would love to get their mitts on this type of machine...
"Their process and production speeds are incredible, and I think they have the big bosses of luxury drooling because everyone fantasises of achieving that level of efficiency."
In System magazine, Ghesquière also wonders whether H&M or a Zara could become a luxury group themselves...
"Someone said something interesting to me recently: 'The next classic luxury group will be H&M or Zara.' It might well be the case. Beyond the collaborations they do at the moment, they will actually employ big designers for the long term. Basically if they know there's nowhere left for them to go in their current sector, they might end up stepping into the luxury domain."
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