In conversation: Jonathan Anderson & Tim Blanks | System

[music] [music] [music] You know, Jonathan, a little while ago you told me, that the world could throw anything at you, 20 collections a season, whatever, you can do it all.

You're in this situation now where, you actually, you are in that place.

How do you feel right now? Climatizing, I think.

I think you probably got me on a very good day when I said that.

No, I think it's... I'm getting there. I think it's taking a bit of time to...

I think when you go into a new business, you're trying to understand it.

You're trying to understand the people. You're trying to understand what is the flow.

No, but this year I feel way more at one with it.

What's changed?

What has changed?

I think I am now coming to the end of the cycle of doing everything for the first time.

It's quite frustrating when you spend time and there's no product in store, because you don't know what to argue against. I mean, there's nothing to kind of see, on the street or see what's happening or what customers are saying.

Now that since the beginning of the year, products are in store, so now I can see what works, what doesn't work, what we need to do, what is resonating, what's not.

And there's like a bit of, like it feels more rewarding, it's not fake.

It's actually a real thing. It's not like kind of doing hypothesis on it.

Do you check the numbers every day? Do you look at that?

No, I don't. But I kind of... I always go into the stores to try...

if I'm anywhere near a store, I always pop in just to see what is the vibe like, you know, in the end I always find it really fascinating watching people shop.

Well, with couture, you get an instant response, don't you? You don't have to wait months and months. You get the the feedback comes right away from clients and not just not just the press.

months. You get the the feedback comes right away from clients and not just not just the press.

So, tell me about that experience because that is a sort of pinnacle of the of of the Dior pyramid. That that is where it all comes from.

This was very daunting, I must admit, because you're kind of...

I had never done it. The client is this mystical thing and you have to sell all the looks that are in the show.

You can only sell all three of them. It's like very it's a completely different genre of people. They have way more opinion and but this was really... I found it really exciting because, you know, I had redone the showroom into this sort of like "wunderkammer" where you could go in and buy different things. So, it it felt like I don't know.

I kind of like this idea of like what would it have been like if you were going to meet Mr. Dior and like what is that feeling to kind of buy this one singular thing?

It's nearly like um the film with uh "Mrs. Harris goes to Paris", you know, with Lesley Manville.

You know, fashion itself is having this struggle with relevance, isn't it? And

some some very strange alchemy happened during the couture shows here, where suddenly it seemed like couture was the most relevant kind of fashion that there is which is very odd, I thought.

I think I was I've been looking at it was trying to understand it.

I I think there's something where couture has the purest form of where fashion is, you know.

Because it's done by people. It's like, it's about craft, it's about making, it's by, like, there is no sewing machine. It's all by hand.

And I think it can engage with a larger audience because ultimately you don't have to just buy, you don't have to be the person who's buying it. You can just see it as this kind of spectacle of it and I think people like the narrative behind it.

Yeah. Because that also puts you in dialogue with Mr. Dior himself.

How how did you find that? Did you did you feel...

I mean that because that's a very different kind of relationship for you working in fashion to have to have a a person like that?

Yeah. Because in my previous... In the previous job there wasn't that.

It was more like a manufacturing company. It was more like a craftsman.

So it was like a unit of people. Whereas in Dior you're up against multiple legacies. You know what I mean? Legacies that are forgotten.

multiple legacies. You know what I mean? Legacies that are forgotten.

Legacies that are very wellknown. Some of them are tremendously well-known, some of them are current, some of them are in the past.

So, you're kind of it's a very you're you're you're kind of dealing with odd voices that you have to kind of deal with, which are the brand itself.

You know, it's like well you have the the kind of legacy of "Dior", the museum, the the fashion book, you know, you have Saint Laurent, this like brief moment, like who then becomes you know Marc Bohan, who's more quieter, you know, you've John [Galliano] you know, ... you have all these voices and you're suddenly trying to like...

and the public imagination of what Dior is because in people's heads they have this like vision of what, no matter ...

