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Givenchy’s fearless creative director on the models, muses and
#family that inspired his incredible A/W ’15 collection
THE MUSES OF
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Riccardo Tisci
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V
ictorian chola isn’t an aesthetic one would immediately
associate with a storied French fashion house, even one
headed by an Italian designer known for his rich Gothic
influences. So when Givenchy’s Riccardo Tisci sent models
at his Autumn/Winter 2015 ready-to-wear show out with
forthright facial jewellery and kiss curls plastered to their
foreheads, heads well and truly turned.
Tisci says he has always been fascinated by Victoriana, and has
a great love for Latin culture. For Givenchy’s exquisite Autumn/
Winter 2010 haute couture collection he used bone zippers and
skeletons of pearl sewed onto silk duchesse satin, details inspired
by Mexican Day of the Dead celebrations and artist Frida Kahlo.
Yet he’s also known for embracing ethereal looks in white and
cream. “In my shows and collections, I am not a person with one
identity,” he explains. “The word may be ugly, but my work is
schizophrenic in lots of ways.”
The ornate face embellishments we saw this season are another
extension of Tisci’s flair for the striking, while also being a way to
make us look at the faces as closely as we do the clothes. That’s
because Tisci doesn’t share the widespread fashion belief that
models are just clotheshorses, employed merely to wear and walk.
When we’re watching a Givenchy show, Tisci says, we should pay
as much attention to the models as we do to the clothes. “At the end
of the day,” he says, “a show is not just made out of the clothes, it’s
made out of emotion.”
Tisci is vocal about the place and importance of the muse and
the personality of the people who wear his clothes, whether on
or off the runway, within the mythology of his reign at Givenchy.
“For me, models mean a lot because they’re not just presenting
my collection; they’re really giving it life,” he says. “A really
good model has personality; it doesn’t matter if she is famous or
unknown.” Tisci is constantly searching for girls with that certain
something. “When I was a kid, Gianni Versace created the moment
of the top models with Helena Christensen, Linda Evangelista… so
it was a little bit in my blood.” What is he looking for? “I always go
for a strong, fierce, bold, intelligent woman.”
One of his most enduring collaborators, Mariacarla Boscano,
is a friend from a time before he came to Givenchy. “I have many
muses. But I’d say my Audrey [Hepburn], the one who defines
what my style is and fits my universe in every way, is Mariacarla
Boscono,” he says. “We were friends, we were young, we were
naive, we were just enjoying studying and enjoying London as club
kids. I could see a potential in her, and she could see my potential.”
He credits her for being one of the first people to believe in him,
and she appears time and again in his campaigns, the face that
encapsulates Tisci’s Givenchy.
Tisci famous for being fearless when it comes to his casting,
and is credited with launching the careers of Joan Smalls and Lara
Stone. He has featured Ming Xi, Lakshmi Menon, Grace Bol and
Chanel Iman both on the runway and in campaigns. In 2010 he
discovered and cast transgender model Lea T at a time when it
wasn’t yet trendy to be associated with the transgender community.
The models he casts often become part of his close coterie; the T in
Lea’s chosen name is for Tisci.
“We’ve known each other for so long,” he says of their
relationship. “I was there during her most difficult times and the
best ones.” Considered a pioneer for trans models, and paving the
way for the likes of Hari Nef, Inés-Loan Rau and Andreja Pejic to
walk the runway, Lea T was on the brink of a downward spiral after
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facing rejection from her family and friends for wanting to undergo
gender reassignment surgery.
Tisci stepped in and cast her in the campaign, he has said in
a past interview, “to help Lea financially, and because who says so
that a transsexual cannot be a top model?” It seems that people are
agreeing with him: last year, Lea T became the face of Redken’s
global campaign, marking the first time a transgender model has
ever landed a starring role with a cosmetics brand.
Tisci’s casting of Puerto Rican model Joan Smalls as an exclusive
for the S/S ’10 haute couture show was remarked upon at the time,
along with Givenchy’s more diverse than usual set of girls on the
runway. This was not so much a conscious decision for Tisci as
something he did simply because it fit his aesthetics. “I opened
my second couture show with nine black girls; some of them I’d
discovered, some of them were established like Naomi Campbell
or Liya Kebede,” he says. “I remember all the magazines talking
about the casting, and that surprised me. People make such a big
deal about using black girls in your casts, but it shouldn’t be a big
deal — it should be normal.”
Tisci’s friends aren’t just people he hangs out with who happen
to grace the pages of magazines — he has made clear that they are
family. His Instagram captures moments with Kim Kardashian
and Kanye West, whom he calls one of his closest friends, Naomi
Campbell, Madonna, Courtney Love and Joan Smalls among many
more celebrities. And check the joyous hashtags to see how he feels
about them: #love, #angel, #gang and #family are all regulars. In a
way, it was Tisci’s championing of the different, the alternative and
the not necessarily ‘fashionable’ that led to him to befriend Kim
Kardashian at a time when few high fashion labels would dress her.
Now she has appeared on the cover of countless fashion magazines
and starred in campaigns for Balmain.
So important is family to Tisci that he made it the centre of
Givenchy by Riccardo Tisci’s A/W ’15 campaign. The cast of the
#Family campaign reads like a collective of Tisci’s collaborators:
Joan Smalls, Kendall Jenner, Kanye West, Jessica Chastain, Mica
Arganaraz, Jamie Bochert, Akimoto Kozue, Candice Swanepoel,
Stella Lucia, muse Mariacarla Boscono, American footballer Victor
Cruz and Chinese pop singer and actress Chris Lee. But one name
made more headlines than the rest: By casting Donatella Versace,
Tisci is blurring the lines between creator and consumer, competitor
and collaborator. “I believe in breaking rules,” Versace captioned
her black-and-white campaign photo on Instagram. “I want to get
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rid of the old system, support each other and make fashion a true
global community.” And no one will be a stronger ally in that than
Riccardo Tisci.
“Your cast should have everything that is related to your world
and your aesthetic,” insists Tisci. “It doesn’t matter what their race
is, what their gender or sexuality is, you should represent beauty
— beauty is beauty.”
Too often it feels like a designer manufactures a friendship
with a celebrity for commercial reasons, but with Tisci there’s no
doubting his sincerity. “We have never approached celebrities [or]
models in the usual way,” he says. “We don’t consider any of these
people our ambassadors. When I work with someone, it’s always
a collaboration. I don’t push my vision on them; I want them to
feel like themselves. I respect them all and they are not marketed
choices. They are relationships that come from the heart. They are
my friends, my family, and that is how they become my muses.” 
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