Fashion Neurosis with Stefano Pilati

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1:11Hi, come in.

1:18Welcome to Fashion Neurosis, Stefano Pilati. Thank you for having me, darling. Can you tell me what clothes you're wearing today and why you chose them? Okay, so I'm wearing something that I designed. I didn't have my choice because I'm coming from Sicily and I had a limited wardrobe at my disposal. So let's say that what I'm wearing is the best I could do, I think, for the occasion to celebrate being together today. So I'm wearing a jacket, which I like a lot, because it's kind of a feminine jacket, but for some reason, I think, I managed to, you know, make it masculine on me. And then probably the shape of the pants I'm wearing are the one I prefer the most as a tribute to London and Britain.

2:28I'm wearing a Turbulen Asser polonette and the George Cox Creepers. I love them. And I guess that's it. I mean, I love heavy socks, especially if they are hand-knitted. Can you tell me about the handkerchief you're holding? Oh, you know, sometimes I do things without really, I mean, of course, I think about it, but I don't overthink about it in the sense that I'm quite instinctual. And since you asked me to be here, you know, then I thought, okay, well, I'm going to wear this and da, da, da, and I'm going to have an archerchief in my hand. And I was like, you know, and I wonder, where does that come from?

3:16And I thought, oh, it's very, I don't know, women in the 17th century. And also I thought, ironically, if I get emotional, I can always have something to do. And then I thought that it was, I don't know. I don't know. I see it quite poetic in a way. But I know that it probably won't make sense for many people except for myself. I love that detail about poetic because one of the things that's so attractive about you is this poetic side and that you bring so much nuance to your, your, you have some, well, I find that you have something of the kind of elegance of a bullfighter about you, of a matador.

4:11and then you have this poetic kind of fluid side and the combination is just so potent and effective. And I wondered what the first piece of clothing you wore that made you feel powerful. I had an ensemble. When I was like maybe six years old, My mother wanted me to take guitar lessons. And I remember that I had like a Levi's jacket and a pair of Levi's flares and they were matching. And it was probably like moleskin, you know, in a denim color. Very 70s. I mean, like it was 71. And I remember that I loved to wear that. to go to the to take guitar lessons because I felt like you know almost like a rock star and in fact I didn't learn at all to play guitar I got bored because the teacher I don't know it was like old school whatever so it didn't really uh impress me but I was so happy to go to take lessons because of that outfit uh uh yeah i was six and you know it was bang on the 70s and i i think it was pretty a pretty powerful look at that time you know yeah and and and levi's was really like kind of everything you know in a way uh only later i started to learn about like wrangler and roy rogers But, you know, for me it was always about Levi's.

6:07They have a romance associated with them, I think. Yes. They're so evocative and precise. Yes. Because you have the style of someone, I think, brought up in a kind of Proustian, exquisite luxury. And I wondered what your actual home life was like as a child. My mother taught me a lot about dressing up for occasions, mixing colors in the right way, using the right weights of fabric depending on the seasons.

6:53she tend to buy me clothes that they were a bit oversized so that I could grow in it and she really really cared about dressing me up in a nice way and so I think I've been always thankful to that but what was particular is that I kind of made it my own pretty soon in fact you know by yeah very early age like the Levi's ensemble you know I started to want things myself you know to buy things that I wanted my mother to not to decide for me I mean And I was obsessed with Fiorucci. And, you know, I was looking at the people around and, you know, kids. My sisters were 10 years older than me. And so they had, like, you know, a school that was, again, was bang on the 70s.

8:09You know, so they had, like, all these flower power kind of looks with shillings and border shillings. And I wanted all that. The problem is that I was so little that nothing was in my size. And then I remember that I was experimenting at home outside my mother's, let's say, style. and I was changing four or five times a day when I was coming back from school and my mother was furious. I was going to dinner, like a simple dinner, family dinner, but I was stealing ties from my father's closet and go to dinner with the tie and they were all looking at me. My sisters, they were already in PJ. I was like showing up to die.

