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Boramy Viguier's Spiritual Design

Style | October 30, 2020
Le designer Boramy Viguier pose
The Franco-Cambodian creator has always produced enveloping collections with undertones of mysticism, hidden symbols, and a kind of fairy-tale aura. Here, we meet with the designer who's re-enchanting culture

Printemps.com: Can you tell us a bit about your career and how it led you to creating your own brand in 2018?
Boramy Viguier : Ten years ago, I had just started working at Emmanuel Perrotin, an art gallery in Paris. I hadn't yet worked for an entrepreneur like Emmanuel, who created his space alone and entirely from scratch. I realize now how that experience was essential to how I manage my independence and freedom. It was also at that moment that I started meeting people who worked in fashion. I was excited at the idea of trying my hand at it, so I enrolled at Central Saint Martins in London. I was less convinced by that experience. I only wanted one thing, and that was to finish my degree. I wanted to work, make a living, and build a career in fashion. Lucas Ossendrijver, who was at that point head of Men's collections at Lanvin, hired me when I was nearing the end of my bachelor's degree. I assisted him for five years. That was a great learning experience. Lucas is a very rigorous person, and he taught me to recognize good fabrics, to assemble a piece, to communicate with factories and suppliers. It's rare, in our day and age, to meet a designer who's so involved in their production process. The idea of starting my own brand came with time.

Why men's rather than women's apparel?
I never really asked myself that question. At Lanvin I did men's, at school as well, so it felt like a natural fit. I also think that there's something more challenging in men's fashion, it's relatively recent, while women's fashion has been around for hundreds of years now. I feel like there's still a lot to explore.

Boramy Viguier avec sa collection 2020

Your last collection, for Spring-Summer 2021, was entirely created during lockdown. How did that affect your process?
My studio is on the ground floor of my apartment, so I was able to work every day. I have an assistant who lives next door, so we met at the studio. We had to create with what we had on hand, which encouraged us to find new techniques. The constraints were actually quite stimulating, it was inspiring. Without, of course, getting into the gravity of the exterior situation. In fashion, we spent years working abroad, buying fabrics in Europe, zippers in China, things like that, and that seemed like a good solution at the time. Recent events have demonstrated the opposite. I feel lucky to be able to have everything made here in France.

You're very attached to local production. Does the current public health context make this all the more relevant, in your opinion?
As soon as we created the brand, I wanted to go local and be close to my suppliers to better oversee the production process. I can't imagine not seeing my suppliers regularly. It's a shame that we've forgotten that, despite its being one of the most important elements in the creative process. Plus, the way I see it, good pieces don't speak to everyone. When something is universal and international, it's also often of poor quality. You can't do things well when you're looking to please everybody.

"Even the most brilliant scientists — Einstein, Stephen Hawking — didn't close the door to mystery. In life I prefer to think that there are elements that dominate us, that we live amongst forces that surpass us".

Boramy Viguier pose sur un banc

In a prophetic way, most of your Autumn-Winter 2020/21 models were partially masked. With a few months' hindsight and the development of the situation, how do you interpret that now?
I didn't do it on purpose! I like to mask the models because what I want to highlight, first and foremost, are the clothes that I've created, the styles and looks that I've imagined. It's like filmmakers who try to make films without actors so they can focus on the purity of the art, I work in that kind of optic. When I see a show with fifteen top models, with big flames and installations going on, I always think to myself that if you need all that, it's not a good sign.

Mysticism, surrealism, tarot, your collections are full of these references. You also seem to find there's a lack of spirituality in today's society. What do you think it stands to contribute?
I feel that in a lot of ways we live in a very pragmatic society where everything has to be quantifiable, explained, analyzed. We're even able to quantify the renown and originality of a project. Two thousand followers is better than a hundred, because it's necessarily more known. Even popularity is graded. I don't think that one ought to think like that when it comes to creativity: it has to remain something irrational, mysterious, even incomprehensible. I feel like we conceptualize everything and we're more interested in process than outcome. That's the case, I think, in fashion collaborations. We're more interested in the subject than the object, and I think that's detrimental. When we look at Bacon, we don't wonder if he meant to do this or that, just how to receive it and feel it. The effect of a work should be like the effect of LSD — that's all art is.

How do you express your interest in the irrational?
In Western societies, there's a kind of denial of religion, and we like to pretend the question isn't there. We live in a deeply Cartesian era, where we're supposed to be scientific and pay no mind to spirituality, but I don't think it's actually all that good for us. I read a lot on astrophysics, I love watching documentaries on black holes. Even the most brilliant scientists — Einstein, Stephen Hawking — didn't close the door to mystery. In life I think that there are elements that dominate us, that we live amongst forces that surpass us. Generally speaking, I try to observe the world and I feel like these questions are fundamental, especially given the climate situation. There are tribes in the Amazon and Native reservations in the United States where people still live in respect for nature, in this other form of spirituality that's in harmony with living.

You presented your Spring-Summer 2021 collection with a very original video, it seems like you're comfortable with these new formats. Will you miss fashion shows?
I loved doing them, but only occasionally. The situation is very strange, but it was better to do that than nothing at all. But I think that the big challenge for designers and artists today is to make work that's even more sensorial and artisanal. I hope that we continue to have fashion shows, especially in Paris, where the tradition is nearly a century old.

On Instagram, we find extracts from your notebooks filled with text, images, photos, drawings, but it's a little obscure. We're not sure what it all means!
No one knows what it all means! But I'm used to noting things down: since I was ten, I write everything down, even my dreams. I always have a notebook on me. I stick things in it that I pick up, I never throw stuff away. I don't know if it helps me in my creative work, but I feel at a loss when I don't do it. In life in general, it's something I just have to do.

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