![Since 2006 Boris Bidjan Saberi has been setting the bar for menswear. Creating ranges that stay true to the designers philosophy of functionality and modernity with an avant garde twist. Nabil Azadi sat down with the designer to discus isolation, teaching and balance.
Nabil Azadi: Here in the atelier it becomes even more evident the extent to which your proportions are enshrined in every collection. Do you still enjoy the idea of that placement of one person’s form onto another’s?
Boris Bidjan Saberi: Of course – this is one of the strange qualities of ready-to-wear. I can’t make the same patterns as anyone else who works from their bodies for the simple reason that we were all built differently, and if this is where it starts from, then they cannot be the same. Maybe from far away it all looks like a slur of black. Maybe even the silhouette is similar but then I’ll just be happy that someone else arrived there because I did all the way from here.
NA: How good do you think isolation is for work?
BS: Here in Montserrat, I like to have visitors and to be a good host, to make sure people feel comfortable and to take the time to be with them because I have to also – it feels like a job. I learnt this from my Iranian parents thought it’s not t’aarof. It’s just taking and giving and deriving pleasure from them equally. So this is in part why I couldn’t work in a bigger city – in wanting to be good with people, I would interrupt myself every second. I’ll have fun but then I won’t work. I think you have to find a good way to your own egoism.
NA: What do you think the best balance to that is?
BS: With my own work, I remind myself that I am my own final consumer – and having to wear something after I make it keeps me grounded in simplicity. My mother – always credited in these conversations with many things – gave me the aesthetic of a garment with one thoughtful twist. For me it is much more about this struggle to remain subtle and sturdy. I find those parameters difficult and tiresome as much as I find them interesting and they keep me from getting proud. My route was never that of the visionary avant-garde creator. I want a normal jacket in the end rather than a jacket that pretends to be visionary for a few brief moments before falling to pieces.
NA: How do you find working with the students at [fashion design] institute in Basel plays into this?
BS: For me teaching is part of being kind and being social and not losing the influence of younger people… and not becoming a crazy old man living in a small town. It’s not fear that drives this so much as an appreciation for what I get out of it: I become more open and I feel movement. I learn from these things myself.
NA: It seems that you have a lot of respect for the pressure people feel to be exceptionally fulfilled by their work.
students – or you or anybody – and help them go on in the right direction. There are students who think they will be designing clothes and struggle onwards with no reward and it hurts me because if I think I have an idea of where their passion and strength lies, I have to hurt them and say that I think another way is the right one for them. I know well that people change and maybe in some years they’ll be living this life differently and so suited for different tasks but because I never changed so much, I always feel the need to say it.
BS: What makes me really happy is if I take one of my
NA: Finding the most expedient way of being satisfied through one’s work…
BS: It’s no easy task. Time is rushing by us so quickly and doing this takes such a long time and I lose so much time. It’s been six years or so now and I almost believe that if I could go back to when I didn’t have to think about every little piece of shit and then how to stitch it, I would go back.
NA: What do you make of the penchant both our fathers had to change their line of work often, always finding new territories in which to flourish?
BS: Like them I’ve tried a lot of things but I won’t continue as I once did. I have come to a good intersection of what I enjoy. All the roads I travelled and the things I did before designing clothing were connected to it. To put everything down on paper, it wouldn’t be hard to join the dots backwards. I’m not more special than anybody else – I just know my obsession and my capacity. [laughing] And maybe I seem very secure but it’s not always the case. This is just one of a few things that I know very well.
NA: Can you still appreciate how fortunate you are to know these things?
BS: Oh, yeah! [laughing] I can hardly forget it. I think about it 111% of the time.
NA: And the rest of the time?
BS: [laughing] I’m working.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lzelmvulrQ1r5yc70o1_1280.jpg)
Since 2006 Boris Bidjan Saberi has been setting the bar for menswear. Creating ranges that stay true to the designers philosophy of functionality and modernity with an avant garde twist. Nabil Azadi sat down with the designer to discus isolation, teaching and balance.
Nabil Azadi: Here in the atelier it becomes even more evident the extent to which your proportions are enshrined in every collection. Do you still enjoy the idea of that placement of one person’s form onto another’s?
Boris Bidjan Saberi: Of course – this is one of the strange qualities of ready-to-wear. I can’t make the same patterns as anyone else who works from their bodies for the simple reason that we were all built differently, and if this is where it starts from, then they cannot be the same. Maybe from far away it all looks like a slur of black. Maybe even the silhouette is similar but then I’ll just be happy that someone else arrived there because I did all the way from here.
NA: How good do you think isolation is for work?
BS: Here in Montserrat, I like to have visitors and to be a good host, to make sure people feel comfortable and to take the time to be with them because I have to also – it feels like a job. I learnt this from my Iranian parents thought it’s not t’aarof. It’s just taking and giving and deriving pleasure from them equally. So this is in part why I couldn’t work in a bigger city – in wanting to be good with people, I would interrupt myself every second. I’ll have fun but then I won’t work. I think you have to find a good way to your own egoism.
NA: What do you think the best balance to that is?
BS: With my own work, I remind myself that I am my own final consumer – and having to wear something after I make it keeps me grounded in simplicity. My mother – always credited in these conversations with many things – gave me the aesthetic of a garment with one thoughtful twist. For me it is much more about this struggle to remain subtle and sturdy. I find those parameters difficult and tiresome as much as I find them interesting and they keep me from getting proud. My route was never that of the visionary avant-garde creator. I want a normal jacket in the end rather than a jacket that pretends to be visionary for a few brief moments before falling to pieces.
NA: How do you find working with the students at [fashion design] institute in Basel plays into this?
BS: For me teaching is part of being kind and being social and not losing the influence of younger people… and not becoming a crazy old man living in a small town. It’s not fear that drives this so much as an appreciation for what I get out of it: I become more open and I feel movement. I learn from these things myself.
NA: It seems that you have a lot of respect for the pressure people feel to be exceptionally fulfilled by their work.
students – or you or anybody – and help them go on in the right direction. There are students who think they will be designing clothes and struggle onwards with no reward and it hurts me because if I think I have an idea of where their passion and strength lies, I have to hurt them and say that I think another way is the right one for them. I know well that people change and maybe in some years they’ll be living this life differently and so suited for different tasks but because I never changed so much, I always feel the need to say it.
BS: What makes me really happy is if I take one of my NA: Finding the most expedient way of being satisfied through one’s work… BS: It’s no easy task. Time is rushing by us so quickly and doing this takes such a long time and I lose so much time. It’s been six years or so now and I almost believe that if I could go back to when I didn’t have to think about every little piece of shit and then how to stitch it, I would go back. NA: What do you make of the penchant both our fathers had to change their line of work often, always finding new territories in which to flourish? BS: Like them I’ve tried a lot of things but I won’t continue as I once did. I have come to a good intersection of what I enjoy. All the roads I travelled and the things I did before designing clothing were connected to it. To put everything down on paper, it wouldn’t be hard to join the dots backwards. I’m not more special than anybody else – I just know my obsession and my capacity. [laughing] And maybe I seem very secure but it’s not always the case. This is just one of a few things that I know very well. NA: Can you still appreciate how fortunate you are to know these things? BS: Oh, yeah! [laughing] I can hardly forget it. I think about it 111% of the time. NA: And the rest of the time? BS: [laughing] I’m working.
