Alessandro Michele: Masculinity & Eroticism of Nature
Podcast Transcript Exclusive Episode 39
Interviewer: Liz Goldwyn
Illustration BY Black Women Animate
We’re celebrating our partnership with Gucci this week with an exclusive episode of the podcast featuring Alessandro Michele, Gucci’s Creative Director. Liz met Alessandro in Milan to talk about his erotic relationship to nature; why Rome is his mistress; moving beyond confining modes of masculinity; his passion for dressing like a 1950s granny and how he channels orgasmic energy every day.
The following is a transcript of the interview from the episode:
Alessandro Michele:
I repeat. [Italian: Sex Ed].
Liz Goldwyn:
Si, si.
Alessandro Michele:
[My name is Alessandro Michele, and you’re listening to The Sex Ed]. I'm not usually say things in Italian.
Liz Goldwyn:
Amazing.
Liz Voiceover:
Hello, and welcome to a special episode of The Sex Ed. This season The Sex Ed is thrilled to be sponsored by GUCCI.
Before we kick off the season, I want to acknowledge the fact that COVID-19 has brought the world to its knees. We’re following the news as closely as all of you, and want to urge our listeners to wash your hands, lay low, and look out for one another - we are a global community, and this pandemic has hit us with force. Our partners at GUCCI are no exception, and seeing our Italy-based colleagues navigate quarantines and lockdowns with grace and humanity has given us our own strength to face this rapidly changing situation. We are very lucky to have partnered with this wonderful company.
And so, to celebrate, we are going to dive into the world of Alessandro Michele, GUCCI’s Creative Director.
Born and raised in Rome, Alessandro started working at GUCCI in 2002 before being appointed to his current position in 2015. He is responsible for all of GUCCI’s collections and product categories, as well as the company’s global brand image.
During Alessandro’s reign, Gucci has taken its commitment to social consciousness seriously, from hiring a global head of diversity, equality and inclusion to taking major steps to ease its environmental impact, with President and CEO Marco Bizzarri announcing Gucci’s carbon neutral challenge, whereby they will be offsetting their entire carbon emissions by supply chain.
They have also launched the Gucci Changemakers program, which gives millions of dollars in grants and scholarships to create lasting social impact within communities of color.
And, as GUCCI has now become the exclusive sponsor of Season 3 of The Sex Ed podcast, they are dedicated to using their platform to help amplify the sex, health, and consciousