Adam & Eve

I have been admiring you’re A.P.C store in Soho, New York, who did the fit out?

The Mercer street one? I did. I took over an old shop. At that time I was so broke I— well anyway, I just happened to have a relationship with the former owner, and his former partner. His former partner was Julian Schnabel’s wife. So it has a little ‘grand Schnabel’ whiteness. It has a timber floor, railway wood, is very massive with huge mirrors. The space was so dramatic, I just had to put in my fitting rooms, I put leather on the floor of the fitting rooms.

Leather floors?

I imitated something that Joseph Beuys did in his own studio. You know what, leather is very resistant, leather that is used in proper shoe soles.

Also it ages very well.

Exactly, because it has vegetal tanning, they add nothing but vegetable which means that the leather will just get darker with time.

I saw on your blog site a picture of you skating at Berkeley, first, what were you doing at Berkeley, continuing your linguistic studies?

No, no, no. It was nothing intellectual, believe me. I had a very depressing trip in South America it lasted one year. It was depressing because it was meant to be done on a motorcycle and then my partner at the time, my friend, didn’t have the money for the motorcycle, so we ended up in a small Renault car, that was not so sexy. So I was depressed for almost a year in South America not riding a motorcycle. I flew from Lima, Peru to see some friends in Los Angeles, who happened to have a motorcycle, so then I took my revenge. I went to Northern California on the motorcycle and then I was feeling very free because I had fulfilled my fantasy, which was to ride. Then I got a skateboard and started to skate, that is all. (laughs) I was not doing Berkeley Linguistics, no, no. I was reading a lot of linguistic authors at the time, but I was totally physical and perceptual, nothing intellectual.

You have a recording studio in Paris, do you manage artists, or is it for your own enjoyment?

Well, the thing is I wanted to have a recording studio which is basically a rehearsal studio in which you can record. It is more comfortable for me because I love to play music from time to time and write and so I have the luxury situation of my own studio, it is better to have that than a Porsche. Around me I have a lot of young collaborators in the design studio who also happen to be playing in successful bands, I mean successful in the small world of music, not of show business, two different worlds. That creates a very good energy here in our building.

You have recorded with Jarvis Cocker

Yes, it was for the next Wes Anderson animated movie called Fantastic Mr Fox. We used my studio with Wes and Jarvis because they feel comfortable here, there is no record company, art director, no bullshit, no show business basically. No stupid show business full of cocaine and bad taste. So they come and express their creativity pretty freely, they don’t book the studio but just show up. Since they are being a bit polite they will phone and say can we come up tonight, I say yes and they come. It is interesting.

Have you been to Australia?

No, I did travel close, but never to Australia. I did have some experiences with Australian surfers. They were not nice. I was in Bali and the Australian surfers there were very tough guys, I am too mellow of a guy and it was a bad experience. They said to me, “you should go to that spot over there, it is pretty good” and I went and there was a very, very bad, current under the water. I thought I was going to die. It was impossible to get back to the beach once you are there. I am not blaming Australia, I am blaming the one Australian guy who gave me bad advice to get rid of me.

You used to concentrate on runway shows…

I did, but I tried to be very different and runway shows don’t work for me because there is too much corruption in the press. The journalist will only go to your show if you buy advertisement. If you don’t spend a million dollars in a show you are considered a bum. So, I prefer to keep my money to make beautiful pictures? Shows are very costly and they don’t show anything. It is a new thing to show off, it is some people’s dream to be front row all his life in the shows. Human comedy to me.

Your production is off shore?

We do have a weaving factory, a very small thing. One guy in the mountain with two brothers and two workers, a five worker weaving plant. Small, but there we can create our own fabric. From there we ship the fabric all over the world.

Do off shore factories get it right often?

It is a nightmare. We do have people who have to travel quite a lot, and China is not the best part of the world if you want to travel. The temperature is terrible, the climate is terrible, they have bad taste ... India is good as the overall taste is good and the mentality is good. China is a bit fascist with bad taste. You are free to print everything I say, I believe in what I say. They happen to have knitting machines in China so we are obliged to go there. I would rather not go, my dream would be to deal with people in India, as they have good taste and a sense of humour, you cannot crack a joke with Chinese people.