Each generation has a certain vision of what Dior is.

They're not all the same, but you know, some of them might just be perfume and they have a very... it's like it's like throwing jewelry on the ground. It's like running through design, you know, like that could be their...

then you have like people who like know "Dior" because of Dior and the film and the story of the war and all of that. And then there's then there's like maybe my generation which is all about John like it was like "John mania".

So you're kind of dealing with a brand that ultimately means so much to people but you were trying to kind of try to find a, kind of, like, a doorway through it.

Did do you think your attitude changed, or your sense of what was possible, changed from the first show where you did that film with Adam Curtis, that was quite confrontational, to the couture which was I felt an embrace of beauty like I haven't seen you ever do before.

So there that felt like, it felt like a kind of, not a quantum leap, but it felt like definite shift.

It was definitely a shift. Yeah. But I think for me it's more about how long you're there. Like, you know, I know it sounds like a really kind of basic thing to say, but like women's was done in 27 days. So...

Whereas couture I had the time to sort of like get into the company, understand, meet people.

So instead of just being like "I need a jacket", now I know that it is this person who will do the jacket. Whereas before it was just like "where is the jacket coming from?" Like who's going to make it?

Then you work out what you want from them and how you collaborate.

Was that hard?

Yeah. Oh, I've learned so much. I mean, for me yeah in the beginning it was very hard because you're trying to juggle multiple plates.

You're trying to understand you're dealing with like the outside world, the real world. You're

kind of you're trying to know that what you are you have to kind of what I've realized, since the beginning of this year, is you have to always...

the key to the job ultimately is you have to always realize that you know where you're going.

No one else does, but you know where you're going. And you have to kind of like no matter how many things are going to be thrown into the thing, you have to kind of keep going.

Because I think you subconsciously do what is right.

When you say what is right, you mean for Dior or for you?

For me at Dior. And what's that dynamic now? I'm at one with that. I think I was in a like big conflict with it last year because I was like trying to like work out how do I how do I break this cycle? Like how do I break the brand? Like because

you're trying to grab onto it. You're it's like running after a horse and you're trying to like grab it and you're it goes faster than you're this year.

This year, I feel like you're kind of walking beside it and it's fine.

And you're kind of like, okay, the first show, as much as people may have been confused by it, was the right show to do in that moment. Sometimes you can get...

When you go into a brand that like everyone in the world knows, everyone has opinion on it. So, you're kind of you're being you're listening to like Jane from like Inverurie and you're like listening to see what she thinks about it and then you wake up in the morning, you're like, well, maybe Jane's right.

And how the hell do you hear Jane from Inverurie?

Cuz you just see everything. You just, do you know what I mean?

But like, you see everything.

And then I started to realize that, like, you have to trust the process of change.

And change ultimately means conflict. You cannot get change without conflict because ultimately you have to say to people this is the line and we're not going we're not going behind that line anymore. We're going this way now.

And and it takes time for people to kind of climatize to it.

So you have to assert yourself' You've had to assert yourself in a situation...

You have to be like that, because you know..

The the thing about Dior as you said it it it's not just a fashion house.

It's a cultural totem. It's one of the pillars of of France.

Yeah. So I would imagine asserting yourself requires you to uh be forceful in situations where people resist you.

So you must be you must you must have to fight. You have to you have to kind of, you have...

not it's not about fighting. You have to become quite stealth in it.

Because you because the thing is you're trying to always remember what the end goal is and not change midway.

Uh, how's your French?

I'm really bad at French. I was really bad at French at GCSE.

So, the Frenchness of Dior is another...

But I quite like Frenchness as a historical thing because I think, because I think there's something... What I like in Christian Dior is like he his obsession of the 18th century. I'm obsessed by English 18th century, which are very similar.

One is a bit more kind of tougher and one is a bit more flamboyant.

You know, like French furniture in the 18th century is a lot more ... um more gilded.

