Fashion Neurosis with Willy Chavarria

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1:32Hi, come in.

1:45Welcome to Fashion Neurosis, Willy Chavarria. Thank you, Bella. It's a pleasure to be here. Can you tell me what you're wearing today and why you chose these particular clothes? I am wearing a very comfortable outfit. And I got dressed up last night for the British Fashion Award. So the day after something like that, I choose to be very comfortable. And I knew I would be lying down. So I'm wearing my favorite cotton shirt that is vintage. And my favorite t-shirt, which is a vintage Raiders t-shirt that was given to me by a friend and some incredible old work jeans and a crocodile belt that I got when I worked at Ralph Lauren and eel skin loafers that I made.

2:51and you have these beautiful bracelets and look wonderful over your tattoos oh thank you all of the jewelry I wear is from my husband so I only wear jewelry that he has gifted me he worked in jewelry for a very long time including when we met so he has a love and fascination with jewelry so um i never really thought about jewelry much or diamonds and when we first met he was working in diamonds specifically he would bring me all these diamonds and i would be wow and um so that's where my jewelry comes from other than what I have around my neck I have some things that I've collected just over the years since childhood a saint Francis whom I love and a crucifix from Italy and I wear this um it's called a scapera which is something that has two saints on it and it's just kind of like a prayer necklace I suppose and I like to keep that on there's a very particular way that you're you wear the jewelry and then the way it sort of reoccurs in your show which is it's just not haphazard it's caressing and it's just such a sort of fashion recognition I it's so nice to see thank you thank you I love um I love the way we adorn ourselves and in some way I like to translate myself and my own energy into the models that I work with so I often find that I'm putting jewelry on them that looks exactly like the jewelry I wear and just the shimmer of gold and clip-on earrings I love clip-on earrings Oh, that's such a good idea.

5:24I just love the way it kind of elevates a look. And you are a hugely successful American menswear designer. Your Paris show was the hottest ticket in town this year. Your show opened with 35 men wearing a uniform of oversized T-shirts and white shorts and kneeling with their arms behind their back in the position people are forced to hold when they're detained. And opinion is quite divided about designers making political gestures. And I wondered how you make politics in fashion so relatable. For some reason, it comes very, very naturally to me. I think that I have my upbringing and my family to be most grateful for because I was very aware early on about the horrors of segregation in the United States.

6:36my father being Mexican and my mother being of Irish descent, we grew up in an area that had been, previous to my birth, very segregated. And there were actually two small towns in California. One was called Huron, which was a Mexican town. farm workers 99 from mexico picking the food that we all eat and the other town was called calinga and that is where my mother was from and after the civil rights movement when desegregation was abolished the two towns shared the same high school and that is where my parents met gosh and there was still so much racism between the mexican people and the white people living there so um when my mother got pregnant with me um she moved into my father's family and they were very catholic and my mother was also very religious and at the time in that area abortion was not really like a thing thank goodness because i got to be here and um so i was raised with my father's family we had caesar chavez hanging on the wall and martin luther king and malcolm x and the pope and jfk those were our icons Oh, the lurkers.

8:36And I was always just raised with the knowledge of right and wrong and doing good to others and being aware of humanity. so to come back to your question i um feel that it's very important to incorporate humanity into my work whether it is fashion or film or music or whatever it is i'm working on I feel it's important. Because there was so much tenderness in those young men all walking in and kneeling and bending their heads. And it felt very much part of your creative output. And that's so refined to, you know, when you talked about, you know, wanting and really caring about showing humanity in your work.

9:42But it isn't a, it's all part of it. And I think that's why it was so touching and moving and seemed so natural in the show. It was really, really something. And it clearly made a huge impression because suddenly everyone, it was everywhere, and everyone was talking about it, and it was really, really exciting. Yes, it was. you know we were doing the show when the ice raids were happening in california and i i actually didn't have that part of the show planned we were going to go right into the runway itself and um we were in paris for three weeks prior to the show and I had my family visiting their first time in Paris and their first time seeing one of my shows.

