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| Let us go back to a time far, far away when the Italian men’s magazine, L’Uomo Vogue, presented new and exciting designers, in tune with the world they lived in and devoid of the stultification that would stop them from morphing to continue to reflect it. This may seem ludicrous if you never had the chance to see the magazine in the 70s but it once presented something beside cocktail dresses worn by celedebutantes, star designers and dream weekends in Spanish villas reminiscent of the manicured emptiness Antonioni relentlessly exposed in his films. Two promising unknowns called Armani and Versace were unleashed in a terse, two paragraphs blurb at the back of a 1977 issue and they put forward new silhouettes, fabrics and philosophy that captivated the young Geoffrey. Here were designers that would turn men’s clothing design on its head and set the pace for what would be worn throughout the 80s. Since childhood, Small had continually expressed himself through illustrations; |
 Hand made jackets hang dry in the Cavarzere sun as part of Small's special hand dyeing process. |
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| drawing
the “toys he could not
have” (can a kid ever have all the toys he wants?
Get your children a
pen and some sketchpads!), a passion that evolved
during his
adolescence to sketching clothes he wished he
could purchase, many of
them found at the venerable Boston retail
institution, Louis Boston. “They were one of the very first retailers in America to start introducing what was really going on at the time in European design, especially Italy. I started getting serious about a career in the field, and wanted to work there and learn from them, but it didn’t work out that way…” |
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) Most of Small's design pieces are dyed by hand, an arduous and time consuming process that is centuries-old. |
Unable to secure
employment at the
exclusive store of his dreams, Geoffrey started
working at The Gap, a
retail company more open to hiring an
inexperienced 17-year old boy. He
enrolled at a local fashion design school,
spending his days working
the sales floor selling and folding jeans and his
evenings beginning to
learn the prosaic but highly useful techniques of
patternmaking,
construction and sketching. The year of 1979 turned out to be pivotal for Geoffrey as, through his schooling, he was able to participate and went on to beat over 14,000 entrants, winning the ILGWU “America’s Next Great Designer Awards” the largest student design competition in North America. The following year Small’s talent was again recognized at the ILGWU, now boasting 20,000 entries, by a prestigious jury composed of the likes of Bill Blass, Elsa Klensch, Calvin Klein and Geoffrey Beene. |
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| Geoffrey
would go on to win more design competitions, often
boldly disregarding
the dominant American aesthetic of the times and
surprising juries with
his use of the brash silhouettes and understated
colours inspired by
the movement Giorgio Armani had started in Italy. Now having caught the eye of a few American recruiters he was tempted to make his entry into the world of NYC fashion houses but he quickly found out that, although the innovative silhouettes he inked on paper genuinely impressed his potential employers, the need of the American mass market meant he would have to tone them down so much as to make them undistinguishable from the comparatively bland American designs of the times. Geoffrey remembers with his typical humour a meeting with Stanley Kimmel, the president of Jones Apparel Group in New York (which now produces a large part of Ralph Lauren’s collections), to discuss his taking over the men’s design position, who, praising his sketches, proposed a few, minor, modifications: “Nice shoulders but we’d need to make them a little narrower! Excellent waist suppression but our clients can be quite portly, let’s remove some of it! Beautiful choice of wrinkled fabric, but highly inappropriate for the bankers and lawyers that need a more conservative suit!”, the final result ended up being so watered down that it was identical to what the company had been putting on the racks for years. |
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| “My passion was never to
do what
was already being done by others, especially in
the U.S.. I wanted to
take it to another level. At the time, believe or
not, Milan was the
super-cutting edge of world avant-garde. They were
doing what everybody
was eventually going to do after them. And that’s
exactly what I
eventually wanted to do with my own work. I talked
to other designer
colleagues whom I met in various competitions—all
of them prize-winners
and they were all in the same boat. I realized
then and there, that I
would have to control my own production and run my
own business in
order to be able to design the clothes I wanted
to. Nobody else was
going to make it happen, except me.”