9:16And they were like, wait, what is going on here? And then if I thought that my mother didn't wear what I thought she would have, I made her change. And that was also like a disaster because I was really insisting. I mean, like, I made her really uncomfortable until she changed. And then, you know, she couldn't really, I mean, poor thing. I mean, she couldn't really process how much right I was about what I told her to change. And, but, you know, at that age also, you do things, yeah. I mean, I guess I was processing very, very fast, but I don't know. I wasn't really realizing the power that I had for that kind of, you know, instinct, let's say.

10:15And what did you like her to wear? How did she dress and what did you prefer her to wear? Oh, well, you know, my mom was like really old school, like not old school, but, you know, like she was born in 33, and so she was like a post-war child, you know. And so, you know, the scarcity at that time, you know, made her buy things for occasions. And so she kept, you know, I remember that she brought me shopping with her, and she was buying things, and I really liked them, and then she never wore them until she had an occasion, you know, that may have happened like two weeks later or a month later, you know, and I was obsessed with that because I was like, what's the point, you know, to buy stuff for not wearing it?

11:09I mean, like you keep it in your closet. And she was like, yes, but you know, whatever, she complained. And I always wanted to wear like the last purchase or like the things that we bought together somehow, you know. And so I wanted her to, you know, always look impeccable, even if she had to go out to do groceries for like, you know, 20 minutes. You know what I mean? I couldn't stand the fact that she didn't dress up, you know, for every single occasion, including coming to pick me up at school or something like that, you know. obviously I can tell now but I think it was my form of telling her that she was beautiful and she should have you know feature her beauty and you know dress up because she could you know yeah it must have been rather wonderful for her to have all this attention and this appreciation coming from you How did your father handle that?

12:25Ignore that completely. Like, completely. Because, you know, my childhood wasn't the happiest one, frankly speaking. You know, I was very, very much attached to my mom. And if my mom was giving me attentions, you know, my father thought that it wasn't really educational. My sister got a bit jealous. And so, and I didn't understand why she didn't stand, you know, for me in that sense. Because when she was letting go, you know, certain things that I thought were creating a sort of intimacy and complicity with her, you know, I actually felt them like a rejection. as well. So overall, I grew up feeling that I was a bit annoying, that they were a bit indifferent.

13:34I did feel a lot of rejection, not understood really, you know, in the way that I I wanted to express myself. And also, like the fact that I had two older sisters and my mom, which were like three women in my family. You know, I grew up very much in admiration of them, but I couldn't really show it to them, you know. I spent a lot of time by myself. And also, like, I was trying to come through as a child with an artistic personality, but it was not really heard. My first PT in Florence, I was 12. My sister brought me because I insisted and nobody understood why I wanted to go, but I wanted to go and probably was the first time where just walking through the aisles of the fair and see all these boots with fabrics and yarns and clothes.

14:49I was like in heaven. Really? Pity is the trade fair of each season, isn't it? Yes, pity is the trade fair in Florence, which is still going somehow. Even before that, the same sister brought me to the Fiorucci store in Milan, and that literally freaked me out to the point that a couple of years later, I saved money and I bought myself the first Ferrucci item. And it's when I started to be pretty much obsessed with clothes, I have to say. It was very, very early on. I was obsessed with Lacoste. So I wanted them in every possible color. And if you think about it, you know, Lacoste is a 60s kind of, you know, phenomenon.

15:47I mean, you know, he was playing tennis like only, you know, 20 years earlier than that, even less, you know. So it was not like now, you know. It was very, it was kind of exclusive in a way, you know. At Lacoste, they were the only polonics, you know. It's quite a uniform, Lacoste. It's interesting that you gravitated to that at that particular moment when I associate you with more sort of like flamboyance almost, even though it's very considered. Yeah, I mean, what was also good, and this was my mother touch, that she, we were buying Lacoste and then, you know, Almost for every color, I had the matching pants, you know, which I kind of liked.

