Mugler's Nicola Formichetti : "Old (designers) should just be old and go away"

[TheCheekyCritic]

I read this on Gawker .. and apparently, the context was different, he said once ANYONE (him included) gets old, they shud move away and let new emerging talents take over ....

Even so, that kind of talk is so cheap at his age. If and when Nicola himself finally reaches 60, 70, I sincerely doubt he'll want to "go away" anywhere if he still feels he can accomplish something.

Oh Nicola, darling. There will come a time when you will no longer be a spring chicken yourself, and when that day comes I'll be here, waiting with a glass of water for your dentures.

 

[TREVOFASHIONISTO]

i think when he can successfully create a collection that is reminds us of how great Mugler was, then he can start becoming cocky, but his designs are crap and so is his attitude. people like him make people think of fashion design as being just something anyone can and become successful. Older designers are still here because they continue to speak to the people who can afford their clothes.

in regards to the "F*** fashion" attitude... it's such a hipster way of looking a this industry and he is full of it

 

[Jasmine04]

Good lord he's pretentious. I'm sure we can expect another message from him explaining how his words got "twisted".

 

[Tentacl Ventricl]

Nah - I'm with Nicola and against all you squares.

The world needs shaking up man. Too much of fashion is being gobbled up by suits.

I'm sorry but the elder generation have ****ed it right up - they've driven the West to the precipice, dude. What we are seeing amongst the suits is a Habermasian crisis of legitimacy. It's all of them. The culture is rotten to the core. The Press, The State, the Banks, Multinational corporations, the whole lot.

Intellectual property, media rights and content, branding - it's just about all the West has left. Oh and a few nasty bombs and stuff. Fashion branding is on the front end - attempting to paper over the cracks - artifice.

So rip it all out, all the structures, all the memes, all the uptights, all the greedy wrongdoing and deceit.

Recently we have had a fashion industry lorded over by suits and far too many OAPs or nearing at the creative helm. These people do not know what the next generation want to look like, do, be.

They are all part of a generation that has failed. Now ship the hell out and make way for people with energy and new ideas.

 

[AgrenateD]

^ but clearly Mr. Hotpants Formichetti wasn't referring to the people heading the business aspect of fashion was he? though i am aware that they do play the major role of selecting which names to spearhead which brands but then perhaps you are right, that they had the upper hand in driving fashion down the spiral; selecting complete oafs like Formichetti to rejuvenate a brand as eminent as Mugler is explanation enough.

 

[JennaaMonroe]

Nicola is honestly just an annoying weasel that I seriously dought knows what he is talking about. I have no problem with Gaga but to me she is not a fashion icon; just an attention wh*re and since he's her stylist that should already say something about him. Quite honestly if any designer should leave this industry its him because apparently he has no appreciation for designers like Karl Lagerfeld who practically made this industry what it is. Also he is not that great of a designer and hasn't earned his respect yet and actually is now negative with me. He should shut up and get some new ideas for his next collection instead of trashing 'old' designers that he will never be as good as.

 

[mistress_f]

or maybe YOU, dear nicola, need to go away. gimmicks are the only thing you've got, and you're not even a designer. gtfo.

 

[tangerine]

If you can't take the heat, Formichetti, then leave the kitchen.

You want to bring something new? Bring it! Or are you saying you can't compete with the "old folks"?

 

[TheCheekyCritic]

Intellectual property, media rights and content, branding - it's just about all the West has left. Oh and a few nasty bombs and stuff. Fashion branding is on the front end - attempting to paper over the cracks - artifice.

So rip it all out, all the structures, all the memes, all the uptights, all the greedy wrongdoing and deceit.

[...] They are all part of a generation that has failed. Now ship the hell out and make way for people with energy and new ideas.

You say all this as if it's what Nicola Formichetti represents - anti-IPR, anti-branding; innovation, fresh energy. And yet through e.g. his exhausting one-note collaboration with Lady Gaga - arguably the largest and most prominent show of his work and representation of his scope of abilities today - he has gone against precisely all those things you'd like to praise him for; made Lady Gaga and her fashion extravaganza into a mass-produced product, branded her fashion spectacle a Lady Gaga original and - worst of all - reduced 'out of the box' fashion into lazily cut and carelessly slapped together fabric and concept concoctions, where 'novelty' (and I use that term loosely) weighs more than the effort. If I was looking for an antidote to the stiffening of fashion, I would not look to Formichetti and his increasingly limited and pretentious view on fashion for it.

At any rate, there is no such thing as a "new" idea anymore. No matter which way you look at fashion (or anything else for that matter), someone has already looked at it the same way, and everything you can work with today in terms of fashion has long since been invented. It's how you use those tools you've been given that matters. My problem with Formichetti is, he seems to think that straightforward negligence and rejection of 'convention' and accepted standards - whether it is in terms of e.g. the quality of the product or the work effort - is some kind of a novelty in the world. While that may not be entirely untrue, it is far easier to go against convention and say you're unconventional than work something unconventional of 'convention', and in this relatively easy task I feel he has both failed to perform and been outperformed.

 

[Avant Garde]

Some of Gaga's styling team like Charlie leMindu (who I met in person and is incredibly sweet) and Anna Trevelyan should get off the Lady Gaga train because it's about to run out soon. She pretty much stole most of her style from them anyway.

 

[Phuel]

LOVE IT!

What a delusional, egotistical, and immature little man he's revealed himself to be. He, along with Gaga, and their "creative director" Laurieanne Gibson, have fed their own egos and believed their own hype to such maniacal levels, all the while blatantly stealing from true artists and visionaries. They remind me of first-year Art School students who rip-off their "inspirations" and call it their own. Their is absolutely no originality, substance or style from this trio. They make everything look cheap and redundant.

I hope he continues to spew his ignorance for our amusement.

 

[TREVOFASHIONISTO]

Nah - I'm with Nicola and against all you squares.

The world needs shaking up man. Too much of fashion is being gobbled up by suits.

I'm sorry but the elder generation have ****ed it right up - they've driven the West to the precipice, dude. What we are seeing amongst the suits is a Habermasian crisis of legitimacy. It's all of them. The culture is rotten to the core. The Press, The State, the Banks, Multinational corporations, the whole lot.

Intellectual property, media rights and content, branding - it's just about all the West has left. Oh and a few nasty bombs and stuff. Fashion branding is on the front end - attempting to paper over the cracks - artifice.

So rip it all out, all the structures, all the memes, all the uptights, all the greedy wrongdoing and deceit.

Recently we have had a fashion industry lorded over by suits and far too many OAPs or nearing at the creative helm. These people do not know what the next generation want to look like, do, be.

They are all part of a generation that has failed. Now ship the hell out and make way for people with energy and new ideas.

you are speaking of a completely different side of the industry... the designers are still all there with talent. it's the corporations they are under that are run by the suits.

 

[Spike413]

Oddly enough I think I kind of get what he was attempting to say. I think if anything it was an attempt at saying that once someone creative is past their prime, they should know enough to let go (which is true for some), but if that was what he was attempting to say he managed to shove his foot so far down his throat that he may never get it back. If that was his point then I don't fully agree or disagree. The big problem is that you can't generalize, because for every Saint Laurent or Valentino who slowly stagnates over time and refuses to evolve any further there's a Lagerfeld who continues to change with the times, allowing his work to change with him.

Ultimately though I'm not all that invested in this. It's mostly just silly.

As an aside, why do people insist on bringing Lady Gaga herself into this conversation. It literally has nothing to do with her, though that doesn't seem to stop the detractors from commenting negatively on her and everything she does or is even remotely connected to is some way. It's like people can't discuss Formichetti, or Mugler, or without harping on Lady Gaga and how she's the friggin antichrist or whatever. It's kind of ridiculous and hugely immature.

 

[Avant Garde]

As an aside, why do people insist on bringing Lady Gaga herself into this conversation. It literally has nothing to do with her, though that doesn't seem to stop the detractors from commenting negatively on her and everything she does or is even remotely connected to is some way. It's like people can't discuss Formichetti, or Mugler, or without harping on Lady Gaga and how she's the friggin antichrist or whatever. It's kind of ridiculous and hugely immature.

Well to be fair, he talks about Gaga in every single one of his articles in relation to fashion so it's going to be brought up one way or another. Case in point:

'Gaga doesn't know she is cool. She knows she is a superstar but the fashion industry is completely different for an outsider.
'Me and Gaga, our motto is 'f*** fashion' because we love it so much we want to destroy it and start again and keep it fresh.'

