But there’s a lot of me in it, just simply because this can’t happen anywhere else. Who else can be as closely associated with their label in this day and age? People just can’t do that. I just love emphasizing that because it’s so unusual and because it really underlines the fact that it’s a very personal gesture. It’s not a committee decision. And that’s what I’m looking for. I’m looking for uncompromising personal gestures. So that’s what I want to provide.

The way we started is I asked Alexandre, what’s your wishlist? What do you want to do? What do you want to see? And he really wanted to emphasize the Hollywood years and the beginnings. And he asked for the pissing statue, and he said, how can we have the furniture involved? So I came up with this in the bedroom, because the bedroom represents the seed of the furniture collection. The bed is the first piece that Michele and I made for each other, with each other. And that space just seems as relevant to the way I live now and to the kind of a world that I’ve tried to create. It seems nostalgic, but it also seems completely connected to the way we still live. We have a version of that bed that we sleep in every night.

Do you remember the first piece of men’s clothing that you designed?

No, but I remember the first show. I did a couple of co-ed shows early on, and I did my first men’s show [in 2006] at Pitti Uomo.

Which is where the pissing sculpture in the exhibition was first shown.

And that’s when I did those first “Dunks” that I got the cease and desist for. But we presented those for a while before anybody ordered them. That was a lesson in tenacity and commitment. I mean, I feel like nowadays ideas aren’t allowed to develop enough, maybe because ordinarily if something doesn’t hit the first couple of seasons it gets retired. And then I bought my house on those shoes. It’s a real lesson on committing to something and repeating. And if it’s a good idea, repeat it. But I get it. It’s a tricky thing. In this day and age, being repetitive is almost radical. I think it feels courageous and it feels kind of honorable. So that’s kind of where I’m about repetition. If it’s good enough for Donald Judd, it’s good enough for me.

What do you hope people take away from the exhibition, particularly those who might not be familiar with your work?

I used to think, if you know who I am, you’ve already decided. But there’s a lot of new people that are just discovering the aesthetics that they want to respond to. So there are still people to seduce and corrupt. But I think that there are a lot of people that just think it’s all sensationalism, lurid sensationalism, and there is a lot of that.

But there are a lot of other things. And I thought that when I did an exhibition at the Triennale in Milan [in 2017], I loved it, but it felt very bombastic. And I was thinking, if I ever get the chance to do this again, maybe it would be nice to do something that’s quieter, a little bit more about craftmanship, a little bit more nuanced, a little bit more soft. I don’t know if that happened. I don’t know if I did that. This one seemed kind of bombastic to me again, but maybe I just can’t help it. But it is very beautiful, a lot of it, and I brought in more references. I brought in important pieces from Gustav Moreau and Steven Parrino and Joseph Beuys, just to give it some gravitas and to express a little bit more of my reverence for historical aesthetics. It’s not just about me showing my dick. It’s about my respect for cultural references before that have meant something to me, and that meant something to a lot of people.

How did it feel when you walked through the exhibition for the first time?

I mean, we’ve been looking at the imagery for two years. It’s like a collection. By the time the runway show is there, you’ve drained all the emotion out of it. But there is the thrill of seeing it actually in life because you’ve imagined it, you’ve planned for it, you’ve edited it, you have planned on every plan B. But of course, when it happens in full life, it is thrilling because it’s not exactly how you pictured it. A lot of times, most of the time, it’s better.

Read the full article here

Shares:

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *