THAT WINTER WAS A long time going. A freezing wind blew through the streets of the city, and overhead the snow clouds moved across the sky.

The old man who was called Drioli shuffled painfully along the sidewalk of the Rue de Rivoli. He was cold and miserable. He moved glancing without any interest at the things in the shop windows – perfume, silk ties and shirts, diamonds, furniture, books. Then a picture gallery. He had always liked picture-galleries. This one had a single canvas on display in the window. He stopped to look at it. Suddenly, there came to him a slight movement of the memory, a distant recollection of something, somewhere, he had seen before. He looked again. It was landscape, a group of trees leaning over to one side as if blown by wind. Attached to the frame there was a little plaque, and on this it said: CHAIM SOUTINE (1894 – 1943). Drioli stared at the picture, wondering vaguely what there was about it that seemed familiar. Crazy painting, he thought. Very strange and crazy – but I like it… Chaim Soutine… Soutine… ‘By God!’ he cried suddenly. ‘My little friend, with a picture in the finest shop in Paris! Just imagine that!’

The old man pressed his face closer to the window. He could remember the boy – yes, quite clearly he could remember him. But when? The rest of it was not so easy to recollect. It was so long ago. How long? Twenty – no, more like thirty years, wasn’t it? Wait a minute. Yes – it was the year before the war, the first war, 1913. That was it. And this Soutine, this ugly little boy whom he had liked – almost loved – for no reason at all that he could think of, except that he could paint.

And how he could paint! It was coming back more clearly now. Where was it the boy had lived?

The Cité Falguière that was it. Then there was the studio with the single chair in it, and the dirty red sofa that the boy had used for sleeping; the drunken parties, the cheap white wine, the furious quarrels, and always, always the sad face of the boy thinking over his work. It was odd, Drioli thought, how easily it all came back to him now, how each single small remembered fact seemed instantly to remind him of another.

There was that nonsense with the tattoo, for instance. Now, that was a mad thing if ever there was one. How had it started? Ah, yes – he had got rich one day, that was it, and he had bought lots of wine. He could see himself now as he entered the studio with the parcel of bottles under his arm – the boy sitting before the easel, and his (Drioli’s) own wife standing in the centre of the room, posing for her picture.

‘Tonight we shall celebrate,’ he said. ‘We shall have a little celebration, us three.’

‘What is it that we celebrate?’ the boy asked, without looking up. ‘Is it that you have decided to divorce your wife so she can marry me?’

‘No,’ Drioli said. ‘We celebrate because today I have made a great sum of money with my work.’

‘And I have made nothing. We can celebrate that also.’

The girl came across the room to look at the painting. Drioli came over also, holding a bottle in one hand, a glass in the other.

‘No!’ the boy shouted. ‘Please – no!’ He snatched the canvas from the easel and stood it against the wall. But Drioli had seen it.

‘It’s marvellous. I like all the others that you do, it’s marvellous. I love them all.’

‘The trouble is,’ the boy said, gloomily, ‘that in themselves they are not nourishing. I cannot eat them.’

‘But still they are marvellous.’ Drioli handed him a glass of the pale-yellow wine. ‘Drink it,’ he said. ‘It will make you happy.’ Never, he thought, had he known a more unhappy person, or one with a gloomier face.

‘Give me some more,’ the boy said. ‘If we are to celebrate then let us do it properly.’

‘Tonight we shall drink as much as we possibly can,’ Drioli said. ‘I am exceptionally rich. I think perhaps I should go out now and buy some more bottles. How many shall I get?’

‘Six more,’ the boy said. ‘Two for each.’

‘Good. I shall go now and fetch them.’ ‘And I will help you.’

In the nearest cafe Drioli bought six bottles of white wine, and they carried them back to the studio. Then they sat down again and continued to drink.

‘It is only the very wealthy, who can afford to celebrate in this manner.’

‘That is true,’ the boy said. ‘Isn’t that true, Josie?’ ‘Of course.’ ‘Beautiful wine,’ Drioli said. ‘It is a privilege to drink it.’ Slowly, methodically, they set about getting themselves drunk. The process was routine, but all the same there was a certain ceremony to be observed.

