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CM We're talking about how the picture's made, let's talk about these, which are really some of the most amazing things I have ever seen.
JG Barbie goes to Tibet (Autumn-Winter 2001).
CM Barbie goes to Tibet. Now what was the evolution of this?
JG Well it looks like a bow doesn't it? This amazing bow. Well, I tell you what the original idea was, it was all this Tibetan imagery we had and then this kind of larger than life, you know how girls are obsessed with dolls? I think, well the original idea for the shape, I made a great friend in Tokyo who is Mytoya, who work for Kyonan theatre, and he's a national treasure.
CM Yes, I love that.
JG He's fantastic isn't he? Yeah, so neither of us talk either language but we just got on really well, and he invited me to go and see him at the theatre. It's like Shakespeare but in Japanese, but I actually got really excited by it, and then of course he introduced me to all the costumes and we've become great friends, so that's where that shape, this kind of awesome, uncompromising almost shape came from.
CM A very powerful shape.
JG Very powerful, you can imagine them like coming towards you, the menacing almost, menacing.
CM But it isn't heavy.
JG No, well that's the magic of Raphael at the haute couture salons, this was then all done layers by layers and then they were decorated by different embroiderers, and you could see like hair clips and things, and then he's got this lovely, almost like cellophane, packaged doll vibe going there which I thought was really charming really. Inga's wearing that, it's gorgeous.
CM The workmanship, quite apart from the thought and the evolution of it that you and Stephen were working on, the actual workmanship must have taken a long time, but also it must have been a bit scary for the ateliers. How long did it take them to grasp what you were after, because it's not like anything they've every had to make before is it?
JG Well, I mean I did it with Raphael the tailor, which I wouldn't normally do, but I'd shown him. It was so kind of, you know, it needed that sense of balance and it needed the tailoring you know, the structure, it needed to look light and en plumes it was embroidered as well. I mean, so we gave it Raphael. Well, we showed him the sketch and he laughed, then I showed him my back-up work and then he got into it. That whole idea of the kind of like menacing shape if you like, and it was done in scrim. You know, like the toiles, stiffer than toile. That just kind of went up and down, up and down, up and down, up and down. Then it worked, it worked, and then we put it with these sexy jeans underneath that were beautifully cut and embroidered and re-embroidered. The really beautifully sprayed-on jeans.
CM What are they wearing there? What have they got here, she's got a...
JG That's a camera, a video, and she's videoing us watching, you watching them.
CM The model watching you watching her? Exactly.
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