INTERVIEW: BERNHARD WILLHELM talks to FILEP MOTWARY
Dear POP, Ever since the creation of his own brand in 1999 (in association with Jutta Kraus), 33 year old Bernhard Willhelm has created his own personal universe in fashion, something that only a few of his colleagues achieved .He started with womenswear back in March of 1999. The first menswear came in October of 2000, which he wouldn’t showcase until January 2003 within the Menswear Fashion Week. In 1998, graduating from the Royal Academy of Antwerp, Bernhard Willhelm passed from being assistant to Walter Van Beirendonck, Alexander McQueen, Vivienne Westwood and Dirk Bikkembergs. – Parallel to his collections, from 2002 to 2004, he’s successfully directed the italian house of Capucci where he launched their first Prêt-à-Porter collection. His other achievements include a retrospective of his work organised in 2003 by the Ursula Blickle Art Foundation in Germany, alongside the publishing of his book at the Lukas & Sternberd publications in 2004. In 2005, he designed school uniforms for the orphans’ aid association, Misericordia.
This year he launched his first shoe line, and created the “White Wild Bunch”, a clothing line only available online at YOOX.com. He also received the ANDAM Grand Prize as the most promising talent of the new creative scene.
FilepMotwary: Bernhard, the last time I saw you was during the Athens Biennial about two years ago. I wonder about your opinion on Athens, it’s architecture and the people within.
BernhardWillhelm: New Athens has to rethink its identity and visual not easy as this was actually the first time Modern Art was displayed at the Athens Biennial titled “Destroy Athens”. It was obviously a try to break free from history but nowadays the title seemed a bit difficult as we are not beyond identity, people are killed every day because they are identified as being something ‘other’ ! Interesting also because many people from Athens view Athens itself as a very broad political kind of impulse . .
FilepMotwary: The way you choose to present your work each season has a very masculine point of you, a game like Cowboys and Indians, very playful as concept. Could you explain your choice of expressing this way?
BernhardWillhelm: Maybe I am not as clitoric as most designers but I just try to try to discover something new every season – whatever that means it has to come out . . . also Mars on Venus is a possibility.
FilepMotwary: Most of the models you work with, one can say are ordinary people, characters. What is the procedure behind each collection’s casting?
BernhardWillhelm: I want to show a wider spectrum of beauty ‘outside’ the ordinary ideal of models precasted from agencies. So yes – small, big, beautiful, ugly – it’s life.
FilepMotwary: A few seasons ago you worked with porn star Francois Sagat and Lukas Wassmann for the making of your campaign. What was the reflection and commentary on behalf of the media regarding your choice and the project itself? How do you see this project now?
BernhardWillhelm: Many people get their sexual fantasy from porn, even kids now are on internet , so porn becomes mainstream – there is this double moral in our society, nobody admits watching porn . . . The story of François Sagat interested me as he studied fashion at Studio Berçot in Paris , got to work in fashion, he assisted styling stories with Carine Rotfield/ French Vogue, then he decided to change/transform his then normal body into this gay porn icon he is now and we brought him back to fashion. He is a transformer and looks fantastic. The fashion we make reflects very much this do it yourself attitude of living/looking who ever you want to be. Behind this bold attitude is always a playfulness . . . and fashion also allows you to have a double life with different identities which you can change.
FilepMotwary: After nine years of signing your own label, being who you are to the world internationally, how do you see fashion now in comparison to the past, when you first started?
BernhardWillhelm: Repetition, reproduction, duplication, redoubling, recurrence and then there is us . . .
FilepMotwary: You were born in Germany, live in Belgium , yet you chose to show in Paris. What does Paris mean to you, both business and personally speaking?
BernhardWillhelm: I ‘am here for my work. The ethnics here prevent Paris from being a museum like Venice. I enjoy my ‘Narrenfreiheit’ (freedom of the fool) as a foreigner, you know we like to feel a bit alienated.
FilepMotwary: Are you still in contact with your birthplace? I would like to ask whether you remember whether the Great Wall’s end in Berlin, had an effect on you as a kid? To the man you are today?
BernhardWillhelm: I am from South Germany / Bavaria, the opposite side of Germany. So the whole east/west problematic seemed far away in my childhood. It made me laugh when Joseph Beuyes was asked about the wall 1964 and he said they should add 5 cm to the hight of the wall to have a better proportion . . . it tells you much about the political climate at the time…
FilepMotwary: I spotted some «sausage necklaces» in your women’s ss09 collection.
BernhardWillhelm: Sausage – South Germany – Bavaria, there is a connection to my roots. For the last women’s show I worked out some accessories in clay, one piece was a necklace with sausages in clay. I also like to pose with a big sausage (portrait in the beginning), and at our men’s show AW 07/08 we gave a seat to the big sausage I am posing with.
FilepMotwary: You are a person involved in many different things at the same time: magazine contributor, artist… How do you feel when some people try to put boundaries on one’s creativity and also on how many things a person can involve himself in at the same time?
BernhardWillhelm: That is a question of character – I like to please.
FilepMotwary: What is more important for you during the making of your collection?The result or the process? How important is the part of your team in your work?
BernhardWillhelm: To be not too satisfied, keeps you going. There are no rules and mistakes in the underworld of creativity. I don’t want to define myself by my work.
FilepMotwary: For example, Leni Riefenstahl , was a dancer, an actor, a director, an author, a painter, videographer and photographer. Yet she was accused a negative factor during the Second World War. For Bernhard, a person should always be remembered for the mistakes he/she did? Does a mistake limit someone’s achievements or creativity
BernhardWillhelm: Mistakes serve-up a veritable feast for thinking. – But there is also a different dimension in someone who serves a dictator and seduces through mass media and someone making collections .
FilepMotwary: What is balance for you?
BernhardWillhelm: When the moon shines on the moonshine
FilepMotwary: Could you share your next projects with me?
BernhardWillhelm: Don’t know today . . . a lost ‘mein Plan’
FilepMotwary: What is balance for you?
BernhardWillhelm: When the moon shines on the moonshine
FilepMotwary: Could you share your next projects with me?
BernhardWillhelm: Don’t know today . . . a lost ‘mein Plan’
FilepMotwary: Where do you think fashion is going and how do you describe the scene it as it is now, in between the market crisis, the mass production clothes, the hundreds of fashion weeks all over the world..
BernhardWillhelm: I like America
FilepMotwary: What is love for you?
BernhardWillhelm: – Birds flying towards us and then flying away again
- The moments between moments, when you’re happy
- Cafes with two guests and a dog – Streets made of golden sunlight
- Meat and dumplings at home
- The high of sex
- A lot of money when we earn it, not later when we spend it
- Art at the moment it’s created
- Something too expensive that we can afford
- A certain smile
- Elephant showers
- Death, as long as we’re not dying
Photos: Saucage Portrait: Wurst Klein, Catwalk Photos: Soji Fujii, Studio Photos : Maria Ziegelboeck, Portrait: Claus Geist, Backstage Shots Vito Flamminio
Thank you you to Kuki De Salvertes and Jonathan F, Jonathan M
hi filep, nice to read you.
what a coincidence among thepop.comers:
http://austrianfashionnet.thepop.com/tag/bernhard-willhelm/
Comment by austrianfashionnet — June 26, 2009 @ 1:18 pmThank you so much for your comment Daniel
xx
Comment by filepmotwary — July 16, 2009 @ 7:50 pmF