‘Listen,’ Drioli said at length. ‘I have a tremendous idea. I would like to have a picture, a lovely picture. – … It is this. I want you to paint a picture on my skin, on my back. Then I want you to tattoo over what you have painted so that it will be there always.’

‘You have crazy ideas,’ the boy said.

‘I will teach you how to use the tattoo. It is easy. A child could do it.’

‘You are quite mad. What is it you want?’

‘I will teach you in two minutes.’

‘Impossible!’

‘Are you saying I do not know what I am talking about?’

‘All I am saying,’ the boy told him, ‘is that you are drunk and this is a drunken idea.’

‘We could have my wife for a model. A study of Josie upon my back.’

‘It is no good idea,’ the boy said. ‘And I could not possibly manage the tattoo.’

‘It is simple. I will undertake to teach you in two minutes. You will see. I shall go now and bring the instruments.’

In half an hour Drioli was back. ‘I have brought everything,’ he cried, waving a brown suitcase. ‘All the necessities of the tattooist are here in this bag.’

He placed the bag on the table, opened it and laid out the electric needles and the small bottles of coloured inks. He plugged in the electric needle, then he took the instrument in his hand and pressed a switch. He threw off his jacket and rolled up his left sleeve. ‘Now look. Watch me and I will show you how easy it is. I will make a design on my arm, here. … See how easy it is … see how I draw a picture of a dog here upon my arm …’ The boy was intrigued. ‘Now let me practise a little – on your arm.’ With the buzzing needle he began to draw blue lines upon Drioli’s arm. ‘It is simple,’ he said. ‘It is like drawing with pen and ink. There is no difference except that it is slower.’

‘There is nothing to it. Are you ready? Shall we begin?’ ‘At once.’ ‘The model!’ cried Drioli. ‘Come on, Josie!’ He was in a bustle of enthusiasm – now arranging everything, like a child preparing for some exciting game. ‘Where will you have her? Where shall she stand?’

‘Let her be standing there, by my dressing table. Let her be brushing her hair. I will paint her with her hair down over her shoulders and her brushing it.’ ‘Tremendous. You are a genius.’

‘First,’ the boy said, ‘I shall make an ordinary painting. Then if it pleases me, I shall tattoo over it.’ With a wide brush he began to paint upon the naked skin of the man’s back.

‘Be still now! Be still’ His concentration, as soon as he began to paint, was so great that it appeared somehow to neutralize his drunkenness. ‘All right. That’s all,’ he said at last to the girl.

Far into the small hours of the morning the boy worked. Drioli could remember that when the artist finally stepped back and said, ‘It is finished,’ there was daylight outside and the sound of people walking in the street.

‘I want to see it,’ Drioli said. The boy held up a mirror, and Drioli craned his neck to look.

‘Good God!’ he cried. It was a startling sight. The whole of his back was a blaze of colour – gold and green and blue and black and red. The tattoo was applied so heavily it looked almost like an impasto. The portrait was quite alive; it contained so much characteristic of Soutine’s other works. ‘It’s tremendous!’

‘I rather like it myself.’ The boy stood back, examining it critically. ‘You know,’ he added, ‘I think it’s good enough for me to sign.’ And taking up the machine again, he inscribed his name in red ink on the right-hand side, over the place where Drioli’s kidney was.

***

The old man who was called Drioli was standing in a sort of trance, staring at the painting in the window of the picture-dealer’s shop. It had been so long ago, all that – almost as though it had happened in another life.

And the boy? What had become of him? He could remember now that after returning from the war – the first war – he had missed him and had questioned Josie. ‘Where is my little painter?’

‘He is gone,’ she had answered. ‘I do not know where.’

‘Perhaps he will return.’

‘Perhaps he will. Who knows?’

