These Two Guys

Are Changing How We Think

About Fashion

Alessandro Michele and Demna Gvasalia with German Shepard, Gucci Alessandro Michele of Gucci and Demna Gvasalia of and are making clothes that capture the zeitgeist.

By: Alexander Fury T brought them together for the April 11, 2016 first time to have a little chat.

“RULE-BREAKING” IS A PHRASE thrown the whole thing. And so, genuine rule-breakers around in fashion a lot. But who makes these don’t come along that often. Fashion enjoys the rules? And aren’t rules what fashion is based on? status quo. It sells clothes, it makes money. After all, fashion isn’t just the clothes on your But what if the rules are broken? People have back. ¬It’s the form of those clothes at a given stopped buying clothes with quite the alacrity moment, adhering to certain codes that define they used to, and large conglomerates have be- them as forward-thinking, as now, as à la mode. gun to see their profits slip southward. Design- How they want to look, maybe even feel? The to Michele’s out-of-the-backroom appointment. Which often, as on a menu, translates simplistical- ers are fleeing houses after a few short seasons. soft sell, rather than the hard? He debuted his first collection for Balenciaga last ly to a lump of something fancy plopped on top Plenty of brands, rattled by the instability of It matters, at least, to two. One is the design- month to ecstatic reviews. of an existing offering, as opposed to tinkering luxury markets, are now trying to close the gap er Alessandro Michele, who after anonymously Relative anonymity is the immediate connec- about with the guts or really changing anything. between runway and retail, offering goods ever toiling away at Gucci for 12 years, was appoint- tion between Gvasalia and Michele, but there's Rules in fashion are made by the industry: the faster to consumers, hoping to whip them into a ed creative director of the 95-year-old Floren- something deeper at play than the fact that, until editors, the designers, the corporations who fund frenzy of acquisition. There’s a general unease in tine brand in January 2015. In three seasons, 15 months ago, you'd probably never heard of fashion, to say the least. the 43-year-old Italian has managed to entirely either. Gvasalia's frustration is quietly mirrored And the clothes themselves? They wind remake the brand, pulling back from its sexy im- by Michele, who has said that he'd planned to up bit players in the Sturm und Drang age to explore a more romantic side. The oth- leave Gucci before being surprised with the cre- of it all, overshadowed by financial fina- er is Demna Gvasalia, a 35-year-old Georgian ative director offer. More than that, there’s a syn- gling and designer wrangling, when they from the former , who started his ergy between their approaches to gender lines — should be the focus of the conversation. fashion collective Vetements in 2014 after ignoring them — and to the runway, which they There is a glut of clothing at every price working at and Louis Vuitton, use to actually show clothes, not just to stage a point, especially in high fashion, where where he became frustrated with the increasing spectacle. They both talk frequently, incessantly, labels proliferate and multiple seasons demands of the fashion industry. Six months about clothes, rather than fashion; about reality, (spring, prefall, winter, resort, capsules ago, based on the sheer strength of his fledgling about appealing to, and ultimately dressing, the galore) concurrently jostle to justify a streetwear-based label, he was named the artistic girl (or guy) on the street. seemingly endless influx of clothing. But director of Balenciaga, the century-old French But their streets are worlds apart. Gvasalia and how much of that actually connects with house, in a twist that shocked the industry given Michele’s aesthetics are diametrically opposed. what people really want to wear today? Gvasalia’s distinct lack of star power — similar Gucci’s embroidered and preciously embel- Page 8 of the similarly teenage street- cast models. It was difficult to see where the runway ended and reality began. In Milan, Gucci’s models were outnum- bered by audience members wearing Michele’s fur-lined house slippers, chinoiserie jackets and foliage-festooned accessories. The newly re- vamped Gucci store on Via Montenapoleone was mobbed all week long, and not just by fashion types. Michele is pull- ing in consumers who previ- ously felt put off by Gucci’s hedonistic repute, but who now feel drawn to its beauti- fully ¬made jackets, dresses heavy with embroidery, hand- bags patterned with flowers or embroidered with bees. “Take it,” Michele told me backstage lished clothes look like family