10:48So it was already very personal. And then with the ice raids and the horrors that were happening in the United States, so much of my team and my family were directly affected by, you know, this terrorist, this terrorism. So the emotions were very, very high. And the emotions are already high when you're doing a show. And then there was this on top of it. so um you know days before i just said to myself we've got to make a statement here we've got to say something because i i didn't want to be another fashion show that was kind of escaping reality i wanted to show something that reveals reality and at the same time celebrates ourselves in our strength and our resistance and our in our beauty yeah well you really did that it's yeah it was really um affecting and uh sort of empowering to see how someone creatively can make people think in a in a more open-minded way and just entertain a new way of thinking instead of being defended to be open and that's a huge you know the people that you described on your parents wall that's what they did and um and you come from from your community was a lot of migrant farm workers and um what did you see there that gave you an idea of the look that you wanted to create um it's such a good question i i think and and the older i get the more i think about it because what was really kind of magnificent about where i grew up was there was no fashion as as we know it it was um the values were very fundamental and they still are um You know, it's family, food, God, love, all of these things that are really important to all of us.

13:46So without fashion or fashion magazines or any of that around, I was kind of more into style, you could say. You know, I was very obsessed with the way people dressed and the way people presented themselves. And also very interested in how we would categorize ourselves. So the women would all wear a similar floral dress to mass every Sunday. and they would look so beautiful putting on their lipstick and their mid-heel shoes and their pantyhose and smell so nice. And the men would crease their pants and iron their shirts and slick their hair back. And I can still just smell that smell in a church.

14:49But I grew to love that and become fascinated with that. And then as I grew older and got more exposed to music and fashion and media, I started to realize that everybody did that, that we all kind of dress in a way that we want to be perceived. and for myself i kind of used that as a platform to manipulate the way i moved through life through what i wore because i knew that there was something very powerful about what we wear and how people interpret us yeah i think um as a child you really notice that don't you when it's when there's not much there because i noticed that with my mother and she was very young and she was a hippie and i really noticed how we got a different look because we were dressing differently, but we didn't have money, so we didn't have agency.

16:12So we definitely weren't in the sort of couture-y time. So in your shows, your models are often real people and friends and quite macho in their posing, but also tender. There's this tenderness that comes through. And how can tough men show their sensitivity through clothes when image matters so much? I actually love, it's nice that you brought that up because I do love celebrating masculinity and femininity. Yeah. And I think they're both such wonderful things. And everything in between is wonderful too. But I really love to highlight these things, regardless of the gender. And I grew up around such masculine men.

17:12And I mean, machismo was, I think, a goal for every man in my childhood. and I was able to see through to the heart of so many men, so many of my cousins and people who really cared for me. And it's something that I love to cut through in the models that I cast. And something I love about the family that we create, my team and I, is we bring in new people, like cast members, for example, we'll cast them, and they'll become part of the family. And I love the sensitivity that some of these men grow to share that they may not have otherwise learned had they not been put in this, you know insane fashion environment with all these queens and all this crazy madness so I love having an environment like my studio having like a bunch of straight guys a bunch of gay guys a bunch of trans people just all kind of walk of life just in love with each other and friends.

18:46And I feel that we're all very close friends. And I love that. Avoiding your unfinished home projects because you're not sure where to start? Thumbtack knows homes, so you don't have to. Don't know the difference between matte paint finish and satin or what that clunking sound from your dryer is? With Thumbtack, you don't have to be a home pro. You just have to hire one. You can hire top-rated pros, see price estimates, and read reviews all on the app. Download today. Support for this show comes from Odoo. Running a business is hard enough, so why make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other?

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20:02Because you had incredible women's wear on your show. And you said you want the willy woman to be the one all the gays love and all the heteros are intimidated by. And how did your mother dress? Was she the inspiration for this?

20:22Oh, no.

20:26My mother is probably my greatest inspiration, but not my fashion inspiration. My mother is completely selfless, almost to a fault. But she's the most generous, loving person. And I know that much of my heart came from that wonderful woman. But fashion is not at the top of her list. I remember once I got her a coach bag for Christmas thinking, okay, she'll relate to this. And she called me and said, this is a nice bag. I can tell it's really expensive. Who's the designer? That's so sweet. One time I had my first meeting with Anna. And I told my mother, mom, I have a meeting with Anna Wintour. And she said, oh, mijo, that's so nice.

