WHEN BOY MEETS GIRL


Gaspard Yurkievich & Dani Siciliano Interview for Oyster Vision TV during Paris Fashion Week

For several seasons now, English musician Dani Siciliano has embellished Gaspard Yurkievich’s fashion shows with her sensual vocals and musical direction. Oyster’s Katharina Kowalewski caught up with them both to unveil the workings behind their successful collaboration.

How would you describe your collaboration on the Gaspard Yurkievich fashion shows? Dani: It’s just a really lovely, symbiotic relationship. I have total creative freedom and it’s a pleasure to work with him. Gaspard always inspires me to do something very different and challenging each time. I feel very fortunate. Gaspard: We are very close friends so it’s a real collaboration. Three seasons ago, Dani proposed to make the show performances live, which gives them an emotional touch. I think we have to prepare the audience for our show, because there are 12 shows a day with 12 different stories, 12 different visions and very different budgets. We have 10 minutes to bring them into our world and Dani prepares my audience to see my clothes as she creates an emotion that’s also in the collections.

What was the inspiration behind your latest fashion show? Gaspard: Being a Parisian house, I wanted to work with the dream and the fantasy of the couture heritage, but move around this cliché to progress it and make it edgier – something of today. Dani: I did an all-female choir for the men’s show earlier this year, and I wanted to do a choir again but switch the concept around. I had a piece of music in mind and when I said to Gaspard, “I’m actually going to do a piece called Why,” he looked at me and said, “That’s the name of the show – but the letter y!”

Telepathy? Dani: Right. That was the starting point.

Tell me more about the process of collaboration… Dani: They show me swatches they get of the fabrics quite early on. I recently moved from London to Paris, so now I’m even more involved in the process on an organic level. You can see the evolution of Gaspard’s clothes, so it’s very easy for me to understand where he’s coming from and where he’s going.

Dani, would you consider working with other designers? Dani: I have done it a few times and it’s nice but working with Gaspard is really interesting because there is such a connection between us. It feels a bit empty sometimes when I work with other designers. Of course, if I decided to make the production of music for fashion more of a profession, I would divorce myself from that kind of emotional sentiment.

And Gaspard, you also collaborating with American singers CocoRosie… Gaspard: Yes. We have an arty project – nothing linked to fashion. We have some similarities and understand each other, but we also have a very different approach to things and a very different story. It’s so interesting to work with someone who is totally different from your world and I’m excited to work with CocoRosie. We are doing one concert with them and also with a scenographer.

Are fashion and music growing closer lately? Gaspard: I think there are crossovers between fashion, music, contemporary art, movies and videos. We are in a multimedia world. I come from a generation who was born with pop art. Pop art is our idiom – it’s not an inspiration. We’ve learnt to mix up everything. I think the god of pop art was Andy Warhol and he made magazines, art and fashion. He even made clothes as pieces of art. For me, the relationship between music and ... is not even a question because of the very special collaboration with Dani. Dani: I’m sure it makes the collection and the entire experience much more interesting and full of life if a designer has an artist perform.

It’s the 10th anniversary of the brand Gaspard Yurkievich and you are also working for Rodier now. Where do you see it all going? Gaspard: The very next step is to develop more shops and windows and to grow and use my experience with Rodier. Rodier is a very old French house that’s much more prêt-à-porter and diffusion. It’s good for me because it’s a totally different inspiration and a different economy. I bring every experience from both labels to work every day to help both grow.

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