heirlooms; Vete- nylon. By contrast, Gucci’s clothes are generally before his last Gucci men’s ments’ seem fresh from the trash bag, jumbled simplistic in shape (track tops, single-¬breasted wear show, gesturing at the and crumpled and intentionally misshapen. blazers, bowed blouses, a predilection for a 1970s heaving rail of soon-to-be- Gvasalia’s Balenciaga adds a third element to the flare) with a focus on shimmering surfaces and shown Gucci wares. “Make it mix, focusing on a “couture attitude,” on the way overloaded detailing: sequins, custom-¬woven yours.” garments are worn and their relationship with jacquards, buttons in the form of jeweled lion’s THAT’S THE APPEAL of the body. These included embroidered evening heads or gumdrop pearls, sleeves dipped in mink. many of these clothes: Rather dresses and strict tweed suits with exaggerated However different their collections, though, than a tub-thumping, dictated basques, as well as curving parkas and Perfec- Gvasalia and Michele’s ideas about fashion are silhouette, both Gvasalia and to-style jackets based on grand opera coats. The interwoven. The connection is the moment, the Michele propose individual, architecture of the garments at Balenciaga and collective nerve they seem to have touched in the individualistic items, designed “Vetements is only in its Vetements is exciting, innovative. cultural consciousness. People identify with the to stand by themselves. They’re clothing people, That even includes the standard T-shirt, cut long aesthetics these designers are proposing, with the not “fashioning” them. The collections them- fifth season, but Gvasalia has in the body at Vetements with stiffened sleeves “universe” their clothing represents, as badges of selves include countless styles, worn every which or a high-¬rise neckline, as if being worn back belonging. At Vetements’ fall show, high-school- way. There’s no trend, no given shape, no defin- more than a hundred stockists itive singular statement. Their work turns on its to front. Other garments are cut too small or age fashion fans thronged a church in the Eighth worldwide, where his clothes too large, and sit unusually on the body. They’re Arrondissement, dressed in Vetements and vin- head the previously predominant idea of the “to- often made of synthetic fabrics like velour and tage mashed together, emulating the appearance tal look,” of a designer proposing an outfit to be sold head-to-toe. (Incidentally, these “looks,” consistently sell out.” Page 10 which have dominated the past decade or so of fashion, are also often strictly proscribed to be photographed for magazines as such, ensur- ing a singular retail and marketing vision.) Both Gvasalia and Michele conceive their garments as individual entities: a great jacket, a great skirt, a good dress, nice shoes. They mix it all together on the runway, but the notion is to pull it apart into individual pieces. Gvasalia even named his label Vetements -because, “it’s really just about that ... just clothes,” he once told me. Their clothes also don’t change much from sea- son to season, which is breaking another rule: that of perpetual change, of fashion simulating newness purely by its contrast with that which came before. Gvasalia and Michele’s clothing may not be designed, specifically, for seasons to be jumbled together. But they can be. Their great- est provocation to the establishment has been to eschew the industry’s built¬-in obsolescence, to deemed what was an acceptable, even cool, way challenge the very fabric of time. to dress. Gvasalia and Michele have collapsed the Together, what they are proposing ideologically very perception of fashion as rule-maker. is affecting the way other designers think, how We’ve reached the point in fashion where focus- they design and subsequently how we all dress. ing on the garments, as opposed to the gumpf First and foremost, Gvasalia and Michele’s work fluffed about them, constitutes rule-breaking. feels exciting because it aims outside of fashion’s The individual — the individual customer, the insular bubble. There’s a pragmatism behind the ripped off by a legion of others. ibly different. Your aesthetics individual garment, the individualist look rath- collections of both. They frequently talk about “All eyes are on these six,” stat- “I think that are opposed, and yet there are er than the one dictated by a fashion designer “wardrobes,” about “reality,” one that actually ed Fairchild, in his book “Chic so many underlying similarities. or a fashion magazine — is at the root of their feels authentic rather than some fashion con- Savages.” “They show the rest of fashion, for a long Alessandro, you’ve spoken to me success. It’s something that had been missing struct. At