21:35Now, who is that? That's just, that is totally like the ultimate mother, isn't it? Oh, gosh, yeah, she's the best. That's so sweet. But I think the fashion that I design for in women a lot is inspired by Pedro Almodovar. and women in his films and strong women um i didn't want to design women's wear until i had a wonderful women's designer working with me and now i have someone amazing so we work very very closely in creating what we think will make women feel strong and in charge of a room the minute they walk in and not disappear into the background and those are the women that we want to amplify because you had um Farida Kelfer in the show didn't um who I know who's an amazing person and wearer is such she is the iconic woolly shavaria woman yeah having her in the show was a complete dream and being with her and getting to know her she is the most elegant woman on the face of the earth yeah i love her she's amazing the way she wears is just not like anybody it's it's bigger than life and completely natural i mean she's incredible i remember we put her in this red leather trench dress and butter yellow pumps and we were getting ready to style her and she just kind of walked away and walked into the seamless where we were shooting the looks and started styling herself and flipped up her collar and was posing for the camera.

24:04And I think we all fell over backwards. Like this woman knows what she's doing. Because what was the first garment that changed the way you felt about yourself? And what age were you when you noticed the connection between what you were wearing and what it gave you? And there was a pair of shoes at Kmart, which is a store that I don't think it's around anymore, but it's basically a discount shopping store. And they, you know how they have the little plastic thing that attaches the two shoes? Oh, yeah. So if you try them on, you have to have your feet together. and they were a cap toe faux patent leather plastic like derby and i was so obsessed with those shoes i do not know why i was so obsessed with those shoes but they felt dressy and i mean i didn't have anything that went with them but i begged for those shoes i begged for those shoes and then eventually they went on sale and i got those shoes and i treasured those things for as long as i could fit my feet into them and um i remember being so passionate about those and then as i grew older it started to become other things that i would see other people wearing like bell-bottom jeans yeah or tank tops with contrast rib or i remember the the movie carrie brian de palma's carrie had a huge impact on me the fashion in that movie was everything i wanted to be wow i i've only watched snippets because i'm a bit wimpish about horror so i've seen bits and i have mostly seen her covered in blood so i have i'll have to revisit to see the fashion oh my gosh you have to yeah it's a beautiful movie actually well the more i read about it the more It's a film cited by people.

26:32It clearly has a deep impression. And Brian De Palma has such a great eye for style. It's so kind of fetishy and sexy and everything. Incredibly sexy. But, you know, the true film of inspiration is The Exorcist. Oh, my God, really? I've never seen that. It's, well, it's my favorite film. And it's incredibly stylish. And it's beautifully filmed. And even if you watch it just, you know, up to the actual, like, horror sequence when Reagan is possessed, it's so chic. Really? It is so chic. and Ellen Burstyn is incredible and I've always loved that movie oh that's a whole new angle to approach I could watch it now I know there's something in it for me I not just the suspense is what I'm afraid of so oh now I know there's some great outfits I won't be afraid no don't be afraid and enjoy the suspense because you've talked about growing up being queer and biracial and you said at school i pretended i was someone else for four years and i wondered how you were dressing when you were pretending to be this other person and you even dated a cheerleader oh my god well i was preppy as fuck i was like you know pink polo under a powder blue polo with mattress shorts yeah i don't know what that was but you know it's um it's something that i that you know i've i've later come to realize with other queer people and people of color, how we dress in this way of assimilation that's almost amplified to overshadow the fact that we are other.

29:06And so now it makes sense. But I kind of merged from that into, as I began to discover music, which was mostly coming from the UK for me. Really? Oh, yeah. It was like Sisters of Mercy, Susie and the Banshees.

29:31So I merged from preppy to goth. So then I was, I guess you could say I was prep goth. I love that. New genre. And with your parents being into the civil rights movement and admiring Dolores Huerta and Chavez, and that seems clearly something that stayed with you. And I think fashion is a great platform for social justice movement and young people are interested in fashion. So it seems a good place for it to be reflected. And I wondered, what do you think is the difference between posing and making a statement? Well, ultimately, it's, you know, sincerity. It's, you know, doing what comes from the heart.