16:43I mean, it was cool to wear Lacoste. It wasn't that usual for a six, seven, eight, nine years old kid, you know. It's not like now, you know. It was very upper class, even if I wasn't. By nine or ten, you know, I started to take the tram by myself and go, in via montanapoleone and you know check the windows and one christmas i bought with my savings i bought a gift to my mom at gucci and you know i don't know i i seriously got very much obsessed about fashion very early on i have to say your clothes and your accessories are incredibly refined, but you also seem to have an influence from fetish.

17:38And I wondered what your favorite fetish is. I don't know, fetish? Maybe I'm thinking about your shoes, and maybe it's me that has the fetish, because I've always been obsessed with the shoes that you've made, especially when you were at Saint Laurent, the things I bought. and there's so much tension in the accessories that you make and in the clothing, but you seem to have this extra layer that makes them obsessively desirable. And I was just wondering where that came from. Okay, so yes, I would say that shoes are probably one of the most important thing for me. I mean, I will never have enough shoes.

18:34Also because I believe, and this I openly told even to some of my friends that are shoe designers, you know, that making clothes is pretty cool and you can be really good. But if you, whatever you wear, if it's fantastic, It could be a fantastic dress, suit, combination, whatever, look. You know, with the wrong shoes, it's just like crap, you know. If you wear nothing, like a white T-shirt, pearl pants, as simple as they can be, you know, but with the right shoes, you know, you're kind of everything, you know. So I always say that 50 % of the look, at least, is the shoe, in the sense that they define your look very, very much.

19:32So I don't know if in that sense we can call them fetish. And I think that I carry that all through, you know, all my life, all my professional life as well. but I would say also my personal one in terms of, you know, if we talk about style or my style or, yeah, what I fetish the most. With your radical elegance, you design heels for men, and I've seen you wear these wonderful boots that have a higher heel. Is that part of a code that you're breaking out of a formality whilst also having this very kind of old-school training from your mother? Well, you know, I decided to do heels for men after a series of thoughts.

20:37The way that it works for me is instinctually, without even knowing necessarily why, but instinctually I look for something. I want something. Like in the case, for example, of the boots with the heel. I haven't been the first to do them. one day I was here in London and I was at Dover Street Market and then a kid while I was eating upstairs a kid walked by and he had one black tabby on and one beige tabby on you know and I got obsessed it looked so cute I was like oh my god you know and the but the tabby you know as you know you know they have the nine centimeter you know heel and of course it doesn't exist in size 10 or size 44 you know it was i guess maximum was like size 40 or 41 so this kid was definitely whether i mean i got obsessed this kid obviously was wearing like you know a small size for whatever reason i mean it was kind of skinny and not too tall so probably you know size 40 41 and so like desperate because i was like oh my god you know i want them and so i actually wrote john galliano to have a pair of nine centimeter tabby boots black in size 44 and the shoe designer was also someone that assisted me at Saint Laurent so the connection was kind of you know made easily and I got them you know and so when I started to wear them besides the fact that they were the the tabby and I think I'm the only one in the bloody world to have a pair of tabby my size with a nine centimeter heel, which is how they look the best by the way.

22:58Yeah. You know, I, I, I really felt so empowered with my posture, posture and my swag and, you know, And I started to realize, you know, how conventional somehow we are just because we've been educated like that. And, you know, in the last, let's say, maybe 10 years, you know, we've been speaking about equality and, you know, the role of genders, you know, more and more. And so I was very much attracted by the idea of, again, like for me, when I wear heels, you know, I get everything from it. Like, again, like the posture and, you know, I become almost like two meters tall. But for me, it's like, you know, I tested them going, you know, keeping them on for 12 hours, you know.

