From The Stories Issue
Fashion historian, exhibition curator and head of the haute couture and contemporary creation departments at the Palais Galliera, Alexandre Samson likes to shift the lines rather than dedicate himself to established glories. Curator of Margiela/Galliera, of Back Side, Dos à la mode, and of 1997. Fashion Big Bang, and more recently Rick Owens: Temple of Love, he will publish two books this fall: Yohji Yamamoto Drawings, which brings together 183 previously unpublished sketches covering the period 1981- 1999, and La Mode et ses superstitions, published by Les Belles Lettres.
Margiela, Le Dos de la mode, 1997, Rick Owens: your exhibitions always seem to start from an unexpected angle rather than an established glory. Where does this desire to tell fashion's story differently come from?ALEXANDRE SAMSON I think I'm lazy, and constantly fighting that laziness. When I take on a project, I try to approach it in a way that surprises me. It forces me not to repeat myself. My calling was born from a garment: a Madame Grès dress, a simple rectangle of black velvet with an utterly wild construction. I had never seen a garment onto which one could project so much intellectual, plastic and structural research. It was almost a sculpture. That dress was signed by a couturière I had never heard of, even though she had an extraordinarily rich career. That discovery intrigued me immediately. Everything is interconnected in my work. The idea of the back was born from Madame Grès, from those exceptional backs.
Then Margiela slotted in. His 1997 collection, with the Stockman, and Tom Ford's Gucci thong from the back exhibition ended up coming together to give birth to the 1997 exhibition. With Rick Owens, I wanted to create surprise in a place as classical as Galliera: to tackle politics, sex, transgression, to close the exhibition on the designer's bed and to step outside the museum to occupy the exterior. These are territories I love exploring, with the fear of tripping over my own feet. But it's precisely that risk that interests me.
An exhibition takes, on average, three years of research. What do people imagine least about that work?
A.S. Those three years are always interrupted, broken up. The initial idea grows and is confronted with the objects — the garments. It often comes from them, but they then have to confirm it. Otherwise, the public can't understand it: it's the garments they see, in the end.
What people imagine least is the emotional commitment. When you share a subject with lenders or designers, you have to involve them. I don't believe in loan requests sent by simple email. The exhibitions that have the most impact are the ones where you engage personally, where you take the time to listen to the stories, to build real trust. Sometimes it becomes a form of psychology.
You're publishing a book on superstitions in fashion. Which discovery surprised you the most?
A.S. What fascinates me is the moment when isolated anecdotes join up with the larger history. In the ethnographic surveys of the third quarter of the 19th century, you find regional superstitions that later reappear in Paris. You then understand that these are women who came from the countryside, joining the couture workshops with technical baggage, but emotional baggage too. The arrival of their beliefs in the Parisian haute couture workshops tells, in its own quiet way, the story of the rural exodus.
Some superstitions are tied to blood and needles and tell, in their own quiet way, the story of AIDS in the late 1980s. Others touch on urban planning. At the end of the 19th century, a couturier named Félix reportedly asked Eugénie de Montijo to alter the Parisian street numbering so there would be no number 13. There still isn't one on Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré.
Superstitions have declined, but they haven't disappeared. New beliefs keep reinventing themselves. Clairvoyance and astrology remain very powerful in contemporary fashion. It's this continuity, this capacity of superstition to mutate, that interests me.
You worked on Yohji Yamamoto's drawings. What did those archives reveal to you?
A.S. It was terra incognita. I had never seen those drawings. Most of them are working documents, sometimes stained with coffee. They bear witness to a littleknown side of fashion, because Yohji Yamamoto's beginnings are poorly known, far less than those of Comme des Garçons. His drawings show accessorized garments, intentions, movements and cutting details. They also reveal a great deal of color, contradicting the image of a designer associated with black. These archives allow us to rediscover his heritage, but also our own ignorance.
What annoys you about the way fashion is exhibited today?
A.S. I borrow this thought from Amélie Simier, director of the Musée Rodin: the history of fashion is still an adolescent discipline, and as such it has its share of aberrations, but also a wonderful effervescence. In Paris, classical proposals coexist with others that are trying to move forward.
What annoys me is sometimes the laziness of the subjects chosen. They should be driving forces, offering new angles, surprising us. A fashion capital should be at the avant-garde. That's also why I'm interested in young brands: the ones still searching for their language and taking risks. Matières Fécales, for instance, interests me because people's reaction to its name already says something. August Barron, with his deconstructed shapes and his vision of the past on steroids, or Julie Kegels, whom I'm happy to see evolve. So many young designers whose work strikes me as truly alive. There's still so much to show.
