A Muse You Can Use
Thanks to New York wunderkind Joseph Altuzarra, American sportswear is suddenly sexy. Here, Altuzarra offers more on the people, places, and things that inspire his work. Click here to read the full article.
“She performed with the Paris Opera Ballet in the ’80s and was sort of the rebel of French ballet. Dancers tend to fall into line; they’re very rigorous. But Guillem had this way of hyperextending the leg and foot, which made all of her movements feel momentous. I saw her for the first time when I was 8 or 9 in a ballet called Manon Lescaut, which is about tragic lovers. At that point, dance was my life. I took classes every day at the Conservatoire Municipal Erik Satie from age 6 to 13, and I had a barre in my bedroom so I could practice at home. I gave it up because I didn’t have the body for it—I was too short. And at the conservatory, when you’re 13 or 14, you’re either going to do it full-time or just as a hobby. I loved it, but I preferred to stop completely than do it half-assed. That actually says a lot about how I approach things. Dancing really shaped my work ethic and informed my eye. As a designer, I’m always interested in the body and how people carry themselves.”
“I’m obsessive about certain movies and will watch the same one over and over for months. I must have seen I Am Love a hundred times. Farewell My Concubine is another one. But the one I most adore is In the Mood for Love, Wong Kar-wai’s lush, hyperstylized drama about two couples’ affairs. Visually, it is very close to the mood I’m trying to build for my brand, and I’m always moved by characters who have a mix of fragility and strength, like Su Li-zhen (played by Maggie Cheung). A lot of the films I’ve been interested in have that sort of duality, like Edward Scissorhands, which inspired my fall 2010 collection—that character has this monstrous exterior and an incredibly childlike interior. Not that I have a duality myself. I think I’m actually fairly fragile and sensitive on both the inside and the outside: It’s very hard for me to hide what I feel.”
“I listen to baroque music—mostly Handel—every season when I’m sketching. My fascination started with this French movie about a castrato, called Farinelli, that came out when I was in junior high. There is just something so stirring and confounding about listening to music sung by a man who sounds like a woman. Again, it’s the idea of tension between different elements—masculine and feminine, bourgeois and perverse—that I find interesting. My spring collection began with the movie Orlando and the idea that a woman can get in touch with her masculine side and still be unbelievably sexy. When I’m working on a collection, it’s interesting to have this kind of running theme.”
“As a teenager, I was obsessed with horses and would always be drawing them. I find them incredibly sexual and superappealing. They have such strength, but there’s also something very noble—and, in my mind, very French—about them. There are often horse pictures on my mood board. Every collection, I seem to focus on a different equestrian aspect: the harnesses, the braided tails. Last fall we did sweaters with horse heads on them. And I find ponyskin beautiful, although it doesn’t really exist anymore, because calf is used now. At work, there is this branding exercise we do where we ask ourselves, ‘What is Altuzarra?’ Horses always make the list.”
“Mélanie, Vanessa, and I met when we were in similar places in our careers. Mélanie (at left in photo) and I were working together at Givenchy, Vanessa was an intern at Vogue Italia, and we all became good friends. When I left Givenchy and started my company, their points of view were very important to me—and they still are. I begin each collection by discussing their ideas and desires. They bring different things: Mélanie’s aesthetic is very polished and glossy and rich, whereas Vanessa’s is more askew and grungy and a bit weird. Somehow it always works well together. People think it’s odd to have two stylists, but I believe it makes things interesting.”