That was the last time they had mentioned him. Shortly afterwards they had moved to Le Havre where there were more sailors and business was better. Those were the pleasant years, the years between the wars, with the small shop near the docks and the comfortable rooms and always enough work. Then had come the second war, and Josie being killed, and the Germans arriving, and that was the finish of his business. No one had wanted pictures on their arms any more after that. And by that time he was too old for any other kind of work. In desperation he had made his way back to Paris, hoping vaguely that things would be easier in the big city. But they were not.

And now, after the war was over, he possessed neither the means nor the energy to start up his small business again. It wasn’t very easy for an old man to know what to do, especially when one did not like to beg. Yet how else could he keep alive?

Well, he thought, still staring at the picture. So that is my little friend. He put his face closer to the window and looked into the gallery. On the walls he could see many other pictures and all seemed to be the work of the same artist. There were a great number of people strolling around. Obviously it was a special exhibition. On a sudden impulse, Drioli turned, pushed open the door of the gallery and went in. It was a long room with a thick wine-coloured carpet, and by God how beautiful and warm it was! There were all these people strolling about looking at the pictures, well-washed dignified people, each of whom held a catalogue in the hand. He heard a voice beside him saying, ‘What is it you want?’

Drioli stood still. ‘If you please,’ the man in a black suit was saying, ‘take yourself out of my gallery.’

‘Am I not permitted to look at the pictures?’

‘I have asked you to leave.’ Drioli stood his ground. He felt suddenly, overwhelmingly outraged. ‘Let us not have trouble,’ the man was saying. ‘Come on now, this way.’ He put a fat white hand on Drioli’s arm and began to push him firmly to the door. That did it.

‘Take your goddam hands off me!’ Drioli shouted. His voice rang clear down the long gallery and all the heads turned around as one – all the startled faces stared down the length of the room at the person who had made this noise. The people stood still, watching the struggle. Their faces expressed only an interest, and seemed to be saying. It’s all right. There’s no danger to us. It’s being taken care of.

‘I, too!’ Drioli was shouting. ‘I, too, have a picture by this painter! He was my friend and I have a picture which he gave me!’

‘He’s mad.’ ‘Someone should call the police.’

With a twist of the body Drioli suddenly shook off the man and before anyone could stop him he was running down the gallery shouting, ‘I’ll show you! I’ll show you! I’ll show you!’ He flung off his overcoat, then his jacket and shirt, and he turned so that his naked back was towards the people.

‘There!’ he cried, breathing quickly. ‘You see? There it is!’

There was a sudden absolute silence in the room, each person arrested in what he was doing, standing motionless in a kind of shocked, uneasy surprise. They were staring at the tattooed picture. It was still there, the colours as bright as ever. Somebody said, ‘My God, but it is!’ ‘His early manner, yes?’ ‘It is fantastic, fantastic!’ ‘And look, it is signed!’ ‘Old one, when was this done?’

‘In 1913,’ Drioli said, without turning around. ‘In the autumn of 1913.’ ‘Who taught Soutine to tattoo?’ ‘I taught him.’ ‘And the woman?’

‘She was my wife.’

The gallery owner was pushing through the crowd towards Drioli. He was calm now, deadly serious, making a smile with his mouth. ‘Monsieur,’ he said, ‘I will buy it. I said I will buy it. Monsieur.’ ‘How can you buy it?’ Drioli asked softly. ‘I will give two hundred thousand francs for it.’ ‘Don’t do it!’ someone murmured in the crowd. ‘It is worth twenty times as much.’

Drioli opened his mouth to speak. No words came, so he shut it; then he opened it again and said slowly, ‘But how can I sell it?’ He lifted his hands, let them drop helplessly to his sides. ‘Monsieur, how can I possibly sell it?’ All the sadness in the world was in his voice. ‘Yes!’ they were saying in the crowd. ‘How can he sell it? It is part of himself!’

‘Listen!’ the dealer said, coming up close. ‘I will help you. I will make you rich. Together we shall make some private arrangement over this picture, no?’

Drioli watched him with worried eyes. ‘But how can you buy it. Monsieur? What will you do with it when you have bought it? Where will you keep it? Where will you keep it tonight? And where tomorrow?’