It's more there's it's way more over the top, whereas in Britain, we were kind of trying to copy it, but it was like kind of in a more crudder way, but it's a bit more big.

So, there's something which I like in the meeting of the two because there's something he was very into. He was an anglophile as well, like he was very into English art, English furniture, English houses, English aristocrats.

There was, you know, I like that there is a romance in that part of him.

Do you find, but are you finding a surprising compatibility aside from that when you're actually in Paris, you're working here, you're in this in this kind of... this this center of French culture?

Is it something, I mean, are you are you conscious of a sort of performance element for yourself that you have to it's different, you know, actor, you know, there's a role you have to...

I don't go in as the couturier in the morning, you know, there's not...

as much as people probably would love if it was like that, it is not like that it's very um, as my dad would say, it's very rag trade you go, for me it's very ongoing, you know.

The difference, ultimately, is that, from where I was before is that ultimately, yeah it's it's more different when you go to a restaurant, or you walk down the street.

It's a little that becomes a bit different, you know, and, you know, Paris is smaller than London as a city.

So you, you know, you have, to, you know, you deal with more recognition which takes a bit of time to get used to when you're kind of like, you know... Shy and retiring?

Well, not even that. Or you're quite animated on a phone or loud or, you know, you start to realize you can't be loud or animated on a phone. And and that takes a bit of time to get used to, like, and that and that happened quite quickly and that was a bit like, "Ooh, okay".

How do you cope with that then?

You're in a sort of ambassadorial role. Well, my father was a rugby player and I remember going to rugby matches and then people would ask for his autograph and do that kind of thing a nd I always find it like a nightmare.

I find it so embarrassing and I found it really...

Because it would take so long. So if you went to like when I went to go and see my dad play rugby, it would take forever to get out of the place.

My and my dad would talk forever to people. But you know it's part it's part of...

You know, fashion has changed since I started in fashion and fashion in the last 50 years has drastically changed because it there is part of it which is about the thing that we all love which is making clothing and doing it... But ultimately fashion has become part of

the entertainment business. It suddenly became entertainment.

You know, and I and that's where I struggled last year, I think, a bit because I...

in my head it was just like, oh, it's like going to Loewe, I'm going to take this job and I'm going to do the job.

It wasn't like... "Every single designer is moving.

The industry is ... every everything's in turmoil. It's going to be survival of the fittest. Which

one's going to win?" And it was like, wo, you know, you would go on Instagram and you were like, "Oh my god, like this is a nightmare".

And because you it was very like it was like intensified because ultimately became like it's like a TV show. Because everyone was like well "Who's going to be at the next house or what's going to happen who's like which show is going to be better or which..." It became this like it was it became quite

intense and it was not until I did the women's show that I realized when this guy, Yorn, came, who was the assistant to Christian Dio,r who's a very tall guy and he came and he was like, he came backstage before the show and he was like, you know, "Good luck for the show" and that was the moment where I was like, this is a nightmare, like this the whole thing,

is a nightmare, because you're kind of like in France it's like you know it's part.. it's like, there is this thing for this the revere, and I didn't have this revere, so then I was like trying to work out, "okay, okay this is important or but is it important?" I don't know, you know.

And it was not until like the show was done, I was like relieved like it was like, it was like, a kind of... like an emotional kind of like thank god this is over. You know, because it was like there's no, what is it going to be? Whereas the men's was completely different.

It was like very calm. It was very like two paintings in a room.

You either like the collection didn't like the collection.

It was very like... here is, here is a a slow...

and then it was I was like "Okay, this is this is easy".

This is going to be fine. It was not until women's I was like "Um..."

Because the anticipation of it you could feel it in Paris.

It was like which it was quite exciting. I'm sure when we look back on it would have been like it was a change. There was a big change in fashion of people moving, you know, it was like and two of the biggest houses suddenly were changing at the same time.

With two people who are very easy to sit opposite each other, you know, the same age, the same,...

