English Texts

First Times

by NICK REMSEN

Fashion has never existed without collaboration. It can’t, really. This is because fashion, at its core, is about appealing to emotions. It’s about finding the nexus of a notion or an inkling and transforming it into something that catalyzes human connection; fashion isn’t a stock market floor or an assembly line. It is idea-based, and ideas are often better when there are synergies. In modern vernacular, the word collaboration has come to mean X brand partnering with Y company or Z person to create limited edition collections of product. Recall the early days; Marc Jacobs tapping Takashi Murakami for Louis Vuitton’s now legendary sunflower or cherry-patterned purses. Or H&M and Karl Lagerfeld, one of the first “high-low” branded collaborations. Now there are umpteen of these partnerships, and counting. They’ve expanded beyond the fashion arena, too. Consider the term beyond the context in which it has come to be regarded. Think of designer duos: Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez of Proenza Schouler; Rodarte’s Kate and Laura Mulleavy; and Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana of Dolce & Gabbana. Think of the even longer list of designers and their de facto stylist and/or photographer partners: Nicolas Ghesquière and Marie-Amélie Sauvé; Raf Simons and Willy Vanderperre; even Palace Skateboards and Alasdair McLellan. Think of the photographer pairs: Inez and Vinoodh and Mert and Marcus. Collaborations in fashion exist between non-designers, too: Anna Wintour and the roster of top photographers that lens American Vogue’s covers; the stylist Marni Senafonte and Beyoncé; the stylist Arianne Phillips and Madonna. Models are muses, editors are encouragers, and so much more. Case in point: collaboration really boils down to relationships. Cooperations. Friendships (even if the pressures of the business can sometimes strain those friendships). This issue celebrates the root of the word by capturing that spirit and all of its bonds. Here, 12 fashion-industry fixtures tell Vogue Italia their most vivid or most important or most meaningful first time memory with their collaborators, from like-yesterday red carpet flashbacks to an inseparable (if argumentative) sibling duo to one of the most important things of all: crying with laughter. •

“I was only a child when I first saw Karl. His appearance and figure, wearing a white gown, made me think of him as a painter. We had a very special relationship, based on a deep and very genuine mutual affection. We had a lot of appreciation and respect for each other. The way we worked together was very creative and free. He was based in Paris and I’m in Rome, so he often offered his ideas and when we were together he used to take a look at what we made out of his inputs. We usually had only a couple of days to pull everything together and make final selections, continuing to change things up until moments before the show. Karl was part of the family. He had always been here. He started working with my mother and her sisters in the 1960s, and I think Karl saw them as allies. They never rejected any of his ideas— even when he proposed chopping up luxury fur into little pieces. That’s how he revolutionized fur. Karl always had the most incredible references and inspirations.”

—Silvia Venturini Fendi on Karl Lagerfeld.

“We originally met when I was working on album packaging for Kanye West. I was the assistant on the project, and what stuck with me about Takashi’s process was, and is, the impact of his creative exercise. I think what makes us a powerful combination is that we embrace the now. We come from two different worlds and two different practices, but we found our point of intersection in the work we create together, which is a commentary inspired by current times and current freedom.” —Designer Virgil Abloh on Takashi Murakami. The pair have co-created art that has been sold by Gagosian Gallery.

“The first time I met Cardi was when she arrived to sit next to me at my fragrance launch for Moschino Fresh Gold in Miami at the end of 2017. She was in head-totoe Moschino and looked amazing! For the launch party she performed in a custom gold crystal mesh fringe dress. I was struck by her shyness—she’s such a fun and brash performer, so it was surprising when she told me she was shy and nervous for performing at the party. After that night, we’ve done so many things together, including her iconic pregnant Met Gala 2018 look! It was her first Met and, as “fashion prom,” it can be a bit intimidating. I switched into the mode of being big brother, wanting to take care of my little sister who was making her biggest red carpet debut to date. Once we hit the steps we had so much fun, as she loves to put on a show and the crowd really fed off of her energy. She played it up, yelling to the photographers that ‘it’s Jeremy’s baby! He’s the baby daddy!’ I adore Cardi because she is authentic and real. No fakeness, no phoniness.”

—Designer Jeremy Scott on his muse, Cardi B.

“Tammy and I have worked together day in and day out for 12 years now. Previous to that she was my house fit model when I was a student at Central Saint Martins. It was always our dream to set up our own label together. She is my closest collaborator and confidante, and she’s very opinionated which leads to lots of arguments and shouting matches. We are Scottish so we are very straight-talking and to the point; our team in the studio often say we should have a show called ‘Keeping Up with the Kanes’ as our days can be so dramatic. All of that said, I love working with her, and don’t think I would do this job without her. She’s always there for me.’’

