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Can We Do Jeans Without 20
Can We Do Jeans Without 20
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Jean-Charles de Castelbajac, United Colors of Benetton’s artistic director,
speaks with ETPanache on slowing down the industry, the need to
reinvent and why he doesn’t believe in dressing celebrities
shannon.tellis@timesgroup.com
It’s 9 pm in Mumbai and avant-garde French designer Jean-Charles de Castelbajac is tired after a long day of
media interviews and a masterclass for design students.
But when you bring up the climate emergency plaguing the fashion industry today, or debate the viability of a
politically correct world, the artistic director of United Colors of Benetton, who once convinced Pope John Paul
II to don vestments with a rainbow-cross motif, begins to light up.
Few know that back in 1970, Castelbajac petitioned to join a secret philosophical society — La Phalène — in
Paris and it’s this love for a good philosophical discussion that comes across as he cradles an espresso and
shares his take on the challenges facing the fashion industry.
“We are in a disruptive and a little bit [of a] dystopian time. When I started in fashion, we designed coats and
jackets thinking a mother will give it to her daughter and she will pass it on, we designed for three generations.
We never thought people would buy a coat and throw it away. Today, the emergency of what’s happening in
the world is telling the fashion industry, ‘Calm down, we’re going too fast’.
“We’ve been so fast for so long that it’s time to go back to slow. Ecology is a good opportunity to go back to
style [to the basics].
“Stella McCartney was a visionary in this, in not using leather. Today we’re doing our buttons with cotton, I’m
making a whole family of clothes using paper. So it’s very interesting to consider. Can we do blue jeans without
20,000 litres of water or without using acid? These are all important questions.”
“The perfect department store has to be reinvented. It’s no longer about the four Ps (price, positioning,
publicity and power) but about the four Es — ecology, experience, emotion and e-system. It may be like
Disneyland or it may be a mix of fashion and a modern art museum like what K11 is in Hong Kong. If you don’t
[reinvent], you’ll be facing huge competition from the screen (e-commerce).”
“Today you can’t say something about religion, race or even a book on Instagram (without offending someone).
But fashion represents an ambiguous part of the world. The former President of France, François Mitterrand,
once said to me, ‘Fashion is a tool of democracy. Every totalitarian country hates fashion because fashion is a
mark of independence’. You know, it’s like when I did the dress for Katy Perry with President Obama’s face four
months before he was elected in 2008. Some people were very upset, they wanted to hurt me. This would have
never happened in the ’70s.”
“I remember, my friend (former Sex Pistols’ band manager) Malcolm McLaren was an anarchist. When the
digital age arrived, he said to me, ‘This is not for us. We have to resist.’ And I said, ‘No, no, we have to
contaminate this digital society with our philosophy.’ I still believe that. I’m a total utopist like Don Quixote. He
fought for crazy ideas.”
“If you had asked me 10 years ago, I would have said [liked to dress] Lady Gaga. In the ’60s, I would have said
John Lennon, but today I want to dress the people. Because I believe that to own a good dress with a good
label helps people. They can get a job, they can go to a rendezvous, they can look good for their love.”.