Francis Picabia

Transparence

Olivier Theyskens autumn—winter 1999—00.

For the Winter of 1999-2000 he wanted an extremely refined collection, with the occasional discord. The unity of his monochrome silhouettes was broken by several mannequins on the runway, enfolded in impressive constructions of material. “L’antinomique de l’extrémisme”, as he puts it himself. 

Olivier Theyskens: I wanted this collection to be extreme. Monochrome black, with a touch of blue and white. At the same time there was the desire to go beyond the extreme, to show the absurd.

The hardest thing is to finish a collection, to see what you want to see. It’s like a Brazilian who has made his carnival costume: he’ll spend six months making it, the stress for him will be that everything has to be perfect at the moment of the carnival parade. 

The history of costumes is interesting especially for keeping your feet on the ground, and for knowing that you’re not doing anything extraordinary either. Just look at everything that has been done in the past, and you come right back down to earth.