just posting this article here that KIT posted the link for...
Claude Montana
by
Bernardo van Eekhout, in
Lifestyle & Fashion , posted 06 November 2001
With his powerful silhouette he inititated more fashion trends than any other designer. He has been imitated worldwide. Not one designer in Paris came close to him when it came to craft. As if his clothes were cut with a surgeon's knife, that flawless
For his summer collection 1987 he received the César de la Mode," the French Oscar for fashion. Wide shoulder collars loom large in his designs. Of himself he demands absolute perfection. As an artist-designer he remains true to his own preference: making women look manly. A portrait of an absolute top designer: Claude Montana.
Militarism
Because of financial necessity I began making papier-mâché jewelry. I had to find something I could create myself", says Montana. After getting his university degree in Paris, he moved to London in 1971. On London street markets Montana began selling his jewelry, which soon got featured in Vogue magazine. When in 1972 he returned to his hometown Paris, he started working for MacDouglas, a big leather manufacturer. I had no official permit to stay in London and so decided to return to Paris. So in England I actually worked illegal. I had no intentions whatsoever to become a fashion designer. Everything happening later, was pure coincidence". Claude Montana, who can't cut nor design a pattern, can draw and learned his business in practice. His leather gear has a powerful silhouette with strong, masculine lines. I prefer working at night. The night is a good time for being creative. One's head is free from worries, to dream, to fantasize about all what's possible".
In 1976 Montana was financed by the Spanish group Juan Ferrer & Santis and could realize his first collection. The cooperation lasted only three years. In 1979 Montana started his own firm of which he is also the president. Influenced by the punks, with their leather and uniform fetish, during the Seventies Montana developed several variations on existing marine and army uniforms. He loved giving women a masculine look. With his baseball shoulders he created a revolution in women's fashion and these remained one of his trade marks. In 1978 it was said his style was overly agressive and miltary and because of his frequent use of leather was described as fascist. He himself thinks leather needs an aggressive, structured form since the supple material has a rounding-off finish of its own. Since learning the tricks of his trade at MacDouglas in Paris, he became a master in working with leather. He also borrowed some elements from the gay scene and worked them into his women's collections: black leather motor jacks with metal jewelry and tight fitting leather pants. Big helmets, silver zippers and big gloves were his finishing touches for this new and shocking vision. Everything in his collection is robust: big belts and enormous jewelry. Because of the theatricality of his shows it's often held against him that his clothes would be unwearable; not one woman would really wear them. As a 'gay designer' he would project his own ideal femininty into his collections without questioning their practicality. But without his theatricality and his perfect sense of style and proportions, Montana's fashion wouldn't by far be as impressive as it is. Female designers often project themselves into their collections, resulting more often than not in quite wearable, but quite uninteresting designs. Though Montana also designs a men's collection, he himself always wears the same outfit: jeans or leather pants, bomber jacket and cowboy boots. I sometimes try one of my own designs, but when I look in the mirror I think: that's not me and I go again for my familiar outfit. For myself I don't fancy designer's gear".
Triumphs
In the Eighties Montana catapulted himself to interstellar heights. He was the absolute star on the fashion firmament, shining from lonely heights. I'm not at all interested in just being good, what counts is being the very best", he once said. He always was the highpoint of the Parisian prêt-a-portershows and people fought to get into them. Tickets were sold for exorbitant prices on the black market. Montana was a never ending source of inspiration, ideas and concepts. One by one he dished out all the ruling fashion themes to the ever-hungry fashion audience. He was a perfectionist leaving nothing to hazard. Everything was planned and impressive: the styling, make up, hairdo. Herald Tribune thought Montana sculpted his clothes like a master sculptor would and said he'd build a reputation on his razor sharp outline and masterful art of packaging. Montana's models strutted the catwalk like inaccessible goddesses. With their superiority they gave one the feeling being elevated far above one. Walking for Montana was an honour, the icing on the cake. Some Dutch models also belonged to this select group, like Maressa, Linda Spierings, Cynthia Antonio and later Karen Mulder.
