Style has been scandalising for centuries, with certain fashion trends branded everything from indecent to unpatriotic – not least the bewigged, stripey stockinged Macaronis of the 18th century. A dress made from 3,000 cow and yak nipples courted controversy two years ago at London Fashion Week. In 2010, Alexander McQueen launched a line of ‘hooves’ teetering atop 10-inch heels, and a full 25 years before that Jean Paul Gaultier invented ‘man skirts’.
Today, a little closer to home, Claude Garrigues – founder of the label CGBCN – is planning his own sartorial assault, a 15-minute ‘shock and awe’ fashion show the likes of which have never been seen on Cambodian soil. A graduate of the illustrious Esmode fashion school in Paris, Garrigues is launching his first collection – a collection created entirely in the small apartment he shares with his girlfriend in the southernmost reaches of BKK.
Here, among towering shelves and bulging wardrobes overflowing with monochrome fabric, this heavily tattooed Frenchman, inked koi carp swimming lazily up his left arm, has fused two of history’s most disparate style disciplines: punk and haute couture. Draped carefully over silver hangers, post-apocalyptic fabrics have been aggressively sculpted into deconstructed takes on the classic Little Black Dress. The Advisor pinned the ever ebullient Garrigues down to talk secret fabric societies, asphalt and wearing pyjamas in public.
Why fashion design?
If I’m not creating, I’m not living. At school, honestly, I didn’t like sewing. My god, it was horrible! But now I’m doing it and I appreciate having learned about it because I’m free to do what I want. Now I live with a sewing machine.
And I’ve caught you doing the ironing! You’re every woman’s dream.
Exactly! I start from a sketch, although what it is when it’s finished is rarely what I first drew. Sometimes I’ll be doing something that takes me to something else. I don’t really have a method. I have to be honest: I don’t know how I do it. Suddenly, POOF! I can be watching TV or talking with you and suddenly something starts. I always try to start with a sketch, but it’s really bullshit because most of the things they never happen or they change, you know? From this [points to a sketch] to this [presents a small bag full of black fabric sraps]: voila! This is your future dress! I don’t know what it’s going to be, I just get a feeling.
Where do you find such unusual fabrics?
I cannot tell you. It’s a secret! I’m lucky; I’ve been initiated by someone who gave me the secret after many, many months.
There’s a secret fabric society here?
All the international brands have factories here and when they’re finished with the fabric, they just give it away. Finally, I have access to quality fabrics which come from end-of-stock collections. Fabrics from the next winter collections, I have them now.
How long have you had a fetish for fashion?
When I was a young kid, I went to the shops with my mother and grandmother and they tried to make me wear something but I always decided by myself. Always I would take the most fashionable thing. I remember one pair of huge flares that were dark jeans on one side and light jeans on the other. I was very proud to get them. I think that fashion isn’t something I decided to do; I always knew it was what I wanted to do. My mother always dressed really well. Maybe to see her always being in fashion, every day changing her clothes, maybe this helped, I don’t know. But I always liked that and finally now I’m living my dream, here, cutting patterns and looking for fabrics in the middle of nowhere. And it might be crazy to say this but I don’t do it for the money; it’s about more than money. Of course I want money and we need it to survive, but the motivation – my pleasure – is the creative process. If you only work for money, you can’t be truly creative. I made CGBCN t-shirts to make money and now, with this money, I can be truly creative.
There’s a big difference between those first t-shirts and your new Punk Couture collection.
They’re really crazy. This is the first collection. Let me show you; no one has seen these yet… What I have tried to do is work outside the limits. I break everything.
Have you always been this destructive?
Yes! I have to be honest, yes. I need to be on the edge. Everything I do is really extreme; always, everything.
Is that what attracted you to punk?
What I like about punk – you know, I’m 47 – when I was studying in Paris in my twenties, I was wearing Doc Marten boots up to here [indicates knee], tight jeans and a leather jacket. That was the spirit. I was a real punk in the 1970s. Also the music: I was born with that. The Sex Pistols, and all the French groups. I’ve never really been a fanatic: I like extreme things, but the punk look was easy extreme. It was like art. Wow, WOW! Just before, it was the hippy style.
It was a big shift, from flower power to Johnny Rotten wearing pinned-together suits because he couldn’t afford a whole one – a look you’ve given the haute couture touch in your new line.