By this
time, beginning to be able to sew, he decided
to start a
small laboratory business, making clothes for
friends using an old
Singer sewing machine and the space available in
his parent’s attic.
This focus on the use of the basic
skills of the trade
and a belief in
self-reliance stayed with him to
this day. |
) Handmade late 19th century 14-button double-breasted babysoft hand dyed Piacenza cashmere and silk jacket. |
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| Without being
part of the
punk musical and artistic movement emerging in NYC
at the time, Small,
always sensitive to social undercurrents, soaked
in the do-it-yourself
ethic of those years and applied it to a calling
of his own. Do it yourself These encounters with the business-minded but conservative American market only served to reinforce Small’s DIY ways. He opted to continue building his small company and trying to teach himself the tailoring techniques of past masters. This, arguably intransigent way of doing things, may seem counterproductive for a young designer trying to break through but Small readily admits that wanting to be a designer’s designer is, to him, worth paying a commercial price. Geoffrey was and remains the talented indie act that progresses at his own pace but remains relevant, thirty years later, having seen more high-profile designers come and go, without ever feeling the need to put down or attack those choosing a different way. The intensive technical and business experiences of the 80s would lead him to become, at the dawn of 1990, the man behind the leading bespoke tailoring house in Boston. He offered, in his Newbury street ateliers, painstakingly constructed suits for men and women, counting among his clients such diverse individuals as the Governor of Massachusetts and pop act New Kids on the Block. |
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| Geoffrey shows a deep
respect for the intricate
work of bespoke tailoring, “an honourable
profession when done right”,
as he pointedly reminds us. The relationship is
personal and often
extends over a long stretch of time resulting in
numerous outfits
reflecting the meeting of the tailor and client’s
personalities,
lifestyles and interests. To Small dressing
someone is not a science
where a golden ratio must be respected to ensure
optimal results, but
an applied art that gives credence to individual
quirks. Here the
technical meets the relational. “People talk with
their clothes. They
say who they are, or who they want to be. A great
tailor has to get
into people’s heads, know their bodies and their
needs, and then create
and execute the very best solutions for that one
person. You have to
really know your client. And you have to be a real
master of your art
and craft. Unlike runway ready-to-wear, you can’t
fake it. You have to
look your customer in the eye, right there in
person. There is nowhere
to hide.” With
that being said, Geoffrey after almost a decade
and half of
learning the tradition now felt ready to add to
the fashion symphony a
few notes of his own, and that is why he started
showing ready to wear
collections in Paris in 1992, notably presenting
his second collection
at the original Paris sur Mode salon organized
by Jean-Pierre Fain, an
alternative event held outside traditional
venues, on the banks of the
Seine. Fashion insiders had the chance to
discover his work alongside
the comeback collection by Roberto Cavalli and
the very first Carpe
Diem collection by Maurizio Altieri. |
)
Hand washed Piacenza cashmere
& wool
topcoat with real horn buttons. artisan-made in Parma. |
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| “It was exciting.
Nobody from America
had ever showed in Paris before us except
Patrick Kelly,
who had moved there and died very young, and
Oscar de
La Renta who of course was
very
classic and
ladies-who-lunch. And
nobody had ever
tried to do Paris avant-garde from
the
U.S.. We were the first, and we had to go up
against the likes
of Comme, Yohji, Martin, Helmut Lang, the
first-wave of Belgians (Ann,
Dirk,), all of them pioneers. And believe me, they
were kicking out
tremendous work in those days; the best in the
world. At the time
nobody in the circuit thought Americans could even
hold a candle in
Paris…could create first-in-the-world design work,
American designers
were known strictly as giant commercial copiers
who sold only in their
home country. We were poor, went over there on a
shoestring. But we
were hungry, and focused on our Art, and made an
impression when we
started, and after a few years there was a wave of
Americans showing in
Paris from Jeremy Scott to Marc Jacobs, to Rick
Owens and even Tom
Ford. Prior to us, there was no one. We opened the
door. People would
ask us why do you show in Paris instead of New
York? I always told them
Paris is the most competitive designer arena in
the world, it’s where
the Art form lives or dies. Each time you get back
in, it makes you get
better.” To this day Geoffrey B. Small stills present collections in Paris, now eschewing runway presentations to focus on the visceral experience of the showroom, an environment where the clothes, unadorned by theatrical flourishes, are there to be touched and viewed as they will be approached in shops and seen in the wardrobes of discerning wearers. Geoffrey remains to this day the American designer with the longest, uninterrupted presence on the Parisian fashion calendar (now on his 63rd Paris avant-garde collection), having been over the years praised by Collezioni, Vogue, Women’s Wear Daily and the perceptive Pierre Bergé. You may also remember a feature on his 2006 collection, “An Ode to Toussaint Louverture”, shot by the ever-present Karl Lagerfeld. Tradition and modernity |
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| While the Geoffrey B.