In the late Eighties Montana went for an outspoken simplicity in his view of fashion. He did away with all the theatricality and what remained was a clean, linear outline with an architectural look. He described himself as a battlefield, full of contradictions. For his 1991 summer collection, almost completely in white, Montana got a standing ovation. And the just question was raised, how he could come with yet another more perfect vision for the next season. According to the Herald Tribune Montana, together with Christian Lacroix and Karl Lagerfeld, dominates the fashion scene anno 1992.
Couture-future
The old, established French fashion house Lanvin hired Montana in 1991 to save their old-fashioned couture line from ruin. A surprising choice. Montana didn't have much time for his first couture collection with Lanvin, a mere six weeks. Resulting in a negative press. Karl Lagerfeld, designing the Chanel collections, criticized Montana sharply. His hem lines would be much too long. Couture clients haven't undergone many cosmetic operations for nothing, they should be able to show as much of their body as possible". Where Lagerfeld succeeded for Chanel and Gianfranco Ferre in revitalizing their dusty fashion collections, Montana failed trying to do the same for Lanvin. But with his second collection he came back with a vengeance and as the only designer got a standing ovation. He was awarded the "Dé d'Or" (golden thimble) by the press, the prize for the best couture collection of the season. He is the only designer getting this prize twice in a row, because also his third collection was a winner and was once again awarded the "Dé d'Or." But despite the adulation by the press for his unconventional view - simplicity, few trappings and a characteristic clean outline - his clothes were also described as unwearable. Since Lanvin hired Montana, the house suffered a fifty million loss, which led to his discharge. Yet Montana left with his head held high and kept the honour to himself. Haute couture is mere status and prestige, an expensive advertizing stint for a fashion house.
Finale
To make the expensive Montana label more accessible to a wider audience, a diffusion line was introduced in 1993: State of Montana". A cheaper line with the familiar Montana marks. In the same year Montana married his longtime friend, Wallis Franken, a former fashion model. A few years later she committed suicide.
The patience of the fashion journalists is always put to the test, since shows start too late by definition. Like the Montana presentation of 1995. Impatient fashion journalists left the Montana show before it even started and got a loud applause from the photographers present. During the shows photographers often get treated like dogs and things came to a climax when a CNN camera man got hit by a Montana security guard. As one man some hundred photographers decided to a strike there and then, so no more pictures were taken of the models. The result was a complete absence of the Montana show on television and in the papers.
Midway the Nineties fashion got out of fashion" and there was no more dictatorship of the designers. Consumers started making their own individual choices instead of slavishly following fashion trends. The consumer dictated the market and no longer vice versa. A re-evaluation began what fashion actually means. In view of the global problems it was not done spending a lot of money on material possessions. Which included the fashion branche. According to this new vision one's inner self is more important than one's exterior and the fashionable message was: Dress Down!". Simplicity and basic, that's what it was all about, but Montana's vision was far from simple. His power was the well thought out vision of his designs, his perfectionism down to the smallest details. Yet no more perfectly cut outline, but silhouettes in ruin. The more unfinished the better. Recycling was an important part of the deconstructionist wave headed by designers like Dries van Noten, Comme des Garçons and Ann Demeulemeester. Several old pieces of clothing were assembled into one new one. Away with the excesses of the Eighties. Montana got blamed, that in an era wherein all has to be soft and romantic, there were no signals the icy Montana woman would start melting. Montana keeps revolving in a rusty circle of his own imagination", the Herald Tribune complained.
Anno 2001 Montana is still part of the fashion circuit, but he is no longer the captain everybody looks to for guidance. Montana seems a bit rusty in his old harnass, not capable or willing to raise his sails to the changing winds of a new century.
I thought this stuff only happened on my OU Shakespeare course...
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