area archives

• Share on Facebook
• Share on Twitter

piotrek panszczyk wears golden “crystal mussel chandelier” earrings Area

THE ASPHALT JUNGLE

Area Archives

 

Photography by STEVIE AND MADA

Giulia Revolo, style

Diana Achan and Rachel Goff, models

Liz Goldson at Streeters, casting director

Nero at M+A World Group Using Oribe, hair

Kuma at Streeters, make-up

Mace Vannoni and Chris Caragine, photographer’s assistants

Martina Barboni, stylist’s assistant

Aries Rising Projects, production

 

INTERVIEW WITH PIOTREK PASZCZYK CO-FOUNDER AN CREATIVE DIRECTOR OF AREA

by OLIVIER ZAHM

 

OLIVIER ZAHM — It’s the 10th anniversary of Area — congratulations. That’s an achievement in itself. You’re a cult brand in New York, but not necessarily as well known in France and Europe. Let’s start with where you come from.

PIOTREK PANSZCZYK — I was born in Poland, but my family moved to Belgium when I was around five. We then ended up in the South of Holland, close to Belgium, so I was in Antwerp quite a lot, which greatly influenced me because it was such a different world from the mentality and life in southern Holland, which is very “farmer,” very flat. For me, Antwerp was more alternative and quite poetic.

OLIVIER ZAHM — Belgium has a tradition of surrealism because Belgian people are totally in their own minds — they have this inner world. That’s fascinating for me because this issue of Purple is about magic, and I think Belgium has a lot to do with this unknown world.

PIOTREK PANSZCZYK — They’re in such a weird space, between Holland and France. They have an inner world that reflects how poetic they are. It’s a rich and magical world, an interesting contrast. Holland is not like that — it’s very organized. Its design scene is very good, but to me, it was a bit ugly. I went to school in Arnhem, and it was more of a practical sewing school. I felt like it was not really enough so I applied to the academy of arts [ArtEZ] in Arnhem. The program was quite interesting conceptually, but aesthetically I was always butting heads with the design departments because some stuff was just ugly — it might be partly interesting, but not fully. Then I started discovering Paris, and I quickly found an internship there. The city had such a powerful presence. It was quite exciting. So, that was when passion for me started to be like, “Okay, you have a concept, you have clothes, you have aesthetics, but you also have this idea of character building.” That was the first time I started seeing that passion could also be transformative. It reshapes who you are, and you can really build your character around it.

OLIVIER ZAHM — Why didn’t you establish yourself in Paris then?

PIOTREK PANSZCZYK — The first time I went to Paris, I saw the magical side of the city. The second time, I saw this kind of conservative, faded Paris. Very by the book. So, it put me in a very different mindset. I felt like I wasn’t fully ready yet.

OLIVIER ZAHM — But why did you go to New York with such a European mindset? Because this is not the way we see fashion in New York — we see it as something quite commercial or pragmatic.

PIOTREK PANSZCZYK — The first time I visited New York, I kind of hated it. I didn’t understand it. The second time I went, I suddenly felt like there was something so magical about New York, something I didn’t get in Europe. It was the progressiveness and the mindset of the city, how it connects to music and art, almost in a higher sense. There was no real conservativeness. I learned quite a lot, and it opened my eyes in a very different way. And then a master’s program came up in New York City at Parsons School of Design. It was called Fashion Design and Society, a small program with a very unconventional gathering of people from all over the world, started by a Brit named Shelley Fox along with Donna Karan. Shelley had a very artistic and philosophical approach to fashion, and she related it directly to society. And there was quite a lot of freedom. So, you had to learn how to deal with freedom because if you don’t know how to contain it, it can just spiral you into a mode that you cannot even actualize. It was about streamlining creative freedom into conceptual thinking. After doing this program, we met a lot of key people, and all of a sudden it was easy to do a fashion show.

OLIVIER ZAHM — Suddenly the city became a playground.

PIOTREK PANSZCZYK — Exactly. And the most important thing was: how can you streamline this playground that is about play but can also be about commerce? How can they feed each other?

OLIVIER ZAHM — That’s the magic of New York because people are accessible and responsive.

PIOTREK PANSZCZYK — At the time, Opening Ceremony was down the block so I would harass them until they were like, “Okay, show us what you’re doing.” Literally, they came and were like: “Oh fuck, this is cool. Let’s do an installation.” And it becomes an organic community around you, where you build things together in an alternative way. Not fully alternative, though, because it still has a sense of commerciality. So, that was a very interesting realization about New York. It was really about understanding who I am, who we are as a brand, where we can fit in, and how we can use New York to finesse the visual structure that we have.

OLIVIER ZAHM — Did you think that, as a Polish kid, you had nothing to lose — that you could be an extremist? You are an extremist in your fashion.

PIOTREK PANSZCZYK — When a risk doesn’t really turn out the way it should, there’s always another way of going about it. I think risk has always been natural for me.

OLIVIER ZAHM — And you play a lot with elements of fantasy and the surreal. You are not afraid of fictionalizing fashion. Is this the essence of fashion for you — the ability to introduce fiction into reality?

PIOTREK PANSZCZYK — It’s a very big part of it. It’s really the craft itself, which I really love. The idea of making, creating, and transforming something from nothing to everything — combined with the idea of creating a world and a persona, and being able to personify that. Anyone can relate to it in their own way because it touches on many broader concepts. People just make their own story out of it.