24:09Because I really wanted to understand being a fashion designer, when you're like, oh, this looks great, give her the heels. What are you doing when you do it? You know, like when you say that, how do women feel? You know, you can ask. But we kind of used to maybe sometimes I would say even overuse some conventions, some codes. I think it's time for a man to experiment a bit further than that. And I'm not talking about cross-dressing or things like that. But even the first time that I designed a skirt, I started to think, wait, do I want the zip on the side? And so I just turned it and I had the zip in the front, which is like what you normally do with the pants.

25:26and then the slit I wanted in the front for comfortable reasons. One day I was doing some works at home and there were some builders, you know, and we had to check a plan, you know, so we were at the table. But I had a skirt on, you know, and I was like, oh, my God, you know, I can't show up like this. And I was like, yes, you can. So I went and, you know, and I didn't see any hesitation about these guys, you know, me, you know, having a skirt on. But only a little bit, little by little, you know, I realized that they were actually checking me out. but you could tell from the expression, or at least this is what I realized or I thought it was, that they kind of wanted to be shocked about it, but they weren't really, you know, because they kept the same tone, the same attitude, let's say, towards me.

26:34Of course, I was the client, but you know what I mean? And that for me was the moment where I was like, Like, well, you know, you can do anything you want. It depends how. And in that sense, I think, you know, the fact that I made a skirt that as a man made, you know, could be comfortable and it was not like for the sake of shocking or, you know, it was very powerful, I think, you know, and fashion could serve this kind of, this form of power. And then the other thing that really, really surprised me is that, you know, you women, you are obliged to sit and cross your legs if you have a skirt on or keep your legs really tight and on the side like this.

27:27You know, while as a man, I don't have that body language. And so, you know, and I wear boxers. And one day I was having lunch, you know, and I realized that. And then, you know, I said to a friend of mine, oh, please, can you take a picture of me like I am normally, you know, wearing a skirt on? And, of course, you could see my boxers, right? And, you know, it didn't give me at all a feeling that I was de guise or, you know, I was provoking or, you know, it felt the most normal thing in the world to the point that I was like, oh, my God, if I will do a campaign, you know, for the skirt, you know, that's the way that I will take the picture, you know, because it's so interesting, like, when you try the heels or the skirt in this case or maybe even some fabric, sometimes, you know, like silk shirts and stuff, you know, is a feeling, isn't it?

28:37Like a fular, is a feeling, is how, you know, how you interact, you know, with things that can change the perception even in other people, not only on yourself, but also in other people. And for me, that kind of journey is very romantic, is very poetic. I don't know. I feel that some, it's a form of reaching an understanding between the genders, you know, through philosophy, I guess, philosophy of the clothes, I don't know, or philosophy of fashion. Also, I suppose the power of good design is the philosophy that takes someone from resistance to thinking, oh maybe I could wear that like I think when somebody you know your description of the builders that they carry they were able to be natural with you is a testament to the design working because when it's good someone will start to think oh maybe I could do that and somehow the boundary has changed the the frontiers are opened up and you know men will think yeah I can wear a skirt actually because it's it's not a skirt like it is for a woman it's this is the garment that I can wear and it it kind of enhances me and maybe even enhances my masculinity like the way a kilt does which is so so macho and um it's just accepted I I love that look Yeah, and even like the high-heeled boots, what I've learned, and I designed so many shoes in my life, really like an unbelievable number of shoes.

30:40But what I liked about what I did is that they were boots for men, that they can look also good on women. but primarily the boots that they look good on men, you know. And that for me was like, whoa, you know, who would have guessed that? I mean, not would have guessed because I wanted to, but, you know, and I think that that has a lot to do in, you know, I design things that I would wear. Otherwise, I wouldn't, you know.