You know, and someone who I can relate.

Irresistible tabloids though.

Yeah. So, you're and you know, and and you end up in this thing where you're kind of like you're just about trying to do the collection, not dealing with like the old global picture of the whole thing, which everyone was like you could feel. It was a very strange year.

How sensitive are you to that sort of outside stuff?

I am. I am. I'm I I'm human. Like I always thought you were a bit kind of I was I think I think sometime I think sometimes I probably have like a um I'm ultimately human. It

it can be tough some days because.. You're kind of like but why? Like why?

You're kind of like why do you not understand? Or like why can you not just like just give it time? Like we or just be slight you know like and but then you just kind of I think then you just become immune like which is scary as well.

I was in a in a situation in the web where I grew with the brand.

Now I'm in a big you go to the big brand you're you have to grow into it that way.

Whereas in Loewe it started that way, it started here people just got used to it.

People plus people didn't have expectation on it.

So I was so used to kind of just like doing a landscape that didn't have a fashion language really. It was a leather good language but it didn't have a fashion language. So anything you could do anything here there is a history of fashion language. So when you come, everyone's like, "Well, that's not Dior." You know, like the vest is like, "Oh, the coats are not Dior." And you're like,

"My coats are Dior." Like you would be like, , every single person, and you would be like, "Uh."

So then you realize that you have to just silo yourself in the end, you know, because there is the brand and then there's you and then there's you and the brand.

I was I was talking to a friend who was like telling me there was like maybe it's I I've never been to a psychiatrist but maybe one day I should but um there's this idea that you know there's there is there's like three Jonathans or like there's three times you know there's three levels of so there's like Jonathan work there is the outside thing and then there's you you know

so there like these different persona you have to put these different hats on so some days you have to be like someday it will be more personal and then some days you have to be more like Jonathan the design of the brand you know like this is you know which is a different mindset.

And sometimes you just have to smile. And sometimes you have to smile and...

as cliche and as boring as it will sound is like, I can only do my best, you know, and I love what I do I I get up every morning I love what I do, I... you have to kick me out of the office.

Cuz I I enjoy it. I really really enjoy it. Is it difficult? Of course, it's difficult. But I find I love a challenge. I love trying to be like, how am I going to work all this out to get a solution?

Even if it I go mad in the process, I enjoy the process of it.

You love business. So, do you see it as a sort of grand game in a way?

This level that you're at, where you're you've you have this um opportunity to these resources to be as creative as you could as you could dream of being.

At the same time, you you're you're at the top of this massive business that you can...

I always believe that creativity will make good business if it's done right. So, you need a partner in crime. So, I have Delphine. We work together to go how are we going to take the business from here to here. You cannot silo the two.

It never has worked in the history of fashion. It never worked because you have to kind of go we are going to use creative solutions to create money which then if we create money we create jobs then we can reinvest in something. I need someone to work with who enjoys that fusion, you know what I mean? So that's why I enjoy working with Delphine

because she has this... Delphine is very creative on bags, for example, and is very good at business. And I think we can have the debate and she's a good partner in that way because you're trying to like work out without arguing, you're trying to work out a solution, you know, and and I love that.

I could sit for days because I for me it's very for me it's like okay we've got 1 euro but we want to get to 5 euros. So you're just like well we just need to do this this this and this but I need to make sure that the product is this this this And this and then you kind of go okay well there's a goal so we're going that way.

So no matter what people think of the show, no matter what people are doing, you then know that you are going to make sure that you are ticking those boxes to make sure that I don't have people going but oh but it's not working because it's not a financial success.

You know because that's how it works.

But famously everybody knows what LVMH expects of you with Dior. You know you're supposed to take it from X billion dollars to Y billion dollars. And you have a game plan for that.

No, but I've been in LVMH for 11 years and I don't feel any pressure on that. The pressure come the most pressure that I get is from my own like from myself. There will be no one worse on me than myself because I will be like it could have been better. It could have been

this, it could have been that. Why is that person doing that?

