The cult of absence: the 3 “invisible” designers of fashion

Here we are at the famous Morettian question “You notice more if I come and I’m on the sidelines or if I don’t come at all?”. After all “Hunger is a gun», Adison Rae also sings it. But in an era in which the personality prevails over the work, media overexposure is our only creed, the creative directors are celebrities and the celebrities are creative directors (Pharrell Williams docet), perhaps, at least to be alive every now and then would converge.

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But no. The “fashion banksy” exist. We have selected three of them, who built a whole career on the silence (exceptionally sound). Far from spotlights, interviews, press statements, shooting, backstage, gossip. We understood ourselves, far from the “character”. Hermits of the image devoted to low profile extreme, which have become the most sought after non-turn of the tailoring avant-garde, due to effect boomerang. Will it be devotion to artistic purity? Or conceptual strategy? Boycott of branding commandments? Or simply sacrosanct preservation of privacy? Who can say. They certainly don’t.

Let’s start with the “lover of absence” par excellence: Martin Margiela. Buffo to think that, if on the one hand his work does not need any presentation, on the other hand put together the connotations of his face would be an arduous feat even for the most advanced IA – the biometric unlocking of his iPhone does not know with what he has to do. In fact, only a few stolen shots are portrayed, never officially published. Emblematic in this sense is the famous photograph taken by Annie Leibovitz for the September 2008 issue of Vogue uswhich immortalizes the entire team of Maison Margiela with their arms, wearing the iconic white shirt on. In the front row, here is a chair left empty by the Belgian designer. On purpose.

But the rejection against the Flash also extends to personal invitations and interviews, faxes and phone calls. An attitude reflected in his brand with impersonal white (then a personal trademark), with a speechless label, from the eyes of the covered models, by the lack of hierarchies in the seats of the fashion shows. Margiela leaves fashion in 2009, but the charm emanated by his mysterious golden hurea has remained intact over the years, becoming, moreover, among the favorite designers from the new generations. Today he is the artist. It is not yet known where, how, when.

Less known name to the general public, but revered by the insiders is Paul Harnden. An impossible designer to contact and almost impossible to buy, whose poetics based on the mystery shakes the peak of theanti-Fashion. He has never made parades, does not follow any seasonal production, has no contact with the average (just a Instagram profile of shelled videos) and sells in only five stores in the world. His biggest fan? John Galliano, who wears and collects his garments that has always been, like he declared to WWD In 2010 – One of the few celebrities in the world, together with Brad Pitt, Daniel Day -Lewis and Wim Wenders, to own them. And it is no coincidence that the legendary collection Artisanal 2024 seemed to wink at Harnden’s Dickensian aesthetics.

On him, what we know is that he was born in Canada in 1959, and then moved to the United Kingdom at the end of the 80s and found his brand of craft shoes Paul Harden Shoemaker. Immediately exported to Tokyo by Rei Kawakubo. In the 90s he extended production to clothing together with his partner of the time, Elena Dawson. The result? Victorian -inspired dresses that seem relics of the past, as saved by a fire in a 19th century dusty attic. So much so that to obtain that “lived” effect they seem to be even interned underground for months. Currently Paul Harnden lives in Brighton, where he draws his models and produces apple cider. Although there are several circulating rumorsthe few who know him are to speak. “A former employee said he could not do it because he signed a confidentiality agreement,” writes Lou Stoppard on Gq. Online reads Iosa of governed journalists to be able to talk to him. Nobody ever met him.

In our review “Chi-l’ha-Visto-Fashion-Edition“CAROL Christian Poell cannot be missing. Also in this case, although the information on his life at our disposal is centellinate, his collections have entered the myth. On the contrary sewn jackets, pants that seem to have known hell, shoes sealed vacuum: Poell does not draw clothes, performs esoteric rites with needle and thread. He was born in Linz, Austria, he studied in Graz, Vienna and Milan, until in 1994 he met Sergio Simone with whom he founded his CCP brand. Today available in selected stores such as The Library A South Kensington or Darklands In Berlin. Raised in a family of leather tanners, the designer immediately specializes in the treatment of this material. To then upset it with injections, injuries, zoomorphic decoling to Damien Hirst. I miss “the fisherman»Breat Easton Ellis serial-killer would take. They are leaders who came out of an alchemical laboratory rather than an atelier, between horse tendons, coagulated blood, hair, bones, teeth.

To leave an indelible imprint in the history of fashion was certainly the Mise en scène of his few fashion shows. From the collection Best Before Spring-summer 2001 presented inside an morgue, passing through the models closed in dogs of autumn-winter 2001. Until the most famous (and disturbing), the spring-summer 2004 entitled Mainstream-Dawnstreamwhere the bodies “paraded” by way of floating corpses in the Naviglio Grande in Milan. Having said that, his person could be a ghost. Very few portraits of his face, whose truthfulness has never been confirmed. Very few statements, mostly cryptic, coincided. Now it seems to be dedicated to Tailor-Made: His website? A dark page. Of course, because wearing Carol Christian Poell means participating in a silent performance. You have to believe it to see.

Carol Christian Poell, autumn-winter 2001.

Letizia Mantero / iPa-Agecy.net