20\06\2012
Written by Jurriaan
Marques’ Almeida
Interview by Barbora Bartunkova
Marques’Almeida presents one of the most promising new labels on the London fashion scene. After having graduated from Central Saint Martins, the talented Portuguese designers Marta Marques and Paulo Almeida have shown their collections at Fashion East shows at London Fashion Week. Their work is already featured in major fashion magazines, while raising considerable interest in the international fashion market.
We joined the designer duo in their studio in East London to talk about their views on fashion, their inspirations for the latest Marques’Almeida collections and their plans for the future.
You subscribe to Helmut Lang’s statement that “fashion is about attitude, not hemlines.” How does this translate into your work?
Marta Marques: I think what has really drawn us to this statement is that it sums up the whole 90s vibe and research that we do and the fact that everything is a lot more about the attitude than the product itself. Obviously we’re not disregarding the product but there’s so much more behind it…
Paulo Almeida: It’s almost like we start thinking of the girl first and then we try to imagine which garments would that girl wear…
Marta: Exactly…rather than thinking about the garment itself and how it’s constructed. We obviously do that too but it’s not the major part of our work and it’s definitely not what we start with. We start with questions like: What’s the mood? Who’s this girl? What is she going to do? What kind of imagery are we looking at?
Your Spring/Summer collection 2012 featured a lot of bleached denim and a bright colour palette, conveying this youthful and effortless look. What mood are you trying to reflect in the Autumn/Winter collection this year, which is obviously much darker?
Marta: I think it depends on the reference that we have each season, and for Spring/Summer we were looking at a lot of street style for references, and it was a lot more urban. It was also a bit lighter in the springtime and more girly because we felt more in that mood ourselves.
But Autumn/Winter started out with this editorial from a photographer called Angela Hill. She made these pictures with the model Sylvia Mann when she was probably like twelve or thirteen – it’s just this teenage girl walking around with a backpack in the woods, probably in these weird polluted woods…We just went for this whole idea that she was in a kind of suburban woods context. She’s going to go camping this season.
So you are moving beyond urban boundaries…
Marta: Yeah, kind of. You get the feel for a vibe you want to do and it was a bit dark and a lot about the toxic yellow and this polluted nature…It all started with this editorial, watching that little girl walking around this weird woods area, carrying backpacks and big coats.
You obviously draw inspiration from street styles and urban culture of the 90s and your aesthetic has often been defined as inspired by grunge. The frayed denim, raw edges and your asymmetrical and layered styles seem to resonate with the distorted electric guitars and the raw sound of grunge. Are you also inspired by music and other art forms or rather by real life?
Paulo: It’s quite instinctive. We do not attempt to put any sort of rules behind it.
Marta: I think we respond a lot more to images in terms of inspiration than we do to music. It’s not necessarily grunge in the music sense. We’d have Sonic Youth in the last show but we had Dominique Young Unique and girly hip hop in the first show but it’s not necessarily this grungy Nirvana thing.
Regarding other art forms…they do come along but we are really interested in the girl herself more than art or music. Rather than other visual artwork, we are really obsessed with the portrait of the girl – what she’s doing, what she’s wearing and how that translates into the designs.
You seem to have a rather consistent approach when it comes to creating your collections. You use the same elements and reinvent them in fresh new ways rather than going for completely different things. That is interesting because it doesn’t really correspond to the current fashion trends. How do you perceive the latest tendencies in the fashion world and does this have an influence on your work?
Marta: I think we are influenced by it of course, it is all around you and you get influenced by it even if you don’t want to.
Paulo: On the other hand, as a designer, you have the obligation to move forward and actually to propose new ideas instead of trying to follow what is already on the market. If it’s on the high street there’s no point of doing it anymore…you have to add something to it at least.
Something more personal?