30:32And I agree with you. I think that we have this incredible opportunity with music, art, and fashion to deliver messages to make people feel and see each other in a way that's more loving. And I personally feel that avoiding the atrocities in the world is not truly beautiful. It's not truly sincere. so I think we have the opportunity to to share with each other how how we feel and connect with one another on how we all feel and it's a way to empower ourselves and educate ourselves and lift each other up and for me that's that's really the ultimate goal aside from the fact that i need to sell some clothes along with it huge burden of the designer but i think it's so interesting to find a new I mean it's not new but for people to start to look for where they can express that sincerity in fashion because it's so dynamic and it has so much influence and um and as we know being in the fashion world it has a lot more depth than it's ever credited for and it's wonderful to see how you play with that and how you make a space for people to follow and to lead and because not everybody can be a leader and fashion is a great way to follow and have a pledge your heart in a way to something in a I suppose it's like what you said pledge with love especially in this climate of divisive language yeah there are more people looking at fashion now than are you know paying attention to the news or even voting yeah yeah so it's a great way to reach people yeah and i often say sometimes i feel like what i'm doing is feeding people spinach that's great but i'm serving them spinach enchiladas so it's delicious and we all get the vitamins from it yeah i think you're right it's absolutely right you started the willy chavaria brand 10 years ago and you described it as a real kind of over-the-top preppy turn like Martha's Vineyard if the Mexicans took over and your ball gown chinos have become a signature look and I wondered how you dressed the new mayor of New York on his for his inauguration if you had the chance oh my gosh well anytime I dress somebody it's more about them than my brand so I really like to know their body and how they feel about their body and how they like to present themselves so I feel like I would put him in a dark navy double-breasted well-tailored suit with a medium-wide leg opening and a shiny loafer and what color shirt would he be wearing white with the red striped tie oh

35:02i'm old school i love when government leaders look like government leaders yeah there's such an opportunity there our politicians tend to look really bad they um oh yeah they don't understand that this is a whole extra dimension of communication that they could have x access to yeah it's infuriating it's yeah it's i mean our public appearance is so much about the people we represent and if you're representing an entire country the first thing you want to do is look your best it's your duty in france they seem to be the best at it they're pretty good at it yeah clothes outfits in the u.s we've had our ups and downs i can't think of anyone off the top of my head who i've loved Well, Barack Obama looked pretty fab.

36:13Yeah, he did, actually. He had such a good silhouette. I mean, he was so elegant. Yeah, his slim trousers, always a little cropped. Yes. That's one of my favorite bits is a gap between the ankle and the shoe. A too short trouser is so enchanting. I love that. Do you? I love that too, yeah. Yeah, I've been talking about that a lot lately. Because we've been missing out on it for a few years now. And I mean, I've been doing those very oversized trousers, very wide leg, a look that I will always love. But I've been missing that exposed ankle. Yes, there's so much sock opportunity with that. Yes. Tiny bit of space there, isn't there?

37:11Definitely. And you've made a lot of short films to showcase your work, and I love the atmosphere you create of sexual tension and suffering. And your films focus on the mood, and it makes the clothes fascinating by default. And I wonder why you'd focused on film and why that medium? I love film. I love it. I like it much more than doing a show. And the first film I did was, it was a fashion film. And I really wanted to show the clothes being worn by people in movement and laughing and crying and experiencing all the things that we experience in life. I wanted to see the clothes that way so they felt more real.

