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Jeremy Scott x Adidas Spring/Summer 2014
A recent Barbie-inspired collection for Moschino
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In addition to designing for his own label and his collaborating
with adidas, Jeremy Scott is currently Moschino’s Creative Director. Here’s one
of my interviews with him, where we discuss Tokyo street style, 90's looks, and inspiration. (This was before Peak Beard in London…you’ll
see what I mean if you read on.)
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| Exit Magazine, 2009 |
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| Jeremy Scott x adidas Autumn/Winter 2009 |
JEREMY SCOTT: POP
DESIGNER
OR UNDERGROUND SENSATION?
During London
Fashion Week, I hung out with the effervescent Jeremy Scott in the Adidas
ObyO Pop Up Shop at 6 Newburg Street. We talked about Tokyo versus London, the
exposure of the underground, Lady Gaga, and Jeremy’s colourful collection for
Adidas. The Autumn/Winter 09 collection is a playful homage to 90s African
influences in pop culture, mixed with safari imagery. Photographs of the new
collection have galvanized the online community to discuss, buy, or freak out
over Jeremy’s unique designs. EXIT investigates why.
You take a lot of fashion
risks. Is that intentional or is it the shock of the new? Is it your way of
being mind expanding?
Well
I definitely think it’s important to always expand one’s mind and to try to do
that as a designer, to try to open people’s imagination and make them think
differently about something. (When it comes to ObyO trainers) there are wings
sprouting from the shoe or three tongues per shoe but at the same time I just made
it because I think it’s beautiful. So it’s not just done in a purely
provocative sense.
What city right now is taking
the most fashion risks?
Well
you know Tokyo is on its own planet. The kids there are doing the most elaborate
and unexpected combinations. London in general is a much more youthful
fashionable city, compared to New York. London has a lot more fun young
fashion. But for very extreme looks, Tokyo is still winning that race.
Is it like just in the book Fruits?
Yeah,
it’s the new generation of Fruits.
Tokyo is amazing compared to New York or anywhere else. I don’t know about
London because I don’t spend as much time here, but I know people are
definitely a lot more into eccentric looks. You know in New York, if you grew a
beard some dude on the street might shout, “Yo what is THAT? What you wearing?”
and they have this liberty, they can just tell you about it. But in Tokyo no
one looks at you or talks to you about it at all. And so the first trip I went
there I just kept pushing it more and more everyday. I thought, I’m going to
make you talk to me. I had a racoon tail and I hooked it into the back of my
pants so I had this tail swinging around and I couldn’t catch people’s eye for
the life of me, cause they just won’t stare. Obviously no one was laughing or
sniggering or pointing. It is such a wildly liberating feeling of I can wear
whatever I want and do anything I want. And especially if there’s two people
there, two boys, two girls, girl and boy, they both decide “oh we’re gonna wear
clown shoes and big clown glasses” or something like that and they have their
own trend and they just walk around together. They’re in their own world and
think “yeah of course everyone should
have a bowtie this big…” It’s inspiring it really is. And it’s how everything
goes at the same time, how they look at the way American or European culture is
and the way they’ve appropriated it makes you look at it in a different way. Not
even the exciting aspects of visual culture, it’s things we might think are
mundane and boring. They’ve rendered it totally different because of how
they’ve curated it. It’s amusing, ‘cause you see it through their eyes. It’s
very fascinating.
Your new Adidas O by O collection
has a lot of 90’s hip hop shapes and African patterns. What was your
inspiration behind the collection?
I
did think about Africa as my kind of inspiration and ideas. You see these documentaries on TV and people
will be wearing these clothes from Europe, kind of thrift store vintage sports
wear but then they mix it with their sarongs and loincloths and beaded things
and jewellery that they’d made. I wanted
to take this idea of African sports wear and create my own version, taking
elements of the visuals in these documentaries then do it with sportswear
fabrics. I developed these hybrid styles, and at the same time I was inspired
by early 90s culture like Dwayne Wayne and A
Different World.
How much sleep do you get? I’ve
read that Noam Chomsky and Tom Ford get about four hours sleep a night and I
was wondering if there was a prerequisite minimum amount of sleep for success.
There
are times that four hours has been regular, probably six on average.
Do you have a favourite Lady
Gaga costume?
I
love the yellow one in the Paparazzi video. It comes directly from the show. I
made it especially for her as a jumpsuit. When it was revealed she went with it
so far with the glasses and everything that it became iconic in the video.
Who is someone you’d like to
dress?
Dolly
Parton. But in a way I kind of want to leave her alone because she’s so great.
It’s a Catch 22; like I love you so much but maybe I shouldn’t bother you.
What do you think of
underground versus popular culture?
I
think they both lend things to each other and nowadays there’s more exposure to
the underground than ever before, because of the way information is transferred
everyone kind of knows everything. In this way there’s no real room for
incubation, for things to be underground as in the past. I’m a pop artist so
I’m all about pop culture and being as inclusive as I can be. At the same time,
my work is provocative, challenging and out of the ordinary so it’s a new
combination. In a way, it is underground
and aboveground. I definitely love niche culture and the history of it from
different periods and different times. The underground is important but at the
same time I love and have always loved pop culture.
Words
and interview by Margo Fortuny
Exit Magazine, 2009
One of Jeremy Scott's inspirations (2Pac stars in this episode):
One of Jeremy Scott's inspirations (2Pac stars in this episode):
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