OLIVIER ZAHM — And when I look at your collections, I see a lot of elements coming from clubbing and nightlife. So, glamor is not dead for you. The magic of nightlife is not dead.

PIOTREK PANSZCZYK — Maybe now it’s more in Shanghai than New York. I feel like it’s now happening in cities that are not major cities, places where there is still something to win, where you can still make a difference.

OLIVIER ZAHM — You arrived in New York in 2010 or 2012, when nightlife was incredible.

PIOTREK PANSZCZYK — Exactly. It was this last run of glamor. You had New York, but LA also had a strong sense of partying. That was an interesting moment, but then it all started to change.

OLIVIER ZAHM — I like that you also design for glamor and nightlife, and not just for the red carpet.

PIOTREK PANSZCZYK — Yes. Where we actually get the satisfaction is when we see people in nightlife being part of it, almost like performers. Even now, it really strikes a chord in culture.

OLIVIER ZAHM — We see  major celebrities embracing your fashion, and it’s not through marketing. How does it happen?

PIOTREK PANSZCZYK — Yes. We don’t pay for it. It started happening organically with people reaching out to us and wanting to be part of the world we were creating. It really pulled people in, and they wanted to be a part of that world.

OLIVIER ZAHM — Fashion is about creating other possible worlds. I see a connection with the idea of magic, which opens the door to a different world.

PIOTREK PANSZCZYK — Exactly. And it’s about constantly recontextualizing. A key thing is the tension between the best and the worst, between the beautiful and the ugly, and how they love each other. It’s about those contrasts, taking them and fusing them into things people can feel. It really needs to spark something in you.

OLIVIER ZAHM — Your designs are really open and embrace diversity. This comes very naturally for your generation and for New Yorkers.

PIOTREK PANSZCZYK — I think that goes back to clubbing. So many people who lived through those amazing times always revert to togetherness — where contrast is actually the point. It’s more about how we come together and celebrate differences. Through our clothes, we give people the ability to stand out and the freedom to show another aspect of themselves.

OLIVIER ZAHM — So, we have to protect and fight for authentic nightlife. That’s where the magic comes from.

PIOTREK PANSZCZYK — I think so, because nightlife is a stage where you shape who you are. It’s dark, you can get away with things, and you build your own character. When I was 16 and living in Holland, I would go to Rotterdam because there was a big music scene there. The nightlife was quite contained, but it existed. I worked at Now&Wow, which was an experimental club that created nights around iconic performances that people wanted to be part of. So, that was a moment for me when I was like, “Oh my God, this is interesting — how you can blend something that talks about culture, fashion, music, politics, all of those things.” It really puts you in an open mindset.

OLIVIER ZAHM — Which designer do you think has a mindset similar to yours? Maybe Rick Owens?

PIOTREK PANSZCZYK — Yes, for sure. He’s also such an icon to me in what he’s done with the business, and how solid he is in what he stands for. But he touches so many different people.

OLIVIER ZAHM — I think people are starting to embrace the possibility of a real fantasy world. I recently saw the movie Poor Things. It’s like Alice in Wonderland, in a way. It’s about a girl who naively discovers the violence of the world. And it’s her honesty that breaks all conventions. Maybe fashion has the power of being both naive and dreamy.

PIOTREK PANSZCZYK — I think so. What is also funny to me about fashion now is how people have a longing for high fashion from the late ’80s and early ’90s. All this energy. So, people try to go back into this mood.

OLIVIER ZAHM — You have to stay very optimistic to be a designer today — in order to change. You have to believe in your inner child.

PIOTREK PANSZCZYK — For us, if we do it, it needs to really count. It needs to be unique clothes you cannot find anywhere else. It needs to be truly special because there is so much out there, it’s insane.

OLIVIER ZAHM — Yes. It’s been 10 years already, but every collection is like starting from zero, right?

PIOTREK PANSZCZYK — I think so. It’s about how we start looking back and containing the work in a way that is true to us. It takes so long to start building ideas of how the future can look. At first, we had an aesthetic, but we were not self-referential at all. We were always about new perspectives. And now we’re like, “How are we going to revisit and recontextualize the past again?”

OLIVIER ZAHM — There’s something about your brand that mixes surrealism and futurism. It mixes Schiaparelli and Grace Jones in a surprising way that you are not afraid of.

PIOTREK PANSZCZYK — What I really like is to question conformity. That’s also how we think about different rules. This collection about fruit was really about decay. And decay
can be beautiful, even people aging.

OLIVIER ZAHM — Who’s your favorite artist or designer, the one you always come back to?

PIOTREK PANSZCZYK — To me, it always comes back to Yves Saint Laurent. He was really fantastic for his time and inclusive in the way he thought about beauty — the way he thought about construction, colors, and building beauty, but still questioning a lot of things. And coming back to how fashion makes you feel, to me that’s always been Alaïa — building and sculpting the silhouette and still thinking about culture and perfection. It’s really a universal type of beauty, and yet you can still become a singular Alaïa woman.

OLIVIER ZAHM — New York is much more about celebrity culture, compared with Europe. You have the power of this celebrity culture, and you are able to fit into it.

PIOTREK PANSZCZYK — I never thought I liked Andy Warhol. I actually kind of despised him. But the older I get, the more I find that there was something so powerful about his way of thinking and how he orchestrated things in New York, how he built nightlife, “It” girls, and art as we know it. From top musicians to a page in a magazine or a reality show, everything in New York has its own function. I love the idea of holding up a mirror, looking at yourself, and then recontextualizing.

END