—Designer Christopher Kane on his sister, Tammy Kane. “On the first day of my internship I put my—then— portfolio carrier on a desk as I waited for the designers to arrive. The first one to arrive was Laura, who screamed “Whose ugly bag is on my desk?!” —Fernando Garcia on Laura Kim. The two are the co-leads of the American fashion house, Oscar de la Renta.

“Our first time really connecting was when, on a Saturday night, John came to visit the Maison Margiela. I had courted him for years. I had always dreamed of working with John Galliano, the greatest of them all. And, one day, I managed to convince him: ‘Just come and see it,’ I said. I knew that it was a magical place. And so it worked: John spent an infinite moment in the archives, strolled through the atelier, touched the peeling walls, and smoked a cigarette in the inner courtyard. I had succeeded.” —Renzo Rosso on John Galliano, who now runs Maison Margiela (which is owned by Rosso’s company).

“I have many memories of Adwoa making me howl with laughter. My most memorable was at a wedding of one of our closest friends in the Bahamas, years ago. I remember singing with Adwoa, her sister Kesewa, and my boyfriend Tom, and all of us crying with laughter at the poor quality of our singing voices. Mine especially!” —Designer Molly Goddard on her best friend, the model and activist Adwoa Aboah.

“I first met my dear friend Simone Rocha before I actually met her—we would eye each other as we wandered around the same booths at the Porte de Clignancourt flea market. But we were both so shy! When we finally met for real, it seemed like we had already known each other for years.” —Writer and editor Lynn Yaeger on her friend, the designer Simone Rocha.

“I have had a picture up on the wall of my studio for years. It is from a book I found in the library, and in it, a beautiful young man is standing on a street, smiling, wearing a t-shirt that says “Good dick with imprison you.” I had no idea it was Richie Shazam Khan, until he walked into the studio one day for a casting. That was the first season he did one of my shows, and he carried an eight foot long python down the runway, while wearing a gold sequin dress slashed to the thigh, and a jasmine garland in his hair. He was a cross-dressing mythical god, like an ‘ardhnarishvara,’ half man and half woman. Backstage, he nicknamed the python ‘Fluffy’ because he said it would help him conquer his fear of snakes! It was an unforgettable moment, and something I could only imagine Richie carrying off with such pizzazz, given how much larger than life the West Indian New Yorker and self-confessed “Bollywood princess” is. Every time Richie wears my clothes or does a show I am struck by an almost mythical quality he has; how he transcends

masculine and feminine. There is a wisdom and an energy that he radiates that goes far beyond his years.”

—Designer Ashish on his muse, the model Richie Shazam.

“We had only known each other for about 6 months, when I showed Serhat some ideas I had for a small collection that I wanted help with. Serhat was already consulting for other artists and designers and he had an atelier. He responded by immediately showing me some of his research, and it was so similar to mine, we decided to found a label together at that very point.” —Benjamin Alexander Huseby on Serhat Isik, the co-designers of the label GmbH.

“I met Rossy in a gala in Museo Reina Sofía. She was the hostess of the event. While presenting the gala, introducing the guests of the event, Rossy went down the stage and started naming the different groups among the guests. She mentioned her old friends, the new faces of the cinema field, and when she passed our table she looked at us in the eyes and said ‘here is the table of the muses.’ That is my first memory of her. It was such a big honor that she referred to us like that. I had really admired her, and her work, since I was a child.” —Palomo Spain designer Alejandro Palomo on his (now) muse, Rossy de Palma.

“LeBron james is a superstar, and he looks like the superstar that he is. My first meeting with LeBron was very easy and friendly. He’s a professional, all around.” —Thom Browne on his friend LeBron James, the basketball star often seen wearing Browne’s designs.

“I am big fan of a destination experience. So I was super fascinated the first time I met Dr. Woo at his private studio, which is completely hidden in a courtyard next to the pool at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel in Los Angeles. We had a great powwow talking about clothes and art, then had some of the best Japanese food at Aburiya Raku!” —Alchemist owner and designer Roma Cohen on the tattoo artist Dr. Woo (the two recently collaborated).

text page 36 If a search went out for a woman who embodies the aesthetics of great American style, all the indicators would have to point towards Tonne Goodman. Amongst the front-row lineup at shows, she – rail-slim, with her shock of long hair, always immaculate in her uniform of blazer, shirt, white pants, loafers- is the epitome of professionalism whose visionary influence lies behind four decades of picturing the best of the American psyche in fashion imagery, and countless Vogue covers.

