After waiting in line for about five minutes for a coffee on Friday morning, and having been cut off twice by fashion ku people, I spotted Vogue correspondent and Style.com’s editor-at-large, Tim Blanks, on his way to Akira’s presentation. Instead of geeking out and freezing, I literally grabbed him for a five minute chat about the week that was, his highlights, lowlights and – as a devout fan of music with a well-known love of all genres from hardcore techno to metal to rap – what he’s listening to at the moment. Suffice to say, he’s pretty awesome. Oh, and I didn’t pay for my coffee afterward. Suck it Fashion Week!
So how’s your week been so far – not that there’s too much left of it? Any highlights, favourite shows?
It’s been amazing, amazing weather in Sydney. The fact that it’s winter is mind-blowing! It’s surreal. My favourite show was Zimmerman. I just loved the fact that she does more with [gestures a small piece of fabric] than some people can do with 15 yards of fabric – just absolute mastery of her metier. I’ve always loved what she does so every time I see her show; I mean, it’s intelligent, it’s sexy and it’s just weird enough to make you think afterwards.
What did you think of Christopher Esber last night?
I liked it. It’s funny. When he talked about the rituals of women getting ready for their day it’s sounded so much like something Raf Simons would talk about.
I wanted to ask you – did you get a lot of Raf from it? Raf for Jil [Sander].
I did. I totally did. I got Raf as Jil. I liked again that it was sort of twisted. I don’t know how old he is but it was quite twisted. I liked that institutional white smock coming towards you and as it goes away from you it’s like this tiny little skirt and whole bunch of sheer stuff going on and this kind of like this three phases of Eve moment and I liked that there was a sort of schizophrenic quality to it.
It was very clinical.
Yeah. I know that there was a lot riding on that show, a lot of people were hoping that it would kind of save the week, and I think it did.
Do you think the week has been in jeopardy?
I’ve been surprised. People’s reach exceeding their grasp quite radically. Especially at this stage in people’s careers. I think if there had been more really good shows, the shows that weren’t so good would have looked better. Because people might have been more inclined to cut them some slack. I think there were some shows that really stood out. I thought Carl Kapp was really good too. I thought the colour was interesting. That this week took place in this kind of blinding sunshine was really interesting because you realise that you can do a lot more with colour here. I mean, you can do really bright greens and really bright yellows. I love that Camilla and Marc were talking about their muted palette and I said ‘Oh, please’ – you know, there’s fuchsias and kind of cyclamens and we were laughing because, of course, you put those out in the sun and they do look kind of muted. Anywhere else and they look like ‘ding!’ Red hot!
And so it’s always back to that thing about how important the climate is and how much of an influence the climate is on people’s creativity. How people respond to or reject where they live. Some people do really well at accepting and some people do really well at rejecting. You know the funny thing about the fashion that evolves in really, really kind of insistently sunny climates like in L.A. or here is the Goth reaction. You know, it’s like the people who grew up with their families saying to them ‘You’re not going to go sit in a movie theatre when the sun is shining!‘ I grew up in New Zealand where I got a lot of that when I was a kid – ‘You’re not going to the movies today you’re going to stay out in the sun‘ – ‘Noooo! I want to go to the movies!’
And so you get a lot of black. A lot of androgyny. There’s been a lot of that on the street this week.
Yeah, I’ve noticed that too, and I think that’s part of the whole people’s reach exceeding their grasp. Too many designers try to do too much.
I think a lot of the menswear designers especially fall into that category and end up trying for a kind of Rick Owens thing –
Of course they are! Who isn’t? Who isn’t? That’s what I’m saying about how strong Goth is when the sun is shining. Look at all the designers in L.A. who do that too.
Maybe it’s time to bring crotch levels back up?
Oh, yes. Nothing like a drop crotch to make you think of Rick Owens.
One last question, I can see you’ve gotta run – what are you listening to at the moment? I know music is so important to you.
I love music. What was I listening to this morning? I made a playlist a while ago that’s just a whole mess of stuff that I just put on all the time that goes from – I should really look at the new stuff I’m listening to. I couldn’t for the life of me remember the last few things I downloaded. There are two things I play all the time. I like Caribou a lot. And there’s a Four Tet remix of Caribou I play a lot.
You know Black Box Recorder, have you ever heard of them? There used to be an English band called The Auteurs that were sort of really bitter and twisted and out of that came this group called Black Box Recorder and Jarvis Cocker did a remix of this song they did called The Facts of Life called The Chocolate Layer Cake Mix of The Facts Of Life by Black Box Recorder – you will die! It has to be that mix though because the other mixes aren’t so good. I mean the song itself is fine. I got it when it came out on CD and I’m not sure it’s ever been online but I’m sure you could find it. The Chocolate Layer Cake Remix of The Facts of Life by Black Box Recorder remixed by Jarvis Cocker and Steve Mackie from Pulp. You’ll die.
Thanks for your time Tim!
My pleasure!