Why are they why is that dress look like that? Why is this happening?

Every day is a kind of like correction of like we can do better.

Do you feel that this, you feel you were made for a job like this then?

Yeah. Know because I... If I don't enjoy it I wouldn't do it.

When I'm when I'm bored that's the problem.

Tell me about bored Jonathan. And in the three Jonathans which one is the bored one?

I think sometimes it can be me myself. If I'm at home and I feel bored, then I get very like my brain starts going, "Oh, well, why is this not going? Why did I..." You know, like for me, I need to be fueled.

You're not good with downtime.

No, but if I go on holiday, I'm good with downtime, but I will pack it out.

I will be like, "We're going to go to the beach, we go to a restaurant..."

It's like, I need to feel that I am continually propelling forward, is my... is what I

is my... is what I enjoy because it's like I like being around people.

I like it's like that is what turns me on. I like sitting there around and trying to work out cuz I know it will always work. I know it sounds crazy, but I know no matter I will do everything I can in myself to make it work even and I will take it all on because I feel like if I don't take

it on I don't have anything to fight for. So in a weird way I sometimes have to create the invisible enemy just to feel like I have something to be like to make it sort of like more competitive.

Who is the invisible enemy?

It could be anything.

It could be the most unexpected thing. It could be anything.

Usually for me it is very much a kind of target. I ask myself where the gap is in the whole thing.

For me fashion can only be new by finding the gaps, by finding what people are not focusing on, you know. It is not that I have never done anything with art before in my previous job or in my own brand. But I was thinking, ok well, that if I am in

Dior and we do art, it has to be different. It cannot be like the insular romantic world.

We can actually, in a weird way, we can actually make it about people.

People will know Dior and I can introduce them to someone like Magdalene Odundo, whom they may never have heard of.

For me that was the most rewarding thing that I have.

I had, my envision of couture was that I wanted to have school groups in the couture venue drawing. Because I saw, I went to see Magdalene's show and there were all these kids and I was like drawing the vase and drawing the dress is the same thing.

It's about volume. And I was like, if we can get people in then I feel like that is going to make up for everything.

And it did. I think that singular moment of having the bar jacket and Magdalene and the new dress and younger people with naive eyes looking at that and drawing. For me that was new, in that moment. That was the newest thing that I think happened in couture. Forget the collection.

It was quite a radical thing. There's the sense of mission in there does feel new really new. And that also is something that I found so kind of enchanting about that collection and, were you surprised that you were able to do that?

I knew exactly what it was going to be. Like I had worked on it for six months.

We had requested the works. We had gone to the archive and we had got the exact dresses. We had the right mannequin, the right platform, the right plaster, the kids book. Everything was done for it that I knew what it was going to be. The collection...

I was worried before like I was a bit worried because I think you I was I had done all these shows and people were like confused of what I was doing.

They didn't like no one was gravitating to it straight away and I was like "what the hell is going on?". But then I was realizing it's like this is a creative process, you know. It's like you know it's like if I was to do the perfect show on day one then you would switch off because it would be no progress. It has to go through progress.

That's what that is what I really believe in. I really believe in you put the work out and I think it was going to take a year for me to kind of put the work out.

But just creatively like with that couture collection you talked about wanting couture to be the foundation of the whole business, that will be the sort of crucible of ideas which has always been the notion of couture the laboratory, but never really translates like that in real life.

But it's like the kind of like, in a weird way, if Dior does not have couture as some sort of like reality, fantasy, lab, making, ideas, community... then for me it's the backbone of the entire brand.

It's the because it ultimately is the top of the tree.

So if it doesn't sit like this then you can't build off it.

Perfume can't go from it like you know what is the ambition in a weird way.

I believe that couture should be radical. I don't think by approaching it of us going okay well "what do you wear?" ultimately it is like well then "what is the commerce solution to it?" so you're already forcing it to a commerce instead of going "what is the idea?".

