Takashi Nishiyama, a 23-year-old designer inspired by computer games and monsters, is the winner of this year’s ITS competition: a seal of approval bestowed by judges including Viktor & Rolf and John Galliano. Nishiyma’s collection features voluminous layers of dark fur, drowning the models in monster silhouettes; it is simultaneously fantasy and nightmare. Continue reading “Takashi Nishiyama talks to Filep Motwary”
Walter Pfeiffer has been making pictures since the early 1970s. His photographs and short films evoke both the glamour and the grit of hedonistic youth. His influence is seen in the work of photographers like Juergen Teller and Wolfgang Tillmans, who have achieved the kind of recognition he has never enjoyed. He has published six books with Ringier and Hatje Cantz: odes to homoeroticism, drama and imperfect beauty, measured out in off-kilter crops and that omnipresent flash. Here, he chats with Dapper Dan from his home in Zurich. Continue reading “Walter Pfeiffer talks to Filep Motwary”
The legendary, and legendarily private, Yohji Yamamoto has recently surprised his fans by publishing a biography. It was co-written by a longtime Yamamoto collaborator, Ai Mitsuda; spanning memoir, fiction and philosophy, it is both more abstract and more deeply personal than a traditional biography.
This March, meanwhile, the V&A in London will pay homage to Yamamoto with a full-blown retrospective. It is, of course, no traditional exhibition, but a series of site-specific installations that lead visitors around the V&A and raise questions about process and permanence. With Yamamoto, the journey is, as ever, the destination. Continue reading “Yohji Yamamoto talks to Filep Motwary”
Rick Owens is probably the only designer in Paris who can be classed as a genuine phenomenon. Although he is never seen in any act of socializing, commercial networking or frivolous appearance, he is always somehow at the top of the list. Fashion loves Owens, as do many men and women. He is a loyal servant of style, and his loyal customers grow wiser out of each collection every season. His furniture and garments recall elliptic, curving typography; Bauhaus; darkness. Every time I talk to him, it is a new experience. Teach me, Rick. Continue reading “Rick Owens talks to Filep Motwary”
Over a lengthy career, Ari Marcopoulos has continually shed his skin, like a serpent, to reveal another, shinier skin underneath. His photographs are naked and honest – what you see is what you get. He has been documenting American culture, and subculture, since the early 1980s, and has collaborated with Warhol and Basquiat. While not precisely mainstream, Marcopoulos’ still and moving images are evocative markers of the times we are living through. Over a prolonged inter- continental telephone call, he discusses his three new projects: the camera bag he has designed for INCASE alongside a limited- edition book of unpublished photographs, Now is Forever; a forthcoming show at the Confort Moderne gallery in Poitiers, and a film that features the spring/summer 2011 Yves Saint Laurent collection. Continue reading “Ari Marcopoulos talks to Filep Motwary”
I first met Juergen Teller at a lunch at Café Marly in Paris in 2004. He had recently shot Charlotte Rampling for the new issue of POP magazine, and five minutes later, in walked Miss Rampling herself. I had not met her before, but I did not think to introduce myself: I felt I already knew her, from Teller’s intimate, opulent photographs. That was just before Steidl published his book Louis XV, another collaboration between Teller and Rampling. We met once more to talk flash, flesh and feeling. Continue reading “Juergen Teller talks to Filep Motwary”
Damir Doma is not famous. He refuses to follow trends and avoids seeking attention for its own sake. Unlike most young, tailoring-obsessed menswear designers working today, Doma sculpts a soft, simple, yet imposing silhouette. More than simply making clothes, he is quietly sketching out the shape of a new kind of man. Croatian-born and German-raised, Doma studied fashion in Munich and then Berlin, and graduated in 2004 with honours for best collection. He then moved to Antwerp, where it did not take long for him to attract the attention of Raf Simons, whose work had exerted a profound influence over Doma’s own. Under Simons’ mentorship, Doma was encouraged to develop an intensely personal vision of masculinity; for him, fashion design is a means of exploring the fragile, ephemeral nature of the body. Despite its conceptual origins, Doma’s clothing is beautifully wearable, balancing the solemnity of heavy textiles with a feeling of freedom and fluidity. He showed his first menswear collection in 2007 and is about to launch a womenswear line next month, at Paris Fashion Week. But, he says, his eponymous label has never really aimed for commercial success – it’s actually “a huge art project”. Continue reading “Damir Doma talks to Filep Motwary”
