마리엘 마누엘: 오래된 인간의 이야기를 담은 옷

Clothes Containing Old Stories of Humans

マリエル・マニュエル: 古い人間の物語をまとう衣

Why do you work with clothes? What makes fashion attractive to you?

When I was a child I always wanted to be a seamstress. I grew up being able to travel a lot around the world, so my father always showed us how it is to be with local people from different countries. This made me understand the diversity of people from a young age Understanding the world from a different scope.

© Mariel Manuel

When I was little, I was always sewing and drawing with my mom. I remember already being attuned to what story I wanted to say through my clothes. Our shelves used to be covered in National Geographic magazines, and I used to take a couple to my bed every night, imagining living in all the pages and climates they were depicting. Later, I recceived all the vogue france magazines on my doorstep from the hairdresser opposite from our house. It began mixing, and I saw the photo editorials, the styling, colors and make-up all reflected these incredible creative worlds of inspiration. For me it was a blend, I could feel the stories being told and this is what spoke to me.

© Mariel Manuel

I discovered as a teenager the work of Hussein Chalayan, how he is speaking of disapora or displacement, and I was amazed by the poetry and how you can translate a story through concepts around the body. I naturally was drawing a lot and building machines and ideas. But for me, fashion, or clothing is closest as the human animal as we can get, so I guess that’s why I’m interested. I’m interested in stories of humans in places. And fashion is such a strong tool and indicator of the humanity we are all part of.

After your experiences in the Fashion industry, what made you be an independent fashion designer who does not belong to fashion brands? And how do you feel about it?

I still have many experiences in the fashion industry. But outside of it, because I have always stood up and faught for the “protection” of the creatives in this business. We are not people who do well in a closed space in a busy city, non stop hustle. I did it for almost a decade, working under pressure.

The best ideas come when your mind is at rest. That’s what they do with the employees at Google, they leave them free time to go in nature. And that’s where they have the ideas.

Studio view of Mariel Manuel. ⓒ Seohee Kim

Being independent since four years now enabled me to engage in projects that were right for me. I have always liked the spark that comes from this moment when the designer discusses with the creative director about their vision. And I’m here to listen to their stories and materialize their vision based on their words. So it’s creating a world for them, with ideas that would fit their vision. That’s how I see my work.

During the first covid wave in 2020, I worked on costumes for a 1900 feature film based in the mountains in Switzerland. I was returning from a 4 month residency with the Swiss Arts Council in New Delhi, ad found myself living in this old chalet by myself. I was drawing everyday for this movie, soaking up the natural world around me. Now I am designing costumes as well as doing the art direction for Il Ritorno di Ulisse by Monteverdi, for the Geneva Opera. I’m always telling stories. Be it for a commercial strategy or for a mythical imaginary world, I always have the people I speak to in mind. I like to apply my expertise for a specificgoal. It’s always very precise. That’s how you can speak to people.

It seems that the artisanal part is crucial to your fashion practice. Which background makes you think craftsmanship is more important? And what else is important thing in your work?

Yes, the artisanal part is important to me. By making, it helps me feel what I do. A lot of what I do is just by doing it. Somehow it’s funny, because when you start growing a brand or having a business, you stop doing. Thats’ the part I love the most, and I love the business as well. When I’m lost or de-phased with life, I return to doing and all is good.

ⓒ Mariel Manuel

I also have to say that I grew up in a very crafty family. We never had a TV, so I was always making with my mom and building machines with special engineered inventions with my dad! I was completely obsessed with a orange juice making machine once we saw in Spain as a kid, I could’t wait to get back to build my own version with my dad. Always finding ways.

I also did a machine to propulse a hazelnut down a toboggan, like an electronic vending machine, without the electronic part. I was fascinated by these mechanical systems, involving balance and weight. I still have this geometry in my embroidered dresses or how I cut pieces. It’s all geometry and fine lines.

Making the whole for me is more important than just making a piece of clothing or design. It’s the whole vision, from how you photograph it, communicate about it, and eventually exhibit it or ship it or sell it whatever. Everything is a thought of choice. That’s important to me.

Please share us with your experience in India. How is it affected your practice?

I went to Mumbai for the first time with my dad and sister when I was a teenager. It shocked me greatly to see the magnitude of people and noise on the streets. Poverty as well. I went back in 2016, and met a local painter, who I was with for a couple years. I was traveling regularly and living in the hottest months in Chennai. It was a very, very local experience.

ⓒ Mariel Manuel

I was a bit burned out by the fashion years behind me and was I guess quite open spiritually to receive all I received. I started working with one embroidery person, making natural dyes in my little kitchen and hanging everything to air dry. The process was super organic. Parrots were flying over everyday at 5PM, the vegetable cart was selling his tomatoes on the street below the window. The cows and dogs were everywhere in the street. I started illustrating what I saw everyday from the motorcycles trips and the colorful trees and sceneries around.

ⓒ Mariel Manuel

This was so far away from the busy life in Paris. As beautiful as the experience of these years was, the environment was tough and quite lonely. I grew a lot personally and learned a lot about letting go. It’s a place where you cannot navigate with your preconceived compass and way of doing. I had to unlearn a lot and let things be. Also working with local people taught me a lot. Sometime I thought I was going crazy, and I learned to let that go too. When I came back, I think I had shed many layers of my “self”.

Fashion has been strongly recognized as a consumerist culture, but there seems to be room for fashion to act as a different cultural link in your clothes. What kind of effort will it take as a fashion designer to make fashion less consumeristic? And what do you think are the possibilities for these kinds of works?

I see and meet more and more designers who are doing their own practices and research and it is so inspiring. I don’t feel any of the competition I feel in the fashion houses/spheres. That’s an accurate indicator towards better human behavior!

As my heroin Jane Goodall says, we are always touched by stories, and people resonate when you tell them a story. What I feel, is that people don’t know the story of garments, nor fashion, nor textile, because they are not told. A lot of the new designers are telling their stories. Maybe more through an art lens, which is maybe hard to sustain commercially speaking. But what people need is to understand.

ⓒ Mariel Manuel

And fashion has gone so far from its source of clothing and protecting the body with textile (or other) and has orbited in such elitist orbits that we don’t know what we do anymore. Just tell stories, seek for the truth and give back to clothing what we are robbing it from. Its life.

You lead the interesting fashion workshop at Head Geneva. Could you introduce the workshop?

I now led my second edition, working with the bachelor fashion students at HEAD Genève, in collaboration with CARITAS. Caritas is a swiss charity organization. They provide the students with the lowest grade “TEXAID” recycled bags of clothing.

I am in charge of curating a collection with them, from creative direction to the visual communication and creating a showroom. Students work around shape and garment archetypes, giving back life to garments with the aim of integrating them in a well curated showroom. I want to develop this project to a whole space and set design. There are gems you an make out of old stuff, thats the point, you can add beauty to everything there already is.