‘Ah, where will I keep it? Yes, where will I keep it? Well, now … It would seem,’ he said, ‘that if I take the picture, I take you also. That is a disadvantage. The picture itself is of no value until you are dead. How old are you, my friend?’ ‘Sixty-one.’

‘But you are perhaps not very healthy, no?’ The dealer looked Drioli up and down, slowly, like a farmer examining an old horse.

‘I do not like this,’ Drioli said moving away. ‘Quite honestly. Monsieur, I do not like it.’ He moved straight into the arms of a tall man who put out his hands and caught him gently by the shoulders.

‘Listen, my friend,’ the stranger said, still smiling. ‘Do you like to swim and to lie in the sun?’

Drioli looked up at him, rather startled. ‘Do you like fine food and red wine from the great chateaux of Bordeaux?’ The man was still smiling, showing strong white teeth with a flash of gold among them. He spoke in a soft manner, one gloved hand still resting on Drioli’s shoulder. ‘Do you like such things?’

‘Well – yes,’ Drioli answered, still greatly puzzled. ‘Of course.’

‘Have you ever had a shoe made especially for your own foot?’ ‘No.’ ‘You would like that?’

‘Well…’

‘And a man who will shave you in the mornings and trim your hair?’ Drioli simply stood and stared.’And a plump attractive girl to manicure the nails of your fingers?’ Someone in the crowd giggled. ‘And a bell beside your bed to call a maid to bring you breakfast in the morning? Would you like these things, my friend? Do they appeal to you?’ Drioli stood still and looked at him.

‘You see, I am the owner of the Hotel Bristol in Cannes. I now invite you to come down there and live as my guest for the rest of your life in luxury and comfort.’ The man paused, allowing his listener time to digest this cheerful prospect. ‘Your only duty – shall I call it your pleasure – will be to spend your time on my beach in bathing trunks, walking among my guests, sunning yourself, swimming, drinking cocktails. You would like that?’ There was no answer.

‘Don’t you see – all the guests will thus be able to observe this fascinating picture by Soutine. You will become famous, and men will say, ‘Look, there is the fellow with ten million francs upon his back.’ You like this idea, Monsieur? It pleases you?’

Drioli looked up at the tall man in the canary gloves. He said slowly, ‘But do you really mean it?’

‘Of course I mean it.’

‘Wait,’ the dealer interrupted. ‘See here, old one. Here is the answer to our problem. I will buy the picture, and I will arrange with a surgeon to remove the skin from your back, and then you will be able to go off on your own and enjoy the great sum of money I shall give you for it.’

‘With no skin on my back?’

‘No, no, please! – You misunderstand. This surgeon will put a new piece of skin in the place of the old one. It is simple.’

‘Could he do that?’

‘There is nothing to it.’

‘Impossible!’ said the man with the canary gloves. ‘He’s too old for such a major skin-removing operation. It would kill him. It would kill you, my friend.’

‘It would kill me?’

‘Naturally. You would never survive. Only the picture would come through.’

‘In the name of God!’ Drioli cried. He looked around terrified at the faces of the people watching him, and in the silence that followed, another man’s voice, speaking quietly from the back of the group, could be heard saying, ‘Perhaps, if one were to offer this old man enough money’, he might consent to kill himself on the spot. Who knows?’ A few people laughed. The dealer moved his feet uneasily on the carpet.

‘Come on,’ the tall man said, smiling his broad white smile. ‘You and I will go and have a good dinner and we can talk about it some more while we eat. How’s that? Are you hungry?’

Drioli watched him, frowning. He didn’t like the man’s long flexible neck, or the way he craned it forward at you when he spoke, like a snake.

‘Roast duck and Chambertin,’ the man was saying. ‘And perhaps a soufflé aux marrons, light and frothy.’ Drioli’s eyes turned up towards the ceiling, his mouth watered.

‘How do you like your duck?’ the man went on. ‘Do you like it very brown and crisp outside, or shall it be…’

‘I am coming,’ Drioli said quickly. Already he had picked up his shirt and was pulling it hurriedly over his head. ‘Wait for me. Monsieur. I am coming.’ And within a minute he had disappeared out of the gallery with his new patron.

It wasn’t more than a few weeks later that a picture by Soutine, of a woman’s head, painted in an unusual manner, nicely framed and heavily varnished, turned up for sale in Buenos Aires. That – and the fact that there is no hotel in Cannes called Bristol – causes one to wonder a little, and to pray for the old man’s health, and to hope strongly that wherever he may be at this moment, there is a plump attractive girl to manicure the nails of his fingers, and a maid to bring him his breakfast in bed in the mornings.

Roald Dahl was a British novelist, poet, and short story writer. ‘Skin’ was originally published in 1952 in The New Yorker.

With:

Tim Blanks, editor-at-large at Business of Fashion

Thom Browne, founder & head of design at Thom Browne

Ralph Toledano, president of the Fédération Française de la Couture, du Prêt-à-Porter des Couturiers et des Créateurs de Mode, president of the fashion division at Puig, CEO at Nina Ricci

Jean-Jacques Picart, fashion and luxury goods consultant

Adrian Joffe, president of Comme des Garçons International

Glenn O’Brien, editor-at-large at Maxim

Hirofumi Kurino, co-founder & senior adviser for creative direction at United Arrows

Steven Kolb, president & CEO at Council of Fashion Designers of America

Nicole Phelps, director at Vogue Runway

Nathalie Ours, partner at PR Consulting Paris

Robin Schulié, brand manager & buying director at Maria Luisa

Andy Spade, co-founder of Partners & Spade, co-founder of Kate Spade, founder of Jack Spade, founder of Sleepy Jones

Camille Bidault-Waddington, freelance stylist

***

Camille Bidault-Waddington: About ten years ago people in fashion started to really understand the importance of money. It was like a wave that rolled over the whole industry. There were rumours that fashion editors were asking to be paid in shares in the companies they consulted for. I just thought the fixation with money was a kind of monstrosity, so I never played that game. But once I realised what was really happening, I felt like such a naïve kid. Then people started getting into power. Everyone got a thrill out of being more powerful than each other.

Tim Blanks: The fame machine has rolled over everybody. Your persona becomes your identity. If you’re insecure, success builds you an impermeable edifice of confidence and material wellbeing. People get used to that, to the point where they can’t imagine being taken away from it.

Steven Kolb: In my opinion, you can’t have success in fashion, unless it’s commercial. Fashion is a business, and as a designer, you’re getting into the business of fashion. That isn’t to say it can’t also be artistic and creative, but at the end of the day the success of a fashion creation comes down to, ‘Does it sell? Does somebody want to buy it?’

Tim Blanks: How masochistic would you have to be to go on and on and on doing something and never making a living from it. How many years can you live on the smell of an oil rag and a handful of sawdust swept up from your studio floor? Being Boudicca isn’t for everybody. You can’t eat your clothes. You’d just end up like Charles James.

Hirofumi Kurino: Fashion is a result of creation, and creation doesn’t belong to a vocabulary of success or failure. I know that commercial success has become incredibly important in fashion today, but fashion is about so much more than just selling. The standard of fashion is slipping with the focus that we have on money now. People think that being successful is about having your photo taken by Scott Schuman or Tommy Ton, or that a good collection is one that is iconic or instantly recognisable. We’ve stopped looking at the actual design of the garments, and we need tastemakers and opinion-leaders to remind us about the importance of innovation and quality.

Andy Spade: People always talk about fashion being too commercial, or they say that there isn’t enough artistry in the business. But there are artists in fashion – the problem is that the consumer doesn’t want what they produce. I’ve collaborated with my friends at threeASFOUR many times. I love their work, but I’d never wear it and my wife would never wear it. But it’s still relevant because it inspires me to be more creative. Some designers exist to inspire other designers. The avant-garde is important to the system – even designers at the Gap are trying to sneak something creative into their work.

