PETER PILOTTO

by Renata Espinosa

If clothes were simply something to cover ourselves with - a piece of fabric cut into a shirt, a pair of pants, a dress, a jacket - then we’d have little use for “fashion.” Fashion is fantasy; it is the demonstration of a story; it demands to be explained. And from fashion and its designers, we demand this kind of narrative arc. Fashion creates characters out of the way a garment is cut, draped, pleated, printed or molded. Certain types of characters, too, inhabit these clothes, and it’s this symbiotic relationship between wearer and garment that is the climax of a designer’s collection. The object becomes animated, and the story the designer is telling takes on new meaning as it is completed and enhanced by the person inhabiting the fairy tale. Their vision begins and ends, lives, breathes and transforms itself at this stage of the process.

Born in Austria and now based in London, 30-year-old Peter Pilotto is a fashion designer who has created a highly personal, imaginary world with exactly this kind of narrative impulse, designing clothes that could blend into the set of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis and outfit a few she-bots, or serve as the 21st century interpretation of characters in an H.G. Wells novel. Dresses might look like Art Deco skyscrapers, or be printed to look like the interior of a clocktower or a Victorian time machine. As though time travelers themselves, his clothes are the product of what might happen if an Egyptian princess did a tango with a Soviet contructivist graphic designer. As a fashion designer, Pilotto is like a science fiction author creating a varnished, slightly apocalyptic vision of the future. Just as Luke Skywalker’s universe in Star Wars takes place a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, Pilotto’s setting is a not-so-distant future composed of dwellers in softly draped tunics, pajama pants emblazoned with fiery galaxies and nebulous clouds of gas and wrap vests that Skywalker might have worn, all in a saturated color palette of stars exploding.

Pilotto studied fashion at the Royal Academy of Antwerp, graduating in 2004 and winning numerous awards along the way, and most recently received the Topshop New Gen Award at London Fashion Week last fall. Though London is where he first moved when he left Austria and where he calls home now, he’s very much a product of the Royal Academy’s artistic approach to design, where they champion the idiosyncratic and allow personal concepts to flourish. It’s the fashion equivalent of sticking to your guns despite whatever trends might be happening around you. He designs his collection with Christopher De Vos, and together they merge classical tailoring and components of historical dress, like nipped waists or fitted jackets with statement-making prints in the vein of some of his Antwerp predecessors like Walter Van Beirondonck or Bernhard Willhelm. With Pilotto’s collections, couture-level craftsmanship meets a clubby streetwear love of loud graphics, yet when he does it, it never comes out looking campy, only sophisticated and supremely chic.

In Pilotto’s Fall 2008 collection, the clothes enable nomadic peoples of the future to travel through space and time, across continents, between cities and from one star system to the next. A woman wearing his clothes radiates the confidence of a Wild West gunslinger and maintains the swagger of rockabilly god, all in a completely joyful, magical way, somehow turning these strong masculine archetypes into a thing of idealized feminine beauty. If you ever found yourself wishing you were Princess Leia, then Pilotto’s your guy.

Renata Espinosa: So you’re in Paris now? How did the show go for your latest collection? You showed in London again, for the second time?

Peter Pilotto: Second time, yes. It was really exciting and a good experience. We worked with a stylist for the first time, and that was really cool. It was completely exhausting, and completely late...but in the end, it was fine.

RE: How was working with the stylist? Did it change the presentation?

PP: It was funny, because we hardly met. Karen Langley is the senior fashion editor at Dazed and Confused, so she’s super busy. Although we didn’t speak much about what it would be, we had in mind to use those cowboy boots somehow ,and she was talking about some kind of iconic famous shoes that she wanted to use, and it turns out we were always saying the same things. It was really perfect. The collection has a lot of layering, and some of the pieces are already styled like that, like a gray coat with layering within one piece, and so she just continued that. It was a great experience and the way it should be. It’s great to have someone else involved because it adds a different view. Of course, it has to be the right person.

RE: So the fall collection had a traveler or nomad theme - I think your Web site says “inter galatic traveler.” To me, the theme really related to your last collection for spring, with its time travel and futuristic look. But for a spring collection, it felt a little darker, a little harder. This fall collection felt like a softer version of that.

PP: Yeah, Christopher and I both like a mix of prints and ornaments, so maybe in a way this collection expresses even more what we like. There are two aspects that are very important to us. One is the hardness of the prints and then this mix of ornaments in the new one.

RE: How long have you been working with Christopher? Since the beginning?

PP: Part-time, yes, but he just joined me full-time last August. We were always working together, but he had been working with Vivienne Westwood full-time before.

RE: How does the collaboration work? Do you do some parts of the collection and he does others, or do you work on each piece together?

PP: We work on each piece together at certain stages, and then somebody takes over. He works out the patterns, while I work more on the prints. But we do everything together anyway.

RE: How did you meet?

PP: We met in the Academy in Antwerp.

RE: So you’re originally from Austria, and then you moved to London. How old were you when you moved there?

PP: When I first moved to London, I was 18 and I stayed there for six months, and then I moved there for three years when I was 20.

RE: And you worked for Vivienne Westwood, in the store?

PP: Yes, that’s right.

RE: At what point did you decide, “I’m going to be a fashion designer,” and leave to study in Antwerp?

PP: I think when I moved to London, it was already pretty clear that it would be the goal to study there. But then I had this job that was so interesting, and I didn’t really concentrate much on the studies at the time - I was studying in London then. But I found out about the school in Antwerp and just kept thinking about it, and then eventually I just started concentrating on going there.

RE: What was happening in London at the time, fashion-wise? Did it really inspire you?

PP: I always really liked London, and Christopher and I both really like Vivienne Westwood, especially over the years and looking at her progress, but I don’t know, I also really love French designers. However, our work is also quite different in the end. Maybe London is there in the spirit or the approach to the work.

RE: Do you think when you moved to Antwerp you applied what you had been experiencing in London to your studies? Did the move affect your aesthetic?

PP: Well, I don’t know. I think most of the time my aesthetic wasn’t affected by anything very consciously. It was more a way of work and a way of research that worked really well for me in Antwerp.

RE: In what way? What’s the method there?

PP: It’s just a very artistic approach. In London, I find there’s always this very clear period point of reference, like a trend, while I find in Belgium, it’s much more personal. I’m not saying that one way is better than the other, but that way [the Belgian approach] is just what’s right for us. The artistic approach is very free. It was always important in school to find ourselves and to make our own personal statement in fashion. I really liked that. I mean, of course, London designers also make their personal statements but it’s slightly different. Anyway, now we’re based in London and we respect it a lot. To each his own, I guess.

RE: Did you ever work in Paris, before moving back to London?

PP: No, I was never in Paris.

RE: Do you ever see yourself moving there?

PP: Of course, I love Paris. I find Paris fashion week the most important one. The London one is great for young designers, because it’s truly supportive and open. Of course, when London designers get bigger, they usually move to Paris and I think it will always stay like that. Expecting that to be different wouldn’t be realistic. But it’s great. It’s a forest of new talent, and an opportunity for them. That exists a little bit in Paris, not at all in Milan, and it’s very strong in London.

RE: It seems like London is really a great incubator of young talent, and it lets its designers be completely creative. You live in the East End?

PP: Yes.

RE: Is there a strong sense of community and collaboration with other artists living there?

PP: Well, we collaborate more with technical people over there. We have an amazing tailor there, she’s a very cool woman and a very high quality tailor, and of course our stylist Karen lives two blocks away from us. Everybody is there.

RE: Does the London scene affect your vision for your collections at all, or is that pretty independent from what you do?

PP: I guess everything influences you. We want to be independent, but of course, we are not alone. It’s hard to say. I guess something like that is for others to judge. I think our work always has a London quality to it as well. It’s hard to say.

RE: Who do you see as your customer? Is she someone you know? Are you designing for your friends?

PP: No, not necessarily for friends. We want to be a brand and business that grows. I think she’s the kind of woman who dresses for herself, rather than to impress others. A strong woman who is in control and is a leader, rather than a follower.

RE: Yes, you definitely get that sense from the strong shapes and silhouettes. They really are statement pieces. So you said you do a lot of the graphics and prints, is that right?

PP: Yes, I love to choose the colors and do the painting. Christopher is much more the sculptural person, which is why it’s such a good mix between us. We complement each other and we criticize each other. That’s the challenge, because you always need a fresh set of eyes, so it’s good that we are quite different.

RE: Can you tell me a little bit about the time machine prints from the last collection? I’m really curious about where the idea for that came about.

PP: It’s about the idea of being able to bring back the beauty of the past, and to be able to benefit from our rich cultural background. I also really like the idea that science fiction and the antique world are so close together in a way. Our vision of the future is so linked to the past. In science fiction movies, the future often looks very antique.

RE: Right, like H.G. Wells or something. Victorian machines that transport us into the future.

PP: Yes, or like in “Star Wars.” It’s also a bit apocalyptic.

RE: What’s your approach to the female body?

PP: We love to play with volumes that contrast with tighter spots, which is a very historical thing to do, that focus on the tiny waist.

RE: So it’s really a mixture of the two, taking big volumes and nipping them.

PP: We also like doing dresses that have a masculine edge to them. I think it should never be too girly.