Roksanda Ilincic Interview : Slav to love

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Roksanda Ilincic: Slav to love


Last Updated: 12:01am BST 06/07/2008
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She's gone from fashion student to fashion star in next to no time, but don't go thinking Roksanda Ilincic has had it easy. Kate Finnigan meets a deeply romantic child of the Bosnian war
Roksanda Ilincic totters across her sleek contemporary kitchen in a short black bubble-hipped dress, of her own design, and 4in black and cream Chanel heels. She is a striking thing - tall, slender, with vampire-pale skin and ebony hair - in a striking setting. We meet in her home and studio in King's Cross, London, a former warehouse, that she shares with her husband, Phil Bueno del Mesquita, the founder of the trainer brand Acupuncture (she later tells me that they have plans to move to Clerkenwell). It was designed by the architect David Adjaye and I've seen pictures in magazines. But, as the owner points out, they don't convey the full drama. 'It's the same with my clothing,' she says, yelling across the echoing space as she makes tea. 'There's always something happening on the back or the side and [in a photograph] you can't see it all. Seeing a dress only from the front doesn't do it justice.'

Roksanda Ilincic: 'Eastern European culture is quite nostalgic, romantic in a way. You can see it in my work'Ilincic, a graduate of Central Saint Martins, loves to put her dresses in context. Since her London Fashion Week launch in 2005 the 32-year-old's fashion shows have never been staged along a catwalk, initially perhaps as a canny PR exercise but now, she says, because 'it's more personal'. At her most recent show in February (each is a little more squashed than the previous one) journalists and buyers sat around linen-covered tables decorated with saucers of macaroons while the models, wearing Ilincic's autumn collection of architectural silk dresses in brown, petrol blue and zinging Brazilian colour, meandered in between. The effect was similar to being out for tea in a provincial hotel and watching all heads turn as a pretty woman crosses the room.
Who wouldn't want to be that woman? Harvey Nichols decided its customer certainly would, which is why this season they have bought seven dresses: from the languid super-heroine-style one-shoulder cape dress (£670) to the fabulously named Rocket, with its colour-blocked panels, jutting hips and sky-high price (£1,640). Roksanda - Roxy to her friends - it seems, is absolutely right for now. The influential London boutique Matches has also bought for the first time. This year Browns, which has sold her designs for four seasons, held a trunk show of the autumn collection for VIP customers and Ilincic admirers (including the Agent Provocateur co-founder Serena Rees, actress Rosamund Pike and singer Roisin Murphy). After the show - more round tables and macaroons - Caroline Burstein, Browns' creative director, sighed. 'The dresses are very red carpet,' she said wistfully. 'I wish I was young and going to those things.'
Ilincic's dresses bring out the romantic in a girl. She blames her Slavic temperament. 'There's a personality that's not just Serbian but Eastern European,' she says, her accent looped with those exotic curlicues that pin her immediately to the region. 'That culture is quite nostalgic, romantic in a way. You can see it in my work.'
She always has one eye on the past. When Ilincic first moved to London she discovered vintage clothes and, thanks to income from extra-curricular modelling, she was able to start an archive and now owns many pieces by her favourite designer, Yves Saint Laurent (this in itself is nostalgic: as a child she'd watch her mother dressing in YSL for parties). Her dresses are a modern take on those of decades past. 'I'm almost trying to take two contrasts,' she says. 'On the one hand it's elements of haute couture with embellishments that might take a very long time to make. But at the same time everything should look done in no time and be very friendly to a woman's body: not having too many structured corsets or pieces made out of futuristic fabrics that don't let the body breathe. I use mainly silks.'
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This year's spring collection was inspired by a book of fashion sketches from the 1930s to the 1960s. 'Not illustrations as we see them now. These were more quick sketches in black and white, and I was just fascinated by the whole mood and elegance, and the quirkiness and effortless way of being created. What is the noun for effortless?' she asks. 'The effortless-ness.'
This, she believes, is the essence of modern dressing. 'Women today don't want to look like they have spent five hours visiting hairdressers, and also I think you look much more fresh and young if you're not completely groomed. Very often when I go out I would have full-on dress and make-up [she means this: she wears vivid orange lipstick by Nars] but my hair might look the same as it looks now.' I glance at her glossy mane. It looks fabulous.

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Ilincic was born in Belgrade, the daughter of Lazar and Ranka, a businessman and a pharmacist. Ranka was a big fashion fan who relished dressing up for events when she moved into pharmaceutical PR. 'She always had these silk roses in different colours and she would change the rose according to her outfit,' Ilincic remembers. 'It's funny how those things from childhood come back, because now roses are a motif for me in all of my collections.'
Ilincic studied for her BA at Belgrade's University of Arts during the Bosnian-Serbian war of the early 1990s. For about 18 months the country was under a UN oil embargo. 'You couldn't predict how long your journey to school would take because public transport was so restricted and to drive your own car was pure luxury. So you would turn up whenever you could.' When students eventually arrived there was no central heating. 'We dressed up in scarves and hats but I was the only one with a hot-water bottle under my coat. They all teased me. We all wore those gloves with the fingers cut out so we could draw.'

Two dresses from Roksanda Ilincic's autumn/winter 2008 collectionFashion magazines were also in short supply. 'My friend's father travelled a lot and he would always bring back our favourites - i-D and The Face. Literally the whole class would gather around one magazine and we would all read every page. That's how I found out about Saint Martins, actually.'
Having read an article in French Vogue about the legendary Prof Louise Wilson, who runs the MA course at Central Saint Martins, Ilincic headed to London to find out more. Her visit coincided with admissions interviews and she ended up meeting Wilson face-to-face. 'I said, "I just came to see what was needed," and she said, "Why do you think I would tell you that? Figure it out yourself,"' Ilincic says, laughing. 'She said I hadn't brought enough work but she'd let me know in a month.' A month later she had a place.
Prof Wilson's talent for spotting stars has proved itself again. Ilincic graduated in 2002 and is now one of London's foremost designers, having won sponsorship from the Topshop New Generation scheme three times and a nomination for the British Fashion Council's New Designer award. The American Vogue editor Anna Wintour named the last autumn/winter collection her favourite show of London Fashion Week. Ilincic's dream now is to open a shop. 'It will have a feel of everything I love. I like my romantic, feminine clothes in strong, linear architecture,' she says gesturing at the space around us. 'When you have those things together, the person I am - what I'm trying to say - really emerges.'




telegraph.co.uk

 

[Spike413]

It's amazing to hear about her love of YSL. The colors she showed for fall, and the way they were used together, is definitely reminiscent of Saint Laurent.

Even though I'm not always a huge fan of her work (it varies from season to season) there's something about it that's at least interesting and makes you notice. I think it's the extreme, almost cartoony prettiness of the designs....they're kooky.

 

[Scott]

i love roxy(as i now will refer )! she sounds absolutely charming and you can get a real sense how personal her work really is. everything is a reminder of something she's experienced or what's had an impact on her. it's truly a delightful insight.

thank you my dear,softie

 

[Scott]

btw,she is so right about there being something incredibly romantic about eastern europe. there really must be as i have seen this distinction in so many of the other slavic/eastern euro talents i've followed and discovered.

 

[Jamess]

There's a great little interview and some photos of her modelling her own clothes in September's i-D magazine. She studied for 2 BA's at the same time, fashion and architecture, going between the two colleges for classes!
She is absolutely stunning aswell

I never paid a lot of attention to her really until the last 2 collections but shes become my favourite of LFW. You can really see the YSL references! Especially in the dresses above.

 

[chessmess]

shes my second fave LDN fashion week show. sinha stanic is my first but i really adore roksandas work