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7/14/11

in town: richard nicoll


Attention Hong Kong fashionistas! Richard Nicoll is in town, and he's a huge hit here. Anyone who knows Richard knows he's not only terribly talented and terrifyingly intelligent, but also incredibly affable. He's at Electric sekki for a week of interviews; meeting and greeting Asia's biggest media players and retailers. It's as if there's been a spell cast over the showroom, everyone is rapt! Learn a bit more about Richard and what inspires him in this sweet little interview he did with Harper's UK. You're bound to fall even more in love with him.


What is your earliest fashion memory? 
I was never really interested in fashion when I was younger. I was more interested in subcultures and expressions through clothes. I guess my earliest fashion memory is related to music.

The very first piece you ever made, how old were you and why did you create it? 
I made a straight-jacket when I was 19, but I think I was just trying to be subversive at the time and probably I was really mental! [laughs]

Was there a particular era that influenced you? 
In terms of fashion references there’s always been a thing about Morrissey and how he dressed and Kurt Cobain back in the day. I am always more influenced by music than fashion for my collections now: the 90's grunge culture and that side angle where people like Morrissey were doing their thing. I guess that sexual ambiguity was an influence too.

What do you think of the recent fusion of fashion, music and art cultures? 
I don’t know if it’s new but it makes sense because fashion is all about popular culture which is all about fashion, music and sociological events.

What is style to you? 
Conviction of individuality and having the confidence to do your own thing.

Do you have a favourite fashion film? 
Inferno is my favourite [fashion] film at the moment. I’ve only just discovered it recently and I think it’s incredibly beautiful it’s a documentary about failure to complete a film from the `60s so the documentary was made in the 90s. I think it’s quite nice that it’s a story within a story. But the footage from the original film in the 60s which was never completed is absolutely incredible and part of the reason it was never completed is because the process was intense and because of the perfectionist Henri-Georges Clouzot was in terms of trying to complete the film. It’s quite surreal in how detailed it is. It also feels like an insane modernity even though it’s from the 60s.

What inspires you? 
I find New York really inspiring - not directly in terms of referencing the collections - but by its energy – you feel creative. I think you need to get away from your everyday life to feel creative, as a starting point.

Is there a place you would like to end up? 
When I really need to relax I go to Australia. But I have two homes: I’ve been in London as long as Australia. But that’s where my family is, so I feel I’ll be looked after!

Original Interview: Harper's Bazaar UK

x.

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