Small story presented
earlier may be construed as a run of the mill rag
to riches narrative,
replete with references to humble beginnings and
concluding on the high
note of Parisian consecration, it mainly serves to
highlight his
approach to learning and growth. Having taken to
heart the mantra of
Mr. Armani, who stressed the importance of knowing
the entire process,
Small took it a step further and elected to take
direct control of it.
Most fashion companies are run like typical
corporations where the
skills that are judged central to the brand, such
as sketching and
design are kept in-house and everything else,
production being a major
example, is subcontracted. In a sense this mirrors
the transition from
art to commercial art enterprise that such high
profile conceptual
artists as Damien Hirst and Takashi Murakami,
inspired by Andy Warhol,
have perfected by coming up with ideas and overall
designs and
commissioning a third party to ensure production.
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Hand tea dyed Varese superfine pure linen hand made jacket and waistcoat. |
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|
While
the final product is often of high technical
quality, the value is mainly derived
from the idea and the “branded image” of the
artist. We are reminded of
the exchange between Hirst and one of his
collaborators handling the
actual creation of a series of dot paintings,
where she requested he
sign a work she made for herself, knowing full
well the value resided
in the provenance of the signature and not the
physical object. Small has a different approach, like a traditional artist or artisan, he puts as much effort in the crafting of his garments as he does in perfecting the designs. “Most consumers and designers don’t understand that the making is the design. A designer is always limited by his production. You’re only as good as what your production is capable of making. The better we can make things, the better the things we can design. To design the best clothes in the world, you have to be able to be the best clothes-maker in the world. This has been our continuing mission since 1979.” This
applies to his supplier network as well. With
almost a decade
in Italy, not in Milan, where virtually nothing
is made anymore, but in
the rural hinterlands across northern Italy
where the real guts of the
Italian textile and clothing industry are found,
he has slowly built up
tight relationships with the very best fabric,
material and accessories
makers in the country—the absolute top of “made
in Italy.” From the
world’s oldest woollen mill and greatest
cashmere house Fratelli
Piacenza in Pollone Biella (founded in 1733), to
the last remaining
handmade button-makers in Italy (Parma), to
individual medieval artisan
specialists in shoe-making and metalworking
design—Small’s ability to
make unique, beautiful and valuable works
continues to expand deep
roots backed by an ever strengthening
foundation. |
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For Spring/Summer 2010 he is going even further, for the first time being able to be completely involved in the making of the cloth itself, that he will, as before, later cut and sew. He has developed a unique relationship with Luigi Parisotto and his family, who collectively have over a century of fabric weaving and making experience. The Parisottos are located north of Vicenza, in the town of Sarcedo, at the foothills of the alps. Small describes their partnership as the collaboration of two master artists, going above and beyond a simple fabric supplier-designer relationship. Able to discuss thread count, types of cotton, linen or cashmere compositions and modes of yarn spinning and weaving, he can clearly share his vision for the completed product and has convinced his partner to create small runs of slowly spun, peculiar