Firstly before we go on to the interview, I have great news.
My flight ticket to attend the Hyères International Fashion and Photography
Festival which will be held in the town of Hyères, in the south of France is
finally booked. So come month end I will be spending 5 days there and will blog
directly from the festival. I am very fucking excited about that. Now as I have
told before, as a partner blog for the festival I will be bringing you
interviews that I and the other partner bloggers have done with the jury
members. Today I bring you an interview with Olivier Saillard, curator,
performer, current Director of the Galliera Fashion Museum and festival jury
member. I recommend that you read his very insightful interview below and then
google him and his work, especially the fashion-based performances that he puts
together for an invited audience during Paris Couture Week. Me, I simply cannot
wait to feed on all the creative inspiration at the festival. Enjoy.
1) Why should a garment be considered as important?
At the risk of appearing a bit primal, because we'd be a bit cold if
we had to live naked,
unless we all moved to warmer pastures !
Beyond climatic considerations, I love to see a garment as a
solution,
and to note that some designers are, to this day, still preoccupied
by the idea of solving, through a way of dressing, our natural morning
wardrobe.
2) You have produced works that straddle the line between fashion
and performance. Or maybe there is no line. When looking at the collections for
the festival,
how important is the element of presentation to you? Would a poor
presentation of a great garment influence how you score it?
Now more than ever, presentation interests me less than the garment
itself. I skip fashion shows and rather appreciate presentations in show
rooms.
Thus, there is no way of cheating. Presentation involves the image.
Today a fashion show lasts on average 7 to 11 minutes.
In the 80's, it lasted 40 minutes, and in the 50's, over an hour and
a half.
That means that means that the live fashion takes as long to watch
as what you'd see on the internet.
This tyranny of the image, which is killing ambition in dressing at
the profit of sensationalism, must be avoided, except when it is claimed as
part of a project.
A bad presentation cannot influence my perception of the garment,
but can make me doubt as to the ability of the designer.
3) You have seen up close so many historical costumes and clothing
that were at the forefront of fashion techniques and technology of their
era.
On the flipside, what do you think the is the most advanced or
intriguing technique or aspect in fashion that is available now that wasn't in
the past?
It seems to me that only Azzedine Alaia is technically a virtuoso.
Comme des Garçons, Rei Kawakubo and Junya Watanabe seem to always
open new paths of research which, without having to do with Haute Couture,
enrich the formal and technical vocabulary of fashion. I also see in
Nicolas Ghesquière an obtuse talent to renew textile research, to make it
contemporary for good.
But I must admit that it's in the realm of athletic clothing that
the research is pioneering and democratic. It is regrettable that the
stylistic vocabulary is subpar to these discoveries, which make the garment
thinner, lighter and more efficient. The motifs, as well as the cuts, are
awe-inspiring.
4) Fashion has been an immediate transmitter for new ideas and a
proof of social and cultural evolution.
for quite a while now we experience fashion is recycling itself in
an ever faster cycle, to a point where almost anything goes.
looking at history, how would you analyse the role of fashion today?
This constant renewal, whose sole function is to develop sales,
doesn't affect the silhouette as we would think.
It takes in fact years for a trend to register and take root.
It probably took over 10 years for the low waist to make its way in
everyone's closet.
It will take as many years for the waistline to return to normal.
Fads seem as epiphenomena in comparison to the constrained
silhouette of our current wardrobe, and which was born at the end of the 90's.
There is a paradox between a "fashion for all" universe
made possible by big democratic brands who follow very closely the shows of
influential designers (who may also be watching)
and on the opposing end, a sort of disavowal of the mainstream
public for fashion creation (fed by the media who are tied hands and feet to
the advertisers).
As in other disciplines, there is an abundance of shows and
designers whose creative ambition is relative. Truly interesting collections
are drowned out and deprived of the attention they deserve.
As an aside, there are no "damned" designers whose talent
is being ignored. That is one thing worth celebrating.
5) Could you comment the extent to which today's fashion apparently
is getting more influences from within fashion than, for example, other realms
such as history or history of art?
It is true that there is in fashion, as in other artistic
disciplines I must say, a sort of inbreeding,
By dint of quoting and holding up mirrors through internet and
twitter, fashion houses are disappearing into their own reflection, and in the
end are making interchangeable creation a standard.
That will be probably be the identified "evil" of the
2000's and 2010's. The monopoly of luxury brands and groups has brought to
light their formula.
I believe in the return to the designer as creator as I believe in
the sovereignty of the author.
There are in fashion some immediate boomerang effects which protect
fashion from the mechanics which businessmen would want to duplicate.
On the other hand, I am wary of the proliferation on each street of
boutiques which are destroying the determined gaze which we could have on
fashion creation.
This over-abundance is the source of its own disgust.
6) What is the last thing that you experienced, saw or heard that
stimulated you?
Generally speaking, only the past stimulates me.
The tyranny of now, as it is fed by the internet, puts me off.
I find all the people who live off novelty a bit sad, because I
recognize nevertheless a lot of wasted work and energy.
What stimulates me are positions of resistance such as Azzedine
Alaia. That is what fashion history will keep. There is a deep necessity to
break all the commercial molds to favor the growth of new names and new
talents.
Reading is always a stimulating element to me. Recently,
"Aurelien" by Aragon brought me much pleasure.
The book is, more than ever for me, a way to sweeten these
considerations and a way to remind ourselves that thinking can still be a
creative program.
Far removed from this, what stimulated me more than anything is my
sister's recent move to Saintes Marie de la Mer [in the Camargue region in the
south of France near Arles].
Everything morning she crosses the road to go swim. Right now I see
no better wild project to be happy.
Great interview, Mali.
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