Jean-Jacques Picart: Fashion is like a banana. No, don’t laugh. I’ll tell you what I mean. Sometimes designers complain to me that a competitor has copied one of their ideas and is making a killing with it. I tell them, tant pis! If you presented that idea two seasons ago and nobody noticed, it’s because the world wasn’t ready. That was your mistake. An idea in fashion is like a banana; if you eat it too soon, it’s green and tastes bad. And if you eat it too late, it’s brown and the taste is still bad. It has to be just perfect. That’s your job as a designer – to put your ideas out there when they’re ripe.

Tim Blanks: That’s a real theme for Hussein Chalayan. He says other designers rip him off. I think he feels he just hasn’t done well, but the reason he hasn’t is not because of that. I was looking to do a perfume with him once and I think he’s just a very difficult person. Hard to work with. I love him but he can say the most inappropriate thing at the worst possible time.

Robin Schulié: People think of Hussein Chalayan as a ‘conceptual designer’ but to me that’s bullshit. Nobody ever wore his clothes. To me Chalayan is just a typical London designer who managed to make a bit of a name for himself when he was showing on his home turf. Then he met Alexandre de Betak. De Betak started using Chalayan’s shows as a way of showcasing his own talent. That’s not to say that the inspiration didn’t come from Chalayan, but what made his shows so noteworthy when he started showing in Paris was his set design. The catwalk collection and the showroom collection were completely different. That kind of separation between what you show press and what you show buyers is what’s led to the industry losing the plot in my opinion.

Thom Browne: I create two collections every season: one for the catwalk and one for our showroom. I look at them totally separately. One is for show, and one is for wear.

Jean-Jacques Picart: The fashion business changed an awful lot with Tom Ford’s arrival at Gucci in 1994. That’s when we developed two separate parts to fashion –business and spectacle, catalogues and editorial. We got two different fashion languages, or two separate ways of looking at fashion. The red carpet became very important; fashion became entertainment for the masses in a way that it hadn’t been before.

Ralph Toledano: It shocks me when designers make clothes for the catwalk that they don’t sell in stores. I think it makes the customer feel cheated; they will end up not trusting the brand. If there is a wide gap between the catwalk collection and the store collection, to me it’s a big sign of weakness on the part of the brand. It shows that the complicity that should exist between the management and designer isn’t there. The attitude to fashion changed fifteen years ago, when certain brands decided that the container was more important than the content. That’s when catwalk shows became about generating buzz in order to sell other products. At some point fashion shows turned into extravagant competitions between the big fashion conglomerates. But the tide is turning again.

Robin Schulié: Up until the 1990s, when the fashion industry was smaller and designers themselves owned their businesses, it all made more sense to me. That was before people decided to do one thing for their image and something else to make money. When this line got blurred the whole industry became much more impure – that’s when everything started getting clouded by smoke and mirrors.

Nathalie Ours: Today the marketing often matters more than the designer. That’s when the product becomes boring. The products made by all the big conglomerates are often produced in the same factories and that means that the hand of the maker is in danger of being overpowered by the industrial process. And what is a designer after all, if not his hand?

Camille Bidault-Waddington: Everybody in fashion wants to be a brand now. We’re not just selling our creativity: we’re selling our faces.

Nathalie Ours: Fashion is about selling a dream.

Andy Spade: At store openings for Jack Spade, I’d put a fake movie camera without film in it in front of the store and add a director’s chair. The chair would say ‘Spielberg’ or ‘Renck’ or something like that on it. It never failed. People would gather thinking, ‘Spielberg must be around the corner.’ And I’d have a crowd for my event. I’d get a kick out of that.

Adrian Joffe: Marketing. I don’t even know what that word means. Merchandising? Same thing. I really hate those terms. It’s the age of marketing I’ve been told. You package something by hiding the truth of what it is. That is precisely what is wrong with the fashion business today. Marketing. It’s the biggest failure of our age. It just doesn’t ring true anymore.