This is the spirit! All deconstructed. Visually, it was really interesting. I didn’t understand it immediately; I think I’m just starting to understand it now. When I chose the name Punk Couture, it was because what I like about punk is not having rules. This is what I like in my creativity. I know all the rules, but I like to break them. If I didn’t know the rules, how could I deconstruct a dress? Many people start with deconstruction, but can’t do it because they don’t know the rules. Start with a square: what would you do?
Pass. I can’t stress enough how awful I am at sewing. How long does a piece take to make it from the sketch pad to the runway?
I think I’ve been working on this for maybe two months, but it spends most of its time on the hanger. Each time I think about it, I don’t want to do it! It’s different: sometimes everything flows; other times you need time to think about it. This is the most difficult thing to learn: to be patient, because we want to finish things immediately, but you can’t do everything in one day.
And every piece is unique?
This one is mass production… [holds up two identical t-shirts]
Two? Hell, everyone will be wearing them.
[Laughs] It’s the top seller! I did it because I had a lot of zips like this so I said OK, I can do two! I’m not H&M. If I’m going to design something for someone, I need to feel a connection with them. I’ve become really selective.
So who are your clients?
I would like to know! Obviously, they’re not here in Cambodia: they are afraid; they’re not ready. Cambodia is like a book of fashion history. When I’m here, I see the fashion of the 1950s and ’60s. You can imagine how I feel, with what I’m doing and the fashion background I have. Here we have the traditional with just a touch of modernity, but they don’t know – and I think they realise this themselves – they don’t know how to match the two. The big problem with fashion here is that for 30 to 40 years there was no development, but the rest of the world carried on – and not far away: in Thailand, Vietnam… And the big problem with bad clothes here is that everyone has been sending them second-hand clothes and they’re still receiving second-hand, second-hand, second-hand. Phnom Penh is a bit different, but immediately when you go outside the city you see they are wearing the clothes you were wearing 10 or 15 years ago. It’s like a look book of all trends and the way they mix them. For me, to be on the street looking at people – wow! Fifty per cent of the time it’s wrong. How can you match this colour with that colour?! But at the same time they are punk also because they break the rules.
Wearing pyjamas in the daytime.
I don’t know whether that’s good or not. I can’t judge that, but what’s interesting is that they do things that no one else is doing. You don’t put yellow, fuschia and red together! But OK, if it’s what you want to do. I came here intending to develop abroad: Singapore, Hong Kong, Seoul. They’re the places to be and when I do this I’m thinking of there, not here. For starters, there’s no fashion movement here. Magazines like F and Sovrin are trying to do something but they’re taking a risk. From where they are to where I am is a big jump and I don’t have time to wait. I’m old! You can’t compete in a country where jeans are $15 and a shirt is $5. I sell my jeans in Seoul for $450. Here, we need a lot of time to develop people’s minds to understand creativity: what is the difference between my jeans and the $15 jeans; what a designer really is.
Tell us about the show.
It’s going to be something very different than people are used to seeing here. More than a fashion show, it’s a presentation. I don’t like the term ‘fashion show’ because here everyone claims to be doing fashion shows, but they’re everything and nothing: a runway, lucky draws, singers. With my show, you are coming purely to see the clothes: that’s six months of work for 15 minutes. It’s going to be very raw and minimalist; very underground, this music with the sophistication of the clothes. This is the ‘Why’ of Punk Couture. It’s a tribute to what I like: the energy and aggressiveness of punk. In the beginning it was really ‘RAAAARRRRGGGGH!’ This is what I like: things that are strong. And the couture because, finally, it’s design; it’s sophisticated.
Where do you get your inspiration?
I am urban. I like the green and the trees, but after 20 minutes I need…. asphalt! This is my visual call. Sometimes I feel lost here, but… I just want to show people the other side of fashion with Punk Couture. With that, you’re touching something different; you’re in another world. You’re opening doors that not everyone can open. This is a really creative trip and sometimes it’s, well, WOW!
WHO: Claude Garrigues
WHAT: Punk Couture CGBCN fashion show
WHERE: De.Gran Japan, #19 Street 352
WHEN: 7pm February 26
WHY: Sartorial scandal in the making