Demna Gvasalia and Alessandro Michele
For its upcoming Culture issue (out this Sunday), T Magazine matched Gucci’s Alessandro Michele with Vetements’ and Balenciaga’s Demna Gvasalia for the first time to discuss anything they fancied. Perhaps the most amusing part of their conversation (gently guided by writer Alexander Fury) was their banter about the word “fashion,” which gave us a case of the LOLZ. Here’s an excerpt:
Michele: I mean, I didn’t create a pair of shoes because I wanted some editorials. Never. I think of a guy in the club, outside in the street, or a friend of mine. It’s a very pragmatic way to see fashion. “Fashion.” The word “fashion,” it’s very …
Gvasalia: It’s tricky. It needs to change!
Michele: Because fashion is clothes. Sometimes when people talk about me in fashion, I feel — I don’t want to say uncomfortable, but I still don’t believe that I’m in “fashion.”
Gvasalia: And some people who are not in the fashion industry, when I say I work in fashion, I feel … [He shrugs, visibly uncomfortable with the word, and frowns.] Do I really have to say it?
Fury: It’s such a loaded thing. It’s loaded with perceptions, from the outside world. That kind of elitism.
Gvasalia: Which is not necessarily true.
Fury: But it’s like you said, Alessandro — fashion being something in a window. You don’t wear fashion, you wear clothes.
Michele: I’m seducing me also. I’m seducing myself. Because I was bored, in a way.
Fury: With fashion?
Michele: I can say I was a fashion person, completely bored. And I wanted to seduce myself. Because I know very well that I need to be seduced. I am doing a lot of things because I feel like a customer. I’m not feeling like a special person; I’m wearing what I’m doing. And I do things that I love. It’s about us. It’s not about me.