the fall shows, many designers seemed the industry where to go.” Now about strange ideas of beauty; in fashion. Vetements is only in its fifth season, time, has been in intent on reflecting the way real people dress, there are even fewer. We brought and Demna, you’ve said of Ve- but Gvasalia has more than a hundred stockists as opposed to cold and calculated “ensembles.” Michele and Gvasalia togeth- tements: “It’s ugly, that's why we worldwide, where his clothes consistently sell a prison.” That’s the influence of Gvasalia and Michele. er three hours after Gvasalia’s like it.” out. Gucci sales under Michele have exceeded It’s a magpie approach to dressing, trying to Balenciaga debut, and two hours [Gvasalia laughs] analysts’ expectations, rising 13.4 percent in the please all of the people all of the time. They’re before Michele returned to Alessandro Michele: But ugly is final quarter of 2015, to $1.2 billion. about choice, about freedom — a word Michele Rome to begin designing Gucci’s spring 2017 beauty. No? Back in 1989, the late John Fairchild, legendary uses often. In effect, they’ve surrendered the collection. The two had never met before. Demna Gvasalia: I think that beauty is in ev- publisher of Women’s Wear Daily, hypothe- power designers previously held over custom- Alexander Fury: It’s interesting getting you to erything, if you look for it. I mean it’s too easy sized that fashion hangs from six designers by ers, in which a designer’s specific eye and taste talk together for the first time because what you to say something is classically beautiful. It’s clear a golden thread. That they were referenced and do is, on the surface, so immediately, incred- for everyone. You don’t need to think. Page 12 Michele: A hidden beauty. I was talking with your eyes. It’s like ... when I think about Gucci, Miuccia [Prada] in Milan, and she told me I was trying to find the most crazy piece of the something really funny, but it was true. She company. Because after a lot of years, Gucci for told me: “When I started in fashion, everything me was, in a way, flat. Without soul. But in the this kind of honesty. because everything is so fast. People need was about super-beautiful, aggressive, polished archive you can find a lot of quirky soul. They Fury: Traditionally, very little of what design- to belong. Identifying them, as, well, “We’re beauty. And I arrived, with these kind of ugly created a lot of strange kinds of objects. I think ers create for the shows actually winds up in part of that.” For me I have this very much girls. They really criticized me a lot, for years that my job could be easy, because we don’t stores for sale. It just exists to be photographed. at Vetements right now, but at Balenciaga the and years.” have a ready-to-wear story, so you can invent Is it a vital part of your creative process that the challenge is to create that. It’s a following in a Gvasalia: Until they understood. what you want. It’s just about travel, suitcases, pieces in the runway show will be the bulk of way. Michele: Yes, until they understood. “It’s easier leather goods. But I was obsessed with this idea what’s produced to sell? Michele: You don’t just work with the length for you,” she told me. Because now it’s a bit of the jet set that, honestly, I don’t think exists Michele: Yes. Reality is a huge piece of our of the skirt. Who cares? Now, I think nobody different. But I think it’s always hard, because anymore. I don’t want to talk with something work. I think that fashion, for a long time, has cares. We’ve seen every length of skirt ... I when you change the language, they need time that is completely dead. But now, the street — been in a prison. Without freedom. I think that think that you have to give something differ- ... I’m obsessed, like you, with the street. without freedom, with rules, it’s impossible to ent. And the most important thing now is also Gvasalia: To digest it. Gvasalia: Because it’s also something you see. create a new story. I mean, I’ve worked in fash- to give a real attitude to fashion. Because peo- Fury: Which I suppose is now the same with Michele: Yes. ion for a long time — but I understand that ple want you to suggest the idea that you can you coming to Balenciaga. The work of both Gvasalia: And you see it through your filter. I after years and years of product, product, prod- really put together and create a personal point of you, at Balenciaga and Gucci, is about un- think the normality, in a way, has so many ways uct. It’s something that kills everything. Also the of view. You have to belong to a brand that expected sides of those labels. They’ve always of being inspiring. And you can do so much market. A product without an idea, a soul, an has a