Although I do agree with you that OTT criticism is not needed.

 

[Jesuz]

He is gonna drink his tears some night
He is gonna drink his tears and cry

 

[Spike413]

Well to be fair, he talks about Gaga in every single one of his articles in relation to fashion so it's going to be brought up one way or another. Case in point:

'Gaga doesn't know she is cool. She knows she is a superstar but the fashion industry is completely different for an outsider.
'Me and Gaga, our motto is 'f*** fashion' because we love it so much we want to destroy it and start again and keep it fresh.'

Although I do agree with you that OTT criticism is not needed.

Which is unavoidable because even if he doesn't mention her most writers will.

Still doesn't justify or explain why every single thread, topic, or article about him or Mugler leads to a Gaga bashing session. Whether he mentioned her or not doesn't mean that she actually has anything to do with the topic at hand, and she doesn't, at all. This is about something Nicola, and Nicola alone, said and did. Let's all try to remember that, shall we?

 

[Marc10]

Which is unavoidable because even if he doesn't mention her most writers will.

Still doesn't justify or explain why every single thread, topic, or article about him or Mugler leads to a Gaga bashing session. Whether he mentioned her or not doesn't mean that she actually has anything to do with the topic at hand, and she doesn't, at all. This is about something Nicola, and Nicola alone, said and did. Let's all try to remember that, shall we?

Sorry but i think if we gonna discuss Nicola and his career, Gaga comes naturally. Like what i said on my post, he's only on Mugler today because of his work with her and that only. I liked his work on Vogue Hommes Japan, he's great stylist but he's not a designer and will never be one. He only got the job beacause of Lady Gaga, and i think no one can disagree with that.

 

[Deleted member 7575]

Which is unavoidable because even if he doesn't mention her most writers will.

Still doesn't justify or explain why every single thread, topic, or article about him or Mugler leads to a Gaga bashing session. Whether he mentioned her or not doesn't mean that she actually has anything to do with the topic at hand, and she doesn't, at all. This is about something Nicola, and Nicola alone, said and did. Let's all try to remember that, shall we?

If it wasn't for Lady Gaga Formichetti would not even be at Mugler.

 

[Deleted member 7575]

Nah - I'm with Nicola and against all you squares.

The world needs shaking up man. Too much of fashion is being gobbled up by suits.

I'm sorry but the elder generation have ****ed it right up - they've driven the West to the precipice, dude. What we are seeing amongst the suits is a Habermasian crisis of legitimacy. It's all of them. The culture is rotten to the core. The Press, The State, the Banks, Multinational corporations, the whole lot.

Intellectual property, media rights and content, branding - it's just about all the West has left. Oh and a few nasty bombs and stuff. Fashion branding is on the front end - attempting to paper over the cracks - artifice.

So rip it all out, all the structures, all the memes, all the uptights, all the greedy wrongdoing and deceit.

Recently we have had a fashion industry lorded over by suits and far too many OAPs or nearing at the creative helm. These people do not know what the next generation want to look like, do, be.

They are all part of a generation that has failed. Now ship the hell out and make way for people with energy and new ideas.

And you think Formichetti is providing those "new ideas"? Honestly?

You think Formichetti's salary isn't coming out of a marketing budget set up by the suits to push the sales of perfume?

You don't think that Formichetti's involvement with Mugler is the direct product of all the convolution that you speak of in the industry?

Fashion DOES need change and it DOES need new ideas and will get neither with this Mugler mess.

 

[Spike413]

^ And what, precisely, does her supposedly being the reason for him getting the Mugler job have to do with the stupid comments he made in this interview? I can't say it enough, but this particular issue, this discussion, has nothing at all to do with Lady Gaga; not her music, not her hype, not even her clothes. We're not here discussing why he's working as creative director of Mugler (and I do love how people constantly like to point out that he's not a designer as if that's what he was hired to be). We're here discussing an asinine comment that he made in regards to old people and the perception that his ego is bigger than it should be for that comment to have ever left his mouth.

There are people, and I'm not referring to you Mutterlien, who seem incapable of discussing anything pertaining to Mugler or Formichetti without bringing the discussion back to how much they can't stand Lady Gaga because she's a sham and a phony and a rip-off artist.