IMAGE BY ANSCHAIRE

Riccardo Tisci’s work is laced with an impalpable force. His creations induce within me visions of Santerian altars and ritual trances. I won’t be mad at someone objecting that his shirts are nice to wear at a business meeting, and that there doesn’t seem to be much else to it. It may be that my perspective is biased: I really got to know Tisci’s world through his issue of A Magazine, and one will admit, it generally sailed fairly remotely from the safe shores of corporate offices and the rosewood helm of Hollywood entertainers.

It was one day this winter that the postman brought me another tangible sign that there may actually be more to Tisci’s work than starched collars and magnificent marabou feather dresses. What the postman delivered was a Christmas gift from the Givenchy office – an oversized, t-shirt screen-printed with the silhouette of a dismembered boy and three stars. As I unfolded the pleasant surprise from its white patent cardboard box and held it in front of me, the vision of the Paul Barnes-designed Givenchy logo hovering above the truncated body suddenly summarized that underlying awkwardness I always felt in Tisci’s work. The spell was cast like chicken foot.

So when Jean l’Olivier of A Magazine asked me to interview Riccardo Tisci after the men’s Fall Winter 2010 show, beyond the thrill and honour such an encounter might be for me, it somehow it felt natural – like it was the natural course of things.

* * *

When I enter the room, I am accompanied by Dan Thawley, enthusiastic ambassador of the ‘A’ empire, and faithful disciple of Jean, its benevolent first minister.

(Greetings & introductions)

Maxime Büchi:
I would like to start with what touches me the most in your creation, and especially that one particular experience I had. This t-shirt I received. I wonder how can you do this. Can you tell us about that twist, that “dark side”””or let’s just call it “flip side” that your creation seems to have. Where does it come from, how does it relate to you and what creative process leads to such a product?

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