38:14And I think that with film, you can really tell a much more intimate story. You can really get up close on someone's face and see right into their eyes. and you can see the subtle body movements, the crossing of the legs, all of these things that show our character and show who we are. And identity is such an important and valuable thing for us, especially now with many of our identities being erased. I really think it's magical to capture those beautiful, beautiful subtleties that can get overlooked. because in that film where they're lifting weights and that there's these people in a room and someone's lifting weights it's not really clear if it's a gym but it and then the way the shots you have of people's bodies is it's like when you're out of the side of your eye trying to see someone who looks interesting and or part of their body it's really about it's so well caught the the emotional charge of trying to catch a glimpse of somebody and then you notice something that they're wearing that seems to enhance all that and do you direct the films as well how how involved are you in in i do i direct and um write and work on the music i get very involved yeah yeah but um that scene you're describing i love and and thank you for noticing because we did shoot it in a way that wasn't capturing the entirety of the room it was kind of scanning from thing to thing in the room so it's almost as if you're standing there and your eyes are wandering around and for some reason I felt like that gave a sense of welcome like you were just welcome to kind of be in the room with these people And we shot the same scene once with a group of men with Mahmood as the lead lifting weights.

41:07And then the exact same scene with a group of women with Kai, Isaiah Jamal, lifting weights. And we were going to intersperse them so that it was kind of confusing. but each scene was so beautiful and so clean that I decided to keep them separate it's it's much more sophisticated like that and somehow how things are there is this thing that you find I you know incredibly attractive and illuminating you know and uh and you don't entirely know why except for it's happening and then it stays with you and has an influence I thought I mean it stayed with me I found that really mesmerizing and I'm I much prefer to make films I feel like you can get people's eye where you want it and I mean your show was did that Anyway, so you seem to have that down, that you're able to captivate people whichever way you choose to.

42:23Well, thank you for saying that. I think the emotion is where it's at. And I love to capture emotion and make us feel emotion. and with film you can really do that and that film actually on set it was very emotional because we had a storyline that doesn't literally translate in the film safe from harm but it's a storyline of death or departure or saying goodbye to a loved one so we would film out of sequence so there would be some very heavy scenes and then we would do like the gym scene so even though it was just a room full of people lifting weights everyone had just been crying you know so it was like uh the emotion was felt yeah it's so good because in the end it's the story even if the story is quite subliminal and when there's too much focus on the clothes there is no person like even at that film last days in marion bad or it's called something like that that has amazing clothes but nothing really happens and it's quite boring in the end and you don't really care i mean this is my take on that that masterpiece that everyone loves but So that's what I really enjoyed about all the films of yours that I watch, how even the things that were 16 seconds, there was this feeling of having a moment of someone's life and the story of it.

44:18I agree. I never like the clothes to overshadow the person. Yeah. I think it's so important that the clothes lift the person up, amplify the person. or make the person feel how they wish to feel in that moment. Maybe it's a hoodie and sunglasses and you don't want to be seen. But I do think that ultimately it's all about us as people. and the clothes and the selling of the clothes is secondary to that and you know it's funny having a business that is fashion when you want to celebrate humanity in a way that is so much more valuable than something like fashion but I do find that there's the overlap and there is place for both of them and that's that's where I found solace yeah because you've talked about having to hustle to make your way when you were much younger do you find it's given you confidence to stray into the world of trade and BDSM and use it in your work i don't regret a bit of my life i think that everything in my life has been the path to where i am now and i can't think of anything in my life no matter how bad it was that i'm not grateful for because it's enabled me to be where I am now.

46:17And where I am now is just, I mean, I feel like I'm at the beginning. I think of all the other people you've had on this couch that I get to lay on. And there are so many wonderful people that I respect and I loved hearing your interviews. And I feel like I'm just, like you're catching me on my way and um i thank you for that but um every part of my life the difficult parts and the glorious parts have all inspired my work and my work philosophy and the way i hire people the way i treat people the way i do business so um i'm very grateful for that you seem like you're having the time of your life which is a wonderful thing to see to be honest in any designer because it's such a hard job but to see you've worked with all sorts with people and and now now it's about you and your time and your message and feels great it's really wonderful to have you here thank you thank you you know it it it i think it looks like the time of my life and that is the intention and that is the intention of fashion you know it's very smoke and bearers and as you know there is so much work that goes into it from the backside yeah and in fashion there is so much work it's like of all the industries i don't know how i got stuck with this one that is so crazy and i am enjoying it but I don't think this is the time of my life I think that is yet to come and I really on a daily basis I am always just thinking about what I'm going to do next what I need to do next where do I need to go next how can I have the most positive effect how can I make the fortune that will allow me to care for my family and everyone you know the people around me so I appreciate where I am now and I I'm so grateful for where I am now, but I am still on my way to more.