story, because obviously a brand needs been there, but they weren’t as publicized. with it actually. With what you see. attitude. If you don’t give people the idea that an aesthetic. But you need also to suggest the Gvasalia: Because it’s a new story, I think. Fury: It’s challenging, too. How can you make they belong to a tribe ... idea of freedom. Because when you go in the That’s also what makes it exciting. You have a normality interesting? Gvasalia: They need that. street, people are free to do what they want. base, this amazing platform, but then you make Gvasalia: And then also clothes that are wear- Michele: They need that. There are no rules. something new, that works with what was there able that people desire. That they say, “I need Gvasalia: And that’s very much what’s hap- Gvasalia: And they choose what they buy. before. to have that thing.” I think that’s also something pening now, I think. It’s very much what’s hap- Fury: I think it’s interesting that you both Michele: I think also that every single designer that, somehow ... you do a show and then in the pening with what you do. And in such a short talk about attitude. sees something different in the same brand. I store, half of those pieces wouldn’t be there. period of time, also. This is quite amazing — Gvasalia: That is such a key element I think. think that creative work is what you see through Which doesn’t make any sense. To really have it’s ¬actually a virtue of our time, on one hand, You know, when you see someone wearing Page 14 Gucci — you know that she’s a Gucci woman. Gvasalia: In terms of temperature? [Laughs] It’s so visual. That’s a bit confused! We deliver puffer jack- Fury: There’s also that idea that sometimes ets in June — and I really don’t know people someone wears it who maybe ... doesn’t have who buy puffer jackets in June, unless they’re the right attitude. a fashion victim. I think that doesn’t work. But Gvasalia: But it makes her have it. It makes seasons — the continuation, the consistency her. And I think that’s why they want it also, — is important. Especially when you’re re-es- because they want that attitude. That look. That tablishing or redefining the identity of a brand. maybe they don’t even have. I think there you really need to kind of hammer Fury: Demna, do you find it difficult to think that. In ¬slightly different ways, fresher, etc. But in doublespeak, to have an attitude for Vete- I think it’s necessary to have that. So it doesn’t ments and an attitude for Balenciaga? look like a design exercise, every six months. Gvasalia: It helps me. At the beginning it was I think in the ’90s there were a lot of brands like, okay, it’s going to be like Jeykll and Hyde who did that. I know Margiela did it. Every six sonal, I think it can live forever. I think that we Michele: I mean, when you work, you don’t and I’ll go crazy. But I must tell you, having months, it had to be a new concept. Otherwise still have the idea that if you have something think about that kind of thing. But it’s clear that those in-between moments — it’s like cold and it’s not strong enough. And the concept had to beautiful, next season you have to put it in the something is happening. I don’t know what. hot showers. I go back and I forget about that be so strong. It’s not relevant anymore. bin. Gvasalia: I think we’re just happening at the day I spent at Balenciaga. It freshens me. For Michele: It’s another world. It was another Gvasalia: It’s terrible. right time. Also, that fashion realizes that things me, it really helps, creatively. era. Now the world is completely different. The Michele: This is horrible. need to be rethought. That’s why it has an im- Fury: It’s interesting that in your work you’ve customers are different. You can’t repeat for a Gvasalia: It’s also bull. pact, probably. I don’t know. Actually question- both collapsed the idea of trends. That’s been long time the same rule. Because at the end the Michele: I don’t care about which season it is. ing those things: I think, asking those questions dying for a long time, but fashion has been market will stop. Now, I think that customers Sometimes I prefer it after seasons and seasons. makes the whole industry evolve. I think that’s clinging onto it, as a way of categorizing all are ready to decide by themselves what they Gvasalia: Often when you have the continuity the impact, actually. The question of seasons, these different collections. Does that whole idea want to mix and match. It’s not the idea of total between seasons, you don’t have this problem. continuity, etc. I think that’s what makes an of seasonality matter? look. It’s not fresh anymore, I don’t think. It’s still relevant, in the context. It’s like, “Oh, ¬impact. Gvasalia: Because people look for that kind it’s Prada last summer.” If you love it, you love Fury: That your work is challenging these ideas of individuality. They don’t want to look like it. You don’t care which season it is. I write the that people have begun to question in them- a campaign picture. They choose. At the end, seasons on the labels of all the clothes at Vete- selves already. maybe they end up [like that] but it’s their de- ments, for example, and the sales people at the Gvasalia: Me, I never think of that working on cision, of how they want to stand out. Because beginning said: “Oh you can’t do this, people the collection. we're so globalized and everything is so out won’t want to wear it the year after.” No, they Michele: No, no. there right away. I think there is this desire and will. And actually I think it’s even an added Gvasalia: Because it’s more natural. It’s what need for being a bit different. That's why the value. It’s something that continues, and still I think is right. It’s exactly not following rules, individuality matters much more. works. that’s what makes it happen. Because for me, Fury: I think also with the way that both of Fury: That’s an idea everyone seems to be con- these rules don’t matter. And I try to invent you work, there’s a lot of focus on individual necting with — the way they’re connecting with these other rules that work for us. And maybe items, as opposed to that total look. It’s very the way your clothes look, too. Do you realize other people want to appropriate those. But it much about making one thing precious. that other people are feeding off the ideas that doesn’t always work, either. You can’t always use Michele: For me, nothing is old. I don’t know you are putting out? Can you see that fashion the same model. why. If a dress is beautiful, and it’s very ¬per- has shifted? Michele: I think it’s the best thing you can do: Page 16 if you try to feel that something is happening. the time — but it is like sculpting. You need you don’t drink?” Because “Fashion is the I’m only talking about me, because I’m new in to see it in movement also, I hate working on I don’t need it. It’s because this business. I’m having fun — I don’t think a stock man. I prefer to have a real person, so it’s a process. I don’t have a way you dress, about it. But probably if I’d been on the scene she moves. Can she actually move in it? Can person that is so close to me for a long time, I think I would see that some- she drive? This practicality as well. But how it to share so much. It’s not the way you thing changing is a good reason to express your behaves when it’s on, the motion, etc. I always because I don’t want it or I’m point of view. Not to copy. I saw, for example, start with a garment, and then I cut. I destroy so against the idea of a stylist. are.” last season everywhere that kind of strange dec- many clothes. To make more clothes. It’s just my story. I didn’t use oration. But fashion is not about decoration [he Fury: I guess why you don’t work with a stylist [a stylist] because I love to strokes a hand across the metallic embroidery is an interesting question, as it’s another thing do the styling of the show. The styling, for me, that belongs to us. If I’m inspired by a friend on his own Gucci jacket], fashion is not about that makes you stand out compared to other is the show. It’s the collection. It’s the idea — of mine — could be, yes. This is different. It’s the wrong size [gesturing to Gvasalia’s oversized designers. Alessandro, you never have? what I want to show you about my idea. So it’s not styling, it’s creating something new, with an coat, as Gvasalia laughs]. You have to find your Michele: I don’t know. It’s like asking, “Why impossible to translate to another person. If energy. language. If you try to repeat something that is I need a color, if I need to put something on Gvasalia: For me, it’s more sharing of this — not you, your language, it doesn’t work. you, in a different way. I have it in my mind. It’s I actually get inspired by seeing. It’s not just Gvasalia: It’s true. They see how it works at a vision. Who can have the same vision as me? ¬Lotta, there are also other women around me Gucci, so we should also do that. I’d love to find someone that can share with me. that I ... not get inspired by, but I love the way Michele: Full of birds everywhere! Flowers! I Because sharing is something beautiful. I love to they pull their skirt up. These elements that I’m didn’t plan to put birds or that kind of nature; share. But I think that I’m quite obsessed with not doing myself, because I’m a guy, but that it’s just me. It’s my culture. I think that it’s more the styling. I start from both — the dress and gives me an idea. that