fabrics, with a tactile feel of beautiful irregularity reminiscent of pre-Industrial materials. To further relay that unique influence, Small foregoes the final steps of normal factory finishing and washing fabrics and handles this crucial part by hand himself, going as far as to do every piece in the bathroom of his apartment studio in Cavarzere. The normalizing process of washing and chemically finishing, helping to give fabric its smooth, even sheen is thus subverted, or rather brought back to its original form, and results in uniquely wrinkled materials, ensuring distinct results for each piece coupled with enormous reductions in carbon emissions and chemical impacts to local water and environment. Taking advantage of his bespoke tailoring years, Geoffrey designs, cuts and constructs each garment by hand with the help of a small team of 4 highly trained, dedicated and disciplined designer-tailor associates. Casual, uncanvassed jackets with hand-stitched collars, real hand stitched buttonholes (a job requiring 8 to 10 minutes per buttonhole), hand finished sleeve cuffswith working buttonholes and, ultimate rarity, hand stitched lapel holes. |
) Hand dyed Varese low gauge handmade pure linen trouser, vintage leather suspenders and straw, nut and wood buttons. |
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| The
pieces, light as
feathers, mould to the wearer’s body and stand as
shining examples of
the disappearing art of hand-made garments. To use
an automotive
example the typical designer suit would be a
Mercedes, the result of a
well-oiled factory process privileging
cutting-edge machinery and a
posteriori quality control with each worker
handling a separate piece
of the puzzle. A Geoffrey B. Small blazer or pair
of pants is a
lovingly crafted custom Rolls Royce, or better yet
a Koenigsegg, each
piece hand finished by a worker who is in fact,
the designer himself,
handling the whole process and ensuring a perfect
integration of all
parts, a time consuming labour of love that few
are willing to even
learn, let alone put into practice. Such an
uncompromising, pre-modern,
and in Small’s view, post-modern approach results
in unparalleled
quality but has its price; less than 500 Geoffrey
B. Small garments are
made each season and they can only be found at
exclusive boutiques
catering to a crowd of passionate clients, looking
for the human magic
of the unusual in a world of mass-produced
repetition. By moving the
fetishism to the process, Geoffrey has managed to
remove it from the
commodity, creating an item that derives its value
from the quality and
the spirit of its construction, materials and
design.
The designer & the world in which he lives; an ethic of fashion design I-D
magazine in their classic “Fashion Now” books
profiling top
fashion designers often ask their interviewees
their feeling on the
possibility fashion has of changing the world we
live in, most choose
to dodge the question to concentrate on their
love of pretty shoes.
Geoffrey does not wait for you to ask; he dives
right in to the topic
and makes it the centerpiece of a well-rounded
conversation. To him,
designers are linked to the world they live in
as fish are to the sea,
while his peers may chose to live in a pristine
aquarium he knows the
world affects him and hopes to do his small part
to exert a positive
influence on it. |
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) Hand dyed Vercelli silk, wool & viscose waistcoat with Varese silk & cotton superlight hand dyed trouser. |
“Fashion is an Art.
That’s why I do it. And
artists have a responsibility to themselves and
their audience. For
those of us lucky enough to still be in this line
of work–To speak the
truth, not lie about it. And to do whatever we can
to make life better
for people, not just an elite few. And these days…
there is plenty to
do.”