Tonne Goodman: A Point of View ( Abrams) is a kind of autobiography in fashion pictures, 363 glorious pages refracted through the light of her unerringly modern, ultra-refined taste. There’s a timelessly clean photograph of a woman elegantly poised in a floor-length white dress, her hair glossed into a neat twist at the nape of her long neck on the cover. If you know Tonne – as I have since the Nineties – you do a double-take. It’s actually Daria Werbowy, wearing a Calvin Klein dress ( from when Francisco Costa was designing the collection), shot by David Sims for US Vogue in 2009, but it’s so like the physical essence of Tonne herself, it might be a self-portrait.

Fashion trends come and go – it’s the job of a fashion editor to capture them – but what distinguishes a lasting image is a talent for orchestrating a deeper insight. “I guess it’s the marriage of relevance and emotion”, she says. In a career spent a career shooting with an encyclopedia of photographers – Bruce Weber, Peter Lindbergh, Patrick Demarchelier, Mario Testino, David Sims – and an A-Z of the greatest models, she’s had a hand in thousands of images which will resonate with readers of American Vogue since 1999, and Harpers Bazaar, where she was fashion director from 1992. Before that, she was vice president of advertising at Calvin Klein, bringing her anonymous collaboration to the outstandingly minimalist, sensual black and white imagery which made the brand an aspirational legend of New York Eighties lifestyle. Her account of working with him to arrive at the perfect image tells everything about the laser-like precision of her method. “Oh, it was very much a meditation at Calvin - the deliberation that went into a fitting would take hours”, she laughs. “I remember one day, we were looking at a completely simple black jersey dress. But should it be a quarter of an inch shorter, or longer? Should it be a crew neck. Higher? Or lower, to show her clavicle? She was standing in stilettos. I said, ‘ What if we do it with a flat sandal?’ It was suddenly a completely different dress. Calvin said, yes. And that’s how it went out in the show.” Flipping through the book in search of the Tonne Goodman signature, you’d come up with descriptions like spareness, understatedness, subtlety – as well as the ability to depict dozens of facets of an American ideal of energy and athleticism. But what stood the test of time, and means most to her, is the personal narrative that emerges. “When I looked through, there’s so much that comes from something I experienced.”

Reading between the images, there’s a backstory in which you often glimpse a love of the big American outdoors, and something tender, even fleetingly spiritual. “In the end, there has to be an arc of happiness, a sense of joy.” She will move mountains to realise an image. In the early Nineties at Bazaar, she made Amber Valetta appear as an angel on the streets of New York for a Peter Lindbergh story; an image she links to the blessing of the discovery that she was pregnant with her first child. She found an aircraft carrier for an epic re-enactment of Raquel Welch and Bob Hope’s appearance entertaining the troops in 1967, casting Linda Evangelista. “We had a script. Linda stayed in character the whole time – she was just incredible. We had so much fun.”

While her longtime friend and colleague Grace Coddington’s work is famously epically romantic and essentially English ( and also often features glimpses of redheaded self-portraits), Tonne’s sensibility is rooted in the patrician aesthetic of her American upbringing. She links her economy of style to her innate feeling for American history. “The American woman is very, very practical. Literally, you could trace it from the pioneers – the simple calico dresses they made; the tradition of sportswear that developed with designers during second world war restrictions. Everything has to be simple and easy to wear.”

She was born in New York, to a mother who had been an artist, and a surgeon father, elegant people who Alfred Eisenstaedt photographed for LIFE magazine, and declared to be ‘ the handsomest couple in New York’. Every night, her parents would dress for dinner, while after school, “Our mother would take us to every museum and gallery, or to Central Park, where she’d sit and paint while we played. Later on, she took me to life-drawing classes at the Art Students League.” Growing into a leggy teenager at Brearley private school, she rebelled by wearing her wide-wale corduroy pants instead of uniform, went on anti-Vietnam war demos and became a fashion fanatic.

It got her noticed. By the time she was an art student, she began modelling for Mademoiselle in 1969, was photographed by Avedon, Penn and Bert Stern for Vogue, and then landed a job assisting Diana Vreeland at The Costume Institute at the Met, until 1977, helping to mount fashion exhibitions under her exacting command. Her happy leap to editing fashion pages came when Carrie Donovan, editor of the New York Times magazine section, immediately working with Helmut Newton. She never looked back – until now. The story contained within the covers of her book crosses decades of fashion, the era of the supermodels, the rise of celebrities, Olympic athletes and the vast catalogue of covers for Vogue and Bazaar she’s created. It’s an impressive testament of the career of a woman whose character shines as the very best advocate for what American fashion can be. • text page 142