Olivier Theyskens autumn—winter 1998—99.In the summer of 1997, while still a third-year student at t
Olivier Theyskens autumn—winter 1998—99.In the summer of 1997, while still a third-year student at the Brussels Academy of La Cambre, Olivier Theyskens was singled out as the ‘fashion favourite’ by a leading Paris press agent. A few months later he abandoned the course and presented his first collection during the Paris prêt-à-porter week. The year was 1998. It immediately made him the first ex-student of La Cambre and the youngest designer with a show in Paris. Two ‘firsts’!However, the first collection of womenswear was never sold. Not because it didn’t appeal to the public, or because it was deemed unwearable, but merely because the young designer didn’t want it. For him the show was a test case, a trial run as it were, aimed at establishing his reputation by demonstrating what he was capable of doing: everything. It testified to his passion to pursue this profession. The collection was highly eclectic, ranging from plastic catsuits decorated with a depiction of the female circulatory system, to sumptuous ball gowns made from curtain material, trouser suits from kitchen towels or lace. You name it… the staging of this show was rather macabre. In a brightly lit, empty mansion house, pale models paraded disdainfully past the public, the overall effect being dramatically humorous. Olivier Theyskens: Each bit of skin has an impact. Just sketching a neckline in a certain way is enough to give another sensation, another impression. The functional parts of our body are the hands and the head, that’s what most often tends to be exposed; and when you expose another part, you show something that isn’t essential for the function. You’re bang in the middle of the whole question of taboos, and so on. It’s always difficult to expose a mouth when you have just eaten something, for example. My desire is above all to make girls beautiful. To make them sexy is not my aim.Francine Pairon: The relation to prohibitions … you can’t get around it … The same hold for the register of seduction, sex… The clothed or naked body, covered/uncovered, OK … but the soul? The Japanese have a way of clothing bodies so as to nourish the soul. -- source link
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