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50:08Every Tuesday, join me for the latest fashion news like the shakeups of Balenciaga and Dior and what's trending in Paris and Milan. You'll also hear interviews with top designers from Mark Jacobs and Rick Owens to Daniel Roseberry, Sarah Burton, and many more. On Thursdays, Chloe Maul, editor of Vogue.com, and Choma Nadi, head of editorial content at British Vogue, take you behind the scenes at Vogue and share their thoughts on fashion through the lens of culture. You'll hear interviews with some of your favorite stars like Julianne Moore, Pharrell Williams, and celebrity stylist La Roche. Join us to get your fashion and culture news twice a week.

50:44Listen to The Run-Through with Vogue every Tuesday and Thursday, wherever you get your podcasts. Well, you have an underwear line called Dirty Willie Underwear, launched in 2024. And I can imagine that's very popular as people love naughty jokes, especially here. And did someone cute give you that idea? Someone very cute gave me that idea and it was me.

51:16and Bella you know what's funny is the whole okay so there was a plan behind that my plan was to launch an underwear line because I love underwear and I know underwear inside and out I worked at Calvin and I started with Joe Boxer so I have underwear in my blood and my first thought was to do a campaign with trashed out underwear and a partnership with latino fan club which is the first gay latin porn ever ever done and it was out of new york in the 80s and 90s. And it was like VHS tapes, maybe more 90s, and magazines, you know, pre-digital. And so we did it. We did this amazing collaboration.

52:20I met the person who started Latino Fan Club, and we did this incredible underwear that was Pima cotton, hand washed to look filthy um it had holes and cum stains and piss stains and we left it at that and I expected it to be just like a press thing like it would get some hoopla out there but it sold out and then we had to make more wow and then that sold out so it turns out there's an audience more luxury priced i think they were like six hundred dollars or something a pair um gosh luxury price trashed out filthy cum stained underwear oh my god and who's knocking down your door to collaborate with you on a map i mean you think that's such an opportunity for someone with huge distribution and manufacturing or is it is it staying the underwear up market it's staying in the couture zone the underwear the dirty underwear is just kind of a little niche moment that we're going to let, you know, eventually fade.

53:49And then we'll be releasing like a core underwear line without holes. Sounds fantastic. And you use a lot of phrases and words on your clothes as I do too. But what are you hoping to awaken in somebody with the words that you choose? I like people to do a double take and they read something and think about it and question it. I'm a big fan of Jenny Holzer, of course. And I've always just loved her work and the way her simple phrases can activate so much thought. and um she's been an influence anything in particular of her phrases well i love protect me from what i want that's one of my favorites and i think there's one about like if you want to capture somebody's true spirit splash a glass of milk in their face there's something like that with less words yeah i love that one i i saw you had america upside down and you had kind of phrases that people are familiar with but you even the putting something upside down or the association of with something different is is a thought provoker isn't it yes well i really like to take things that we're familiar with and we've interpreted all our lives to mean one thing and then give them new meaning you know i've always loved like for example the way people of color look better in ralph lauren yeah it's like it's so expected if you see a white guy in a polo shirt and you know bermuda shorts but given world history and given everything to see that same look on a black man suddenly becomes so gorgeous and i love to do that with words and i love to do that with fashion i think that's why um you mentioned earlier i had said that i loved a collection that i did that was like if martha's vineyard got taken over by the mexicans yeah And I don't know if you know this, but there was this really messed up incident that happened in the United States where there was a state, a Republican state, I think it may have been Florida, that put up a false advertisement for Mexican immigrants to come to this location where they would get a job.

57:22and they were all loaded on a bus, and everyone was excited that they were going to get work, and they were driven to Martha's Vineyard, and the governor of the state that was sending them, Florida, I think it was, just dropped these people off in Martha's Vineyard as kind of like a fuck you to a democratic state. My God. And just so horrible, so low and disgusting. So these people got off the bus and they were like, they had nowhere to go or nowhere to sleep or nothing to eat. And, you know, they thought they were going to get jobs. Luckily, community members helped to take them in eventually.