Hirofumi Kurino: Most managers and CEOs come from business schools today. They are smart, they have strategy, they can make money but they have no love for fashion. They aren’t in touch with what goes on on the street. That’s why they need young designers like Humberto Leon and Carol Lim from Opening Ceremony to take over an LVMH-owned brand like Kenzo. They represent the younger generation. But all they do is create a buzz; the collections themselves very quickly become boring and meaningless. You can’t generate emotion from strategy.

Robin Schulié: The moment the people investing in fashion started coming from outside of the garment industry, things took a turn for the worse. Now we have businessmen essentially trying to sell you yoghurt. There is nothing glamorous about it anymore, it’s just men in suits selling yoghurt. I mean, when the executives of a fashion company come from Procter & Gamble, you know creativity is in trouble.

Ralph Toledano: I remember when I hired Alber Elbaz for Guy Laroche in 1996, I originally said, ‘I want an American.’ At that time French designers still thought that fashion was art. I had to be very clear in my stance: I don’t care about fashion as art – fashion has to be functional, it has to be worn, it has to be cleaned. I was struggling to explain to designers that a fashion company has to turn a profit. Today the situation is completely different. Twenty-five-year-old French designers have gone to business school; they have no problem talking to you about marketing.

Tim Blanks: Most designers today are just figureheads. Think of Riccardo Tisci for instance. He’s considered a benchmark figure at the moment, but he’s basically just doing jeans and T-shirts because that’s what sells. He’s not doing couture anymore. If you spoke to him I imagine you’d find that he was deeply frustrated. But he loves going out and having fun. He’s bankrolled to a ludicrous degree and he’s just a simple boy from Italy who grew up with absolutely nothing.

Ralph Toledano: Between 1985 and 1995 I worked with Mr Lagerfeld at Lagerfeld. It was the only time the company was making money. But even though Lagerfeld never interfered in my work, it was always clear that he was the boss. When I later became the CEO of Guy Laroche, it was the most difficult job in town. I fired the designer, and had to hire a new one. Suddenly I became the boss of the designer. That was a tremendous change in the power dynamics of fashion. Ever since, I have been the boss of every designer I’ve worked with – from Alber at Guy Laroche to Stella and Phoebe at Chloé and then Peter and now Guillaume at Nina Ricci.

Steven Kolb: The fashion system is constantly changing. It happens gradually and in every aspect of the industry, from how you classify clothes – what is couture, what is ready-to-wear – to how you do business. I think of it as herding cattle. When the fence breaks down and the cows decide to move, you can’t just move them from here to there in an instant. You have to herd them gently. Change can be instigated, but it’s never a coordinated collective shift. For example, New York was once the last of the fashion weeks; today the calendar starts with us. If we had tried to move all designers simultaneously to the start of the season, it would never have worked. What happened instead was that in the Nineties Helmut Lang decided to move his show up. He broke the fence. Then Calvin Klein decided that if Lang could do it, so could he. And then all the other cows followed.

Nathalie Ours: I’m aware of how quickly fashion is moving now, and I have my role in the system. In a way I’m just one of the sheep. I don’t know how I could do anything to change the way things are. I know the catwalk schedule is too crowded today, but what can I do? It’s not like you can forbid people to exist.

Jean-Jacques Picart: Fashion shows are intended for fashion people. When non-industry people – ordinary consumers – see a fashion show, they are frightened. It’s too much. It’s like giving a very hot dish to someone who isn’t used to spices. Fashion shows speak the language of the fashion industry – they cater to people who see too much, who are blasé. These blasé professionals know how to decode the messages that the designer puts on the catwalk, our job is to transmit what we’ve seen to ordinary women and men. If you make fashion shows available to the public, most people will wonder where they are supposed to wear what they see on the catwalk. Where is the restaurant or party where I can wear this dress? They would panic. They wouldn’t understand.

Glenn O’Brien: Fashion week is ridiculous but I like going because I like seeing all the people that hate each other in the same room, pretending that they don’t hate each other. But until people are not only applauding but booing too, then what fun is it?

Thom Browne: Once I had an editor walk out of my show. To me, that’s so disrespectful and unfair. I took a risk with that show – it was twenty minutes long. But still! Everybody knows how much work goes into a collection so to not be able to sit still for twenty minutes is unbelievable. I didn’t invite him back the season after.