something had to come. the styling. I don’t have before the dress, and Fury: You touched on it then — that idea of Gvasalia: And the awareness of it. I think that after I style. I think of both together. gender blurring, which is so relevant to both everyone has been aware of it, for quite a while. Gvasalia: I think styling — the stylist coming your work. Especially in the press. But somehow, suddenly, in, saying, “OK, this girl” — it’s not for now, Gvasalia: “Gender fluidity.” something is happening. And that makes people anymore. Fury: I hate that term! speak. So it explodes even more. Michele: Also it’s your job! In a way! It’s com- Gvasalia: It’s the worst thing ever. It sounds Fury: Both of you have talked about work- pletely my vision. vulgar. ing with physical garments as a starting point. Gvasalia: When I work with Lotta [Volkova, Michele: But it’s something that is — I always Which feels like something very different from the stylist of Vetements and Balenciaga] — she say that I didn’t invent anything. It’s something perceptions of designers’ working, sketching. knows what I know, what I want. It’s that kind that exists, it’s our life. What can I say? It’s the Gvasalia: I don’t remember when I sketched of exchange again. We’re very close, we really world. It’s something that exists, I can’t ignore. I last time. know each other, we’re friends. It’s not like I understand that for a long time fashion wanted Michele: Me either. hired her. to stay inside fashion. Something like another Gvasalia: I write in my iPhone ideas now. Be- Michele: It’s not a stylist — she’s a friend of world. Fashion is, I don’t know where — in the cause I don’t have a sketchbook with me. I just yours. front of the window in Rue Faubourg? I don’t do notes, reminders. For Monday, when I’m at Gvasalia: And I like how she wears some stuff. know. Where is “fashion”? Fashion is the way Balenciaga. A collar like this. I kind of project, because I would love to wear you dress, the way you are. Again, your atti- Michele: It’s true. boots to here! tude. So this word, gender fluidity, is kind of an Gvasalia: I think with clothing, it’s so Michele: This is completely different. It’s your invention. Because it’s our life. We, all of us, are three-¬dimensional, it’s impossible to draw it. life. This is not a stylist. This is what I was this way. Fashion is — if we want to talk about For me, I’m always talking about sculpture all saying before, the idea of sharing something Page 18 the way you look — you have, inside, all these different mean- ings. Gvasalia: But it’s so there, it’s so normal. On Thursday the [Ve- tements] show finished with two identical looks: One was on a guy and one was on a girl. We didn’t really think — oh let’s show that both of them can wear it. We just tried them and both worked and were incredible. Michele: It’s not a trick. Gvasalia: No, not at all. And the guy, he loved it. And she did. I mean, fashion industry, when I say I work in fashion, it’s going to be harder for today’s [Balenciaga] I feel ... [He shrugs, visibly uncomfortable with show! It’s something that is just ... normal now. the word, and frowns.] Do I really have to say Ten, 15 years ago, it wasn’t something that was it? really happening. It would be a statement, like Fury: It’s such a loaded thing. It’s loaded with a conscious statement, to put a dress on a guy. perceptions, from the outside world. That kind Now it’s just society. You want to wear a dress? of elitism. Michele: We are really in a playground — it’s Gvasalia: Which is not necessarily true. nothing predictable. It’s really alive. You think Fury: But it’s like you said, Alessandro — fash- about people. You think again to what is hap- ion being something in a window. You don’t pening outside. I mean, I didn’t create a pair of wear fashion, you wear clothes. shoes because I wanted some editorials. Never. Michele: I’m seducing me also. I’m seducing I think of a guy in the club, outside in the street, myself. Because I was bored, in a way. or a friend of mine. It’s a very pragmatic way to Fury: With fashion? see fashion. “Fashion.” The word “fashion,” it’s Michele: I can say I was a fashion person, com- very ... pletely bored. And I wanted to seduce myself. Gvasalia: It’s tricky. It needs to change! Because I know very well that I need to be Michele: Because fashion is clothes. Sometimes seduced. I am doing a lot of things because I when people talk about me in fashion, I feel — feel like a customer. I’m not feeling like a special I don’t want to say uncomfortable, but I still person; I’m wearing what I’m doing. And I do don’t believe that I’m in “fashion.” things that I love. It’s about us. It’s not about Gvasalia: And some people who are not in the me.