"What is the emotion of it?" Because that's why we love fashion that's why we all turn up to shows or we like watching people wear we want to see what the emotion is of it the desire. When you're at home when you're the third Jonathan is this what's in your head the whole time.? Do you stop thinking about this?

I can. When I get home though I go into things that are to do with my own like the house or am I painting a wall or am I going to hang this or I'm going to go for dinner. So when I go home it's not about performance.

It's about a reality. It's a very kind of like it's a real thing.

You're kind of like you know the boiler's not working.

And I want those sort of things. It's sort of like you know I like cleaning the house like reality. I like to be able to do that kind of part because I think it is very easy in this job to become like off the ground and I stand by I'm very very much on the ground. I know exactly who I am and I'm very happy of who

I am but the minute I feel like I'm getting off the ground I know it and I can feel it.

But then I had people like Ben [Benjamin Bruno] who will turn around and say get back.

How important is somebody like Ben?

He's been with you for through all your incarnations.

I trust Ben implicitly on everything I do because I think Ben is very good at foresighting.

He's very good at kind of like seeing something that's coming before it came.

And I like I need someone to argue with or to keep you in a place.

I like the kind of tension of it. And how many people like that do you have in your life? Well, creatively I have that one person.

And I think everyone you only can find you can't have multiple people like that.

You can only really have one person like that because then it keeps consistency.

So far with everything that's happened what are you most proud of at this moment?

Most proud of what am I most proud of?

That's a very difficult question Tim. Well nice to know that you haven't reached that point yet perhaps. No I am proud...

I was able to get here with the people that I wanted to come with me on this journey in one piece. I am proud that they have done...

I'm proud of the people that have excelled more than I thought they were going to do.

This for me because it means that I'm proud that I felt like I made the right decision.

I think that is the biggest thing because I think sometimes when you convince people to go on a journey with you there's always the thing in the back of your head is like have I dragged them on the wrong way. And I feel like...

That makes me happy like really happy. On a personal part, I probably way more improvement. I think I need to spend more time with family.

I think I need you know there's a lot of I not more time traveling or traveling or seeing the I would like to see the world more. Are you afraid of anything?

At the moment no. I think ultimately I'm always afraid that there would be no work there would be nothing to do. Boredom is probably my biggest fear.

You know like to be that there's nothing new that I discovered.

It's probably I'm sure if I sat down with somebody they would be like this is why.

But as a compulsion I feel like every day I need to learn something.

When you work with someone who can like who just does tailoring like there was this guy who works with us called Rocco and you would look at this garment and you be like I wanted like this and he would be like with this and this and this and you're watching this person manipulate this thing and you're kind of like "wow, I know nothing".

It's the most amazing feeling because then when I see him in the fitting I'm like looking at him to try to learn what he is doing. I don't need to do it but I want to understand it because then the next collection I will be like okay well we did this maybe if we push that or we can do this then you have this dialogue with someone.

And that for me is... if you don't have that on the day that's why I think if I was retired I would have to be a gardener because there would always be a problem in the garden.

There would always be there's four seasons there's always going to be leaves to mop up there's always things to be planted. There's always something to be done.

And solutions are so satisfying when you're gardening.

So that would be the only way that would which has always been my kind of like that would be the only other solution after doing a job like this because you would need something that would be from morning to evening that you would be like okay well I have to cut the grass here.

I have to do this and if I don't do this it's going to be this if I don't water it.

It will not stop. And in a weird way Dior is like that.

It is a garden. Every day you have to go there and you have to make sure everything's working. And you have to give everyone air time because if not they start to wilt and then they feel like they're not supported.

So then in a weird way it would have to be something like that in the end.

I've always thought to myself how you wouldn't go mad.

And Dior is the ultimate distraction from boredom as well.

Yeah. Doesn't stop.

Who knew. Who knew.