Being based in Italy he has seen the ravages of delocalisation that has left large numbers of textile and clothing workers unable to find work after the closing of their factories. The labour market is not kind to people that only know how to sew a pocket once their initial workplace closes. In this light, his urge to get to know the full process and to become an iterative learner takes a prescient edge. “For
those of us in Italy who are still practicing
masters of our
work in all the related fields, our biggest |
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| concerns
are about finding
and educating a new generation of masters who can
carry the crafts
forward. Otherwise, the skills and the know-how
will be lost forever. I
teach all the time. But it is very challenging
today, and difficult to
find young people willing to pay the real price
necessary for achieving
mastery in an Art. It’s a lifelong commitment, and
it’s not about easy
stardom or quick money. It’s a disciplined way of
life that requires
sacrifice, commitment, talent, passion and
patience. And it’s not at
all easy, especially in the current decade.” The fashion world has become a way for him to communicate his concern to others and act as a mirror in which we may contemplate the present. As an American concerned with the direction his country of origin was taking after the tragic events of September 11, he was the first in Paris to come out publicly against the upcoming invasion of Iraq (January 2003), in January of the next year he presented the “Brumaire revisited” collection, a Napoleonic-themed show that preceded a slew of similarly inspired collections or pieces by the likes of John Galliano, Chanel, Dolce & Gabbana, Dior Homme and Undercover. While the influence of this landmark 2004 collection on the fashion scene is undeniable, it also allowed Small to get across his position regarding pre-emptive wars and aggressive international policies, a subtext that was not as easy to recuperate as the beautiful 18th century military outfits displayed on the runway. Finding much inspiration in the garment designs of the past and faithful to his method of assimilation followed by innovation, he managed to apply the same mindset to his messages. The middle-ages were recontextualized in the years following 2006, as Geoffrey compared growing social inequalities to a form of new global feudalism, explored the place of women in current social hierarchy, discussed the growing problem of illiteracy in modern societies, and introduced some of the world’s first clothing designed to address global warming. |
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 Special real horn buttons are finished by Small |
“To me today’s
avant-garde is about the inside of clothes, how
they
feel and how they last, how they protect you.
People cannot afford to
only deal with exteriors now. It’s not about the
outside anymore. Of
course, it has to look good, it has to fit, and it
has to be cool—but
there are landfills of that kind of stuff
available right now. And the
customer knows it. Show me something that will
keep you alive and
comfortable if you lose your house tomorrow, a
tragedy faced by 1 in
every 50 people in the world in 2008. I feel a lot
of cool designers
and stores are still back in the late 90’s/early
2000’s mentality, but
I lost interest. Been there. Many of them are my
friends. But I am
really on to a different thing. Every piece I make
now has to be
comfortable, really comfortable–good
enough to sleep in. For ten years. It has
to have a visual story inside that may be more poignant than the exterior... |
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| I spend more
on linings and buttons than a lot others
are spending on their main
fabrics. The idea is to have no carbon or methane
footprint, no
plastic, poly, chemicals, landfill problems,
unsustainability, animal
cruelty, human exploitation or
slavery in its
manufacture. We have a
higher component of handwork in our clothes than
any collection showing
in Paris. Handwork is carbon neutral and builds
craft and gives dignity
to people who do the work….Something that’s worth
every penny you
spent, doesn’t hurt anybody, lasts you a lifetime,
makes you feel good,
and yes, looks really good too, every time you put
it on. That’s the
new direction fashion needs to take, and that’s
where I am focused. The
world’s greenest designer concept at the Paris
collections-level.” |
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| While not every designer
discussed by Scoute makes his principles as
explicit and readily intelligible as Geoffrey B.
Small, it is this
shared ethos that draws us to their work. They
have respect for
tradition that follows the dictum of learning,
imitation then followed
by innovation; they treat seasonality as a way to
build upon a corpus
of work instead of an ever-changing attempt at
aimless renewal ; they
value craftsmanship and technical knowledge and
they realize that a
broad cultural horizon that goes beyond fashion is
the way to bring
soul to a design thus capturing that indefinable
quality that makes a
garment a passageway to the wearer’s individual
expression. Human
rapport is central and not mediated by countless
faceless entities;
creators participate in the whole process, from
fabric weaving to
dealing with store buyers. |
) Expensive pure silk Bozzolo Reale Milan threads used for handstitched buttonholes and hand detail work. |
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| "It’s about 30 years of work, people, and resources, putting it all together, and making the very best clothes we possibly can with everything we’ve got. Then raising the bar one more time even higher for the next time… that’s what makes it fun.” | |||
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Interviewed
by Maxime B.
Photos courtesy of Pierre Gayte and Geoffrey B.
Small
visit www.geoffreybsmall.net