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32:51on the subject of shoes you created some amazing things at Saint Laurent one of those things was the tribute sandal and I wondered what it was a tribute to oh why did I call it tribute such an amazing tribute well for sure it was a tribute I mean for me it's always been a tribute to a woman you know it's a tribute to a woman and this I try to remember if I had another reason to call a tribute but I guess that every time you know because it was very much in my lexicon like oh my gosh she looks cute this is really this skirt looks great it's a tribute to your beauty is a tribute to your femininity is a tribute to you know it's always been a bit like this medium in feelings or doing looks you know i think it's one of the reasons why everyone loves your work so much is as a woman the feeling of how much care you take of a woman is so palpable so that whenever someone buys your clothes, there's a feeling of being cared for and made to look the best possible version of yourself, which is how you've described wanting your mother to look.

34:23And it really travels through. It's such a powerful intention. And the shoe, the way it elevates a woman, and it creates this incredible posture. very sexy and very independent as well in a sort of divine and endearing way. Well, you know, there was a lot of speculation about how Saint Laurent should have been, you know, after Saint Laurent. And I guess that I didn't match any of the expectations that people had. Because for me, A, was an amazing, elegant designer before being provocative. B, he was an amazing prolific designer because somehow he really traveled with his mind season after season.

35:34and so you know you could find or we could we've been able to talk about sell around codes only after I don't know 20 years of a body of work you know not not like season after season and especially like this thing about the codes when people go like oh use the codes of the house you can't use the code of the house every single season because otherwise, you know, what is it? I mean, like, I don't know, people sometimes they should shut up. But anyway, I could tell that he was in admiration with women and that was very much my approach too. You know, after the 90s where sexy, you know, was everything, and low waist and show the G string and all this kind of thing, like shirts open and stuff like that.

36:41It wasn't at all what I was looking for because for me, the Celeron woman was untouchable. The Celeron woman was always like the one in charge, the one that you don't touch me, I choose. and that for me was very, very important and it was kind of hard because basically I was going against what everybody expected me to do. But for me they expected me to do that because they really didn't understand profoundly what history was and the Saint Laurent design was. And in that sense, you know, it was a very unique approach, I would say. My formation, my education in fashion has been always primarily in menswear.

37:44And of course, I did want to, you know, when I was little, I was also sketching for women's wear and stuff, you know, and I was thinking about my sisters or my mom, about being menswear primarily, Charuti, Armani, you know, I suffered a bit, but they told me, they taught me that to be a good women designer, you should have been, you know, a very good menswear designer and learning the craft of tailoring and everything. So the first time that I really started to design for women was when I was a Prada. And for me, beside Prada, Miu Miu, it didn't matter really. For me, the most important thing is that Miuccia would love what I would suggest.

38:43Because even if she, you know, sometimes it happens. And I've never been jealous about this. I've never been like, you give ideas, that's your role. You are her assistant. So you dare to give her ideas for her to choose or not choose. And even sometimes she chose and then she edited or whatever. I never took her personally because for me, my challenge was to please her. It was to, you know, but not in a yes man kind of way. You know what I mean? Like to feel her challenge and to embrace her challenge, you know. And that for me was like super formative. And I loved, you know, to have a woman in mind, you know.

39:35But then when I stepped into Saint Laurent, who was the woman? because actually the woman of the 60s woman of Saint Laurent, the 70s woman of Saint Laurent, and I would say like until the mid-80s of Saint Laurent, you know, that woman was gone, you know. And so, and everything could have been a retro approach, you know. And you could start, I don't know if you remember, but when, you know, all of a sudden, besides the citations of Miucha, of Saloran in her work, you know, like, but Saloran started to be also, like, you know, interesting to buy, like, you know, vintage or, you know, all of a sudden, like, in the beginning of the 2000s.

40:34And so I was like, well, girls, I mean, like, go buy secondhand if you want a Crab de Chien purple, you know shirt with a cravat you know you know what i mean or a pleated skirt in you know in pietre pool you know like why should i give you something that is on in the secondhand shop and we all know you know what is the salaran woman of the 2000s you know and so So when I stepped into Saint Laurent, you know, one of the things that I love the most and the most challenging as well is that I realized that for me to design women's wear was really a journey to the unknown, you know, to a universe that I don't know that I could do.