Camille Bidault-Waddington: Going to shows now gives me an anxiety attack. Have you seen the amount of photographers outside? It freaks me out. There are scores of people at the shows basically doing nothing but parade around in bunny ears to be photographed. When street style photographers first started coming to the shows, I quite liked having my picture taken. It was flattering. Now I find the experience totally frightening. When I go to shows, I make sure I’m dressed in the most boring way imaginable so that no one pays attention to me. I walk on the opposite side of the street so the photographers won’t see me. Or I stay away all together. It’s a shame really because I love fashion shows. Going to shows is so important if you want to understand a designer’s point of view. The music, the lights, the casting – everything. But I just find the whole experience too frightening now. Even going backstage after the show to say ‘bravo’ to someone I like: there are so many people jostling for attention. I can’t stand it. Most of the people there are just faking it to be seen air kissing someone important.

Hirofumi Kurino: The last few seasons Kenzo T-shirts have been really popular at the shows. All the street style photographers have been shooting people in Kenzo T-shirts. I would never wear that, and my team wouldn’t either. We don’t want all the street style photographers to take our picture anymore. You know, when street style photographers started coming to fashion week it was exciting, but today there are so many photographers and they take pictures of everybody so it’s not interesting anymore. The centre of Florence during Pitti Uomo has turned into a place to show off. Now I stay away from the routes where I know that street style photographers will be waiting: I take alternative ones. I used to dress more conspicuously and enjoy being photographed, but now I dress much more subtly. Having said that, if Scott Schuman or Tommy Ton want to take my picture, I’d say yes.

Glenn O’Brien: I remember walking around Washington D.C. in 1969 or 70 and seeing an Yves Saint Laurent coat in the window of a store and it had a big YSL logo on it. I remember thinking, ’How is that possible?’ ’Who would want that?’ That was my glimpse of the new world. Today people look like race car drivers.

Adrian Joffe: People look at pretty images in magazines today and get duped. So many designers lack an artistic vision, but they somehow manage to fool people into thinking that they have an original point of view. You can get away with a lot in fashion – it’s an easy business to be taken along with. But I don’t think it matters. It’s fine to be duped. Or if you think you’re being duped, turn away. Just go somewhere else. Not everyone is duping you.

Nicole Phelps: Rei Kawakubo is untouchable. No one is ever going to come out and say that what she shows is batshit crazy. Which it sort of is. But no one ever says that.

Robin Schulié: I’d say that what Comme des Garçons has been doing on the catwalk these last few years is an extreme reaction against a bland fashion landscape. It’s a comment on the status quo rather than a commercial proposition, and because of their position in the industry they can allow themselves to do it.

Camille Bidault-Waddington: Once, ten years ago I accidentally put a Comme des Garçons dress upside down in a shoot for Dazed & Confused. They never lent me another garment.

Nathalie Ours: I remember about twenty years ago when I was still working with Yohji Yamamoto. An English stylist mixed a Yohji jacket with some pieces from other designers, and it made Yohji really take note. It inspired him. Today things are different; designers insist on stylists shooting total looks. It’s as if they don’t trust the stylist anymore. They want to be in control, to impose their vision.

Andy Spade: They tell you you need a Birkin bag, and if you’re naïve enough to believe it – you’re wrong. I think it would be embarrassing to have one, don’t you? You have to pay the equivalent of a mortgage, and be on a waiting list. It’s ridiculous.

Glenn O’Brien: When I was young nobody wore designer clothes. People had their own personal style. Today fashion has taken over what style once was. Style is what makes you different to others. Fashion is what makes you the same. I think it’s very important not to be fashionable.

This article was originally published in Vestoj On Failure.

Erwin Wurm is an Austrian artist. These images are from the artist’s series ‘One Minute Sculptures’, ongoing since the 1980s.

Anja Aronowsky Cronberg is Vestoj‘s Editor-in-Chief and Publisher.