Marta: Yeah, I think our whole process is more personal than it is trend-oriented. One of the first things we wanted to do when we started the label more than sales was actually to translate the identity quite clearly in the first couple of seasons so that there’s a clear understanding of what the brand’s about and what we’re trying to say. If we do grow, the collections will obviously be different from each other but it will always be a rather gradual growth and the core identity of the brand is always going to be there. It’s because our research revolves around the same themes anyway and we respond invariably to the same kind of vibe and the same kind of girl. So I think that this gives consistency to design and that is more important to us than trends or what’s going on in terms of fashion.
You specialise in womenswear, yet the silhouettes and shapes of your collections seem to efface distinct feminine features and seem to blur the line between genders, which produces quite a unisex look. Can you envision yourself creating a menswear collection in the near future?
Marta: Yeah, I think so. I don’t think it’s that far of a step.
Paulo: Actually most of the pieces can be worn by men.
Marta: I would say at least fifty percent of the collection can be worn as unisex. It’s not something we were thinking about when we started designing but they just ended up being like that
Paulo: It’s our way of making sensual clothes for girls in a strange way, more like menswear. We don’t normally do any sort bodycon; our way of doing sexy is probably just showing a little bit of wrist or a slash of skin on the back.
Marta: And then they end up being quite unisex and I think that’s quite nice. There were guys wearing our clothes and their response was that it was great and that they felt great in it. I think that it’s something we could do in the future but again it’s going to be something we’re going to do at a gradual pace. It’s not something that we’re thinking about doing specifically but it might be something that we’ll grow into. We’d love to do it.
Marta [to Paulo]: I think maybe that is because of it’s the two of us designing and you are designing pieces you would want to wear. [Laughs]
You both come from Portugal. What made you move to London and what differences do you perceive in the fashion scenes in Portugal and in the UK?
Marta: It’s totally different. We studied in Portugal and we had quite a good and useful training there but it is rather practical and much more industry-oriented. There’s not a big fashion scene in Portugal and not that many influences around you. So I think we left because we wanted to outgrow what was going on in Portugal and we wanted to see more things and get more references. And also because we always wanted to start our own label and we always had it at the back of our minds. Obviously it was really difficult to do that in Portugal, financially and in terms of market it is quite a struggle and we knew that London was probably the best place to do it because there’s so many platforms of support for young brands and young designers: There’s a whole system in place that helps you to start your own brand – and that made us come here.
Paulo: It just felt that if you wanted to create your own label, this would be the best place to be. So we tried to do all the steps into that direction.
Marta: Portugal got a bit too small as well and wanted to do more training, which we couldn’t get in Portugal. It was good to come here and research and explore more. That is actually when we developed our sense of identity as designers.
What is your personal style like? Are you trying to reflect the identity of your brand in your own look?
Marta: It’s quite an instinctive process, so our clothes are maybe part of our references – we’re obsessed with T-shirts and jumpers, and that’s what we wear every day.
Paulo: It’s a throw-and-go look!
Marta: We don’t actually wear a lot of the designed pieces themselves…
Paulo: …but we have the same philosophy of how we dress and how we design.
Marta: We look for the effortless basics.
Paulo: That’s why we love to do outfits that are just a T-shirt and a pair of shorts, which is what we wear.
What are your plans for the future? Do you have any exciting events coming up?
Marta: We’re waiting to see how we’re going to present the next season but we might going to present in London again – hopefully we’re going to have a showcase at London Fashion Week and just keep going with the label. It’s still quite of an early stage so we want to keep producing collections that really reflect the identity of our brand. There are a few people already responding to it, so we’d like to grow that kind of followers base, have new clients and keep our identity quite consistent.
Paulo: And we will be trying to make this signature look as clear as possible…
Marta: …and expand the brand and the stockists and sales, season by season.
photography MAFALDA SILVA
styling PATRICIA RUIZ DEL PORTAL Patricia Ruiz del Portal
make-up ANNE SOPHIE COSTA
hair MASATO INOUE
model SOPHIE DILLON at SELECT
make-up assistant YOKO NAKATA