S T I L L H E T E N S D Y S T
NICOLAS GHESQUIERE
PARIS, Frankrike – Etter flere måneder med stillhet, har Nicolas Ghesquière åpnet opp vedrørende sin avgang ved huset, Balenciaga.
System magazins, Jonathan Wingfield intervjuet Nicolas Ghesquière flere ganger i perioden mellom begynnelsen av Desember 2012 til slutten av Mars 2013. Dette var første gangen Ghesquière valgte å snakke offentlig om hans avgang etter 15 år ved Balenciaga.
Ghesquière åpner opp om hvorfor han forlot Balenciaga, hans tanker og inntrykk om den nåværende situasjonen av mote industrien og hva fremtiden har i vente. Som han nevner ved et punkt i denne definerende dialogen - " den beste måten å gå videre på er å gå tilbake til arbeidet" -
Det som følger er et eksklusivt utdrag fra intervjuet, sendt ut av System Magazine. Dette er det første 'issue' av magasinet.
At what point into the job at Balenciaga did you realise you needed to wise up to the business side of the brand?
NG: Straight away. It’s part of being a creative because the vision you have ends up in the stores. It actually makes me smile today when I think about it because it was me who had to invent the concept of being commercial at Balenciaga. Right from the start I wanted it to be commercial, but the first group who owned the house didn’t have the first notion of commerce; there was no production team. There was nothing.
What was your vision for the brand?
NG: For me, Balenciaga has a history that is just as important as that of Chanel, even if it’s a lesser-known name. It had the modernity, it was contemporary, and I’ve always positioned it as a little Chanel or Prada.
But what makes Chanel and Prada bigger structures?
NG: The people that surround the designers. Miuccia Prada has an extraordinary partner, whereas I was doing everything by myself.
So without the right people, building something as big as a Chanel or Prada is unimaginable?
NG: I don’t know if it’s impossible, maybe the system will change, but what’s clear is that those brands have family and partners surrounding them, and they have creative carte blanche. Prada, for example, has made this model where you can be a business and an opinion leader at the same time, which is totally admirable. It’s the same thing at Chanel. Sadly, I never had that. I never had a partner, and I ended up feeling too alone. I had a marvellous studio and design team who were close to me, but it started becoming a bureaucracy and gradually became more corporate, until it was no longer even linked to fashion. In the end, it felt as though they just wanted to be like any other house.