Fashion | NEW YORK - LONDON
“Beauty can come from the strangest of places, even the most disgusting of places. It’s the ugly things I notice more, because other people tend to ignore the ugly things.” - Alexander McQueen
When was that point actually reached?
works of old masters and modern artists, historical fashions, and traditional and innovative fabric techniques.
For Plato’s Atlantis, he said, “I don’t want to look at any shapes. I don’t want to reference anything, a picture, a drawing. I want it all to be new.” And he was completely right, because he then created something new, without a reference. That’s why on those occasions when we hadn’t handed in the collection by the deadline, he knew it didn’t really matter.
Sometimes the deadlines were so tight. I’d press him, and he’d give me something, anything, and say, “Just send off the sketches to the factory,” because he knew that in the fitting he was completely capable of making a whole collection out of nothing.
How often did he do that?
Oh, once or twice [laughs]. There were situations when, if he didn’t have a garment but he had bolts of fabric, Lee could literally create a dress on the spot — embroidery here, fabric there, chop this, and he would completely have it. He would cut on the stand. He spent a lot of the time with mannequins, cutting things. The way he designed was so organic that he didn’t really sit and sketch. It was very 3D, and when he did it three-dimensionally, it was always better because he’d come up with new things.
As time went by, we scanned into the computer the patterns of the garments that Lee had draped. Then we would place the artwork onto these pattern pieces. It could be a print or a jacquard. Then we would print out the paper pattern in miniature with the artwork on it and stick it together to make a 3D garment. Toward the end, we’d have to make paper dolls of each outfit because his patterns were so complex to visualize. I did it so it would be easier for him to see. You had to work in a certain way with him, it was so visual. You had a moment. It had to be immediate or it was gone. We did the fittings for the last couple of collections with all the garments in the real fabric, whereas maybe in the past we might have created the toiles in calico. But Lee was at the point where he wanted to see everything in the right jacquard, the right print.
We did it for “The Horn of Plenty” and “Plato’s Atlantis.” For these collections we had to launch a rough fabric or jacquard for the pattern at the design stage — the stage when Lee was draping on the stand. When the pattern came back from the factory in Italy, or from the atelier downstairs, and Lee fitted it on a mannequin, we had to change the artwork again for the correct pattern. Lee would cut and change the garment on the mannequin, which meant that the print no longer matched at the seams, so we had to go back to the computer and make it match again.
Three weeks before the show, we’d hand the fabric to sketching, and we’d launch the final fabrics. That is to say, we’d allocate the fabrics to the garments and order the clothes we needed for the show from the factory. This was especially challenging for “Plato’s Atlantis” because all the patterns were so precise. After the showpieces were done, I’d go to Italy to check everything. For “Plato’s Atlantis” everything was engineered and hand-embroidered, like couture.
It sounds like an incredibly extravagant and challenging way to work, using such expensive fabrics to test out ideas that might not work.
For “Plato’s Atlantis,” there were 36 prints altogether. They were circle-engineered to the body. By circle- engineered, I mean that the prints were based on a circle shape that sat in the middle of a bolt of fabric. Not only did you have to place the print correctly, but also, for example, if a fabric went from opaque to sheer, Lee had to do that in the fitting. I’d say he cut half of these pieces. His eye was so amazing he could drape an engineered print.
So he’d cut it after he’d draped it, and then, if he didn’t like it ...
He’d throw it away. What was incredible was that it nearly always worked. I tried to do it recently, and I thought, “Oh no, I’ve cut the wrong bit off.” But he discarded hardly anything at all with “Plato’s Atlantis.” Of course, there were always pieces that got dropped. But he’d pass them over to the commercial collection. In the show collection, Lee offered looks that combined jersey and tailoring.
How long did the fittings take?
Three days of fitting 30 garments. Fittings were really the key thing. Lee was very quick. Did you ever see him in a fitting? He came alive when he was fitting clothes. He made you feel like you might as well pack your bags and go home. He could draw a pattern on the floor; he could change things so confidently.
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