An interview with Costi

"The brute covers himself, the rich man and the fop adorn themselves, the elegant man dresses!"

-Honore de Balzac

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Gruto

Wed May 12, 2010 5:42 pm

I've have made an interview with Costi for a Danish blog, Stiljournalen. As always Monsieur Costi has some very interesting views and metaphors. Thank you, Costi.

How do you approach the traditional rules of dressing?

Dress is a language that uses vocabulary (clothes), syntax and grammar (rules), but style is poetry: the ability to use that language creatively to express original ideas in a personal manner. Picasso once wrote that the greatest enemy of creativity is common sense. Being safe is not stylish. A book of grammar exercises is no fun and neither is dressing by the book. A poetic licence is not a grammar mistake – it is an instrument to a greater purpose. However, creativity can run wild if not censored by good taste.

Image

How do you use colours, patterns, and textures?

Music is a language, too, and if dress is music, then pattern is the melody, colour is the key and texture is orchestration. Style is what each of us, as composer, makes of them: the song we sing to the world. As in music, rules and guides are mostly negative, teaching us how to avoid cacophony, but for the rest we are (and really ought to feel) free to choose and mix as we please. Loud or quiet, colourful or sober, smooth or fuzzy, they have little meaning of their own until we choose and mix them: that gives them a sense – our own. Even shiny black monochrome says something about the wearer – quite a lot, in fact!

We can try anything but here is the acid test: if we recognize ourselves in the mirror, we are dressed fine; if we see someone else (even if it looks interesting), we are in costume and those around us will sense it.

What made the Duke of Windsor, Fred Astaire and those men so stylish?

They are the heroes of style, but perhaps we should raise a monument to the Unknown Stylish Man: there are many, untainted by celebrity, who are fluent in the universal language of style. What do they all have in common? – they have something to say to the world and they were able to find happy expressions for it in every aspect of their lives.

Image

How do you look at fashion in connection with style?

To come full circle and return to the musical metaphor, fashion is finding yourself in the music, while style is finding the music inside you and giving it your personal expression.

Style is an expression of the individual substance; following fashion is adopting an outside form and either trying to squeeze your own substance in it, or using it in order to camouflage the lack thereof. Of course, there is a two-way relationship between form and substance, in the sense that the adoption of a form often generates the substance – we are what we wear, to paraphrase a nutritional aphorism; therein lie the dangers of following fashion.

Style is also the ability to adapt any fashion to oneself, to remain creative, open-minded and take from fashions the ideas (and not the forms) that can work, interpreting them in a personal manner.
Last edited by Gruto on Wed May 12, 2010 7:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Bethlehemtown
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Wed May 12, 2010 6:46 pm

What a clear perspective on a difficult subject. I only wish the interview had been longer. To my mind, the music metaphor works well, and I often think of stylish dressers in terms of jazz (and jazz musicians are often wonderfully dressed): you begin with the known melody, and then go off on your own creative riff while keeping the melody going in your head as a touchstone of inspiration.
storeynicholas

Wed May 12, 2010 10:04 pm

Very thoughtfully put together, Costi, and illuminating in the result.
NJS
pbc
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Thu May 13, 2010 3:37 am

Surely, Costi, you must have a degree in literature or eloquence. As brief as the interview was, it was very well done. I enjoy the comparisons; they offer so much to think on with so few words.

pbc
mmkn2
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Thu May 13, 2010 4:37 am

I see the clothes.

Image


I see the man.

Image


Just my eyes.

- M
Costi
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Thu May 13, 2010 9:05 am

Thank you, Gruto, for the great interview idea and thank you all for your very kind words. These are just my feelings about a subject which, as Mr. Boyer wrote, is so vast. It can be approached from many perspectives and in much more depth and detail, but I felt that this somewhat intuitive approach was the most adequate to convey my sentiments. Being too rational about ut spoils the fun :)
Mmkn2, perhaps your eyes are right, but I am honoured to share the appreciation with that glorious LL Shetland: that was my inspiration for that day and my spirit matched it - just as much as when I wore it tamed down with gray flannels and blue tie (as in one of the pictures in the original post). Take them as facets of the same personality :)
The_Sartorialist
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Thu May 13, 2010 10:22 am

Costi,

Echoing those before me, that was a well surmised interview, and a thoroughly enjoyable read. As it is often said, brevity is the soul of wit. :)
marcelo
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Thu May 13, 2010 2:41 pm

Even recognizing I am repeating what has already been mentioned, I am only sorry the interview is not a longer one. It is quite inspiring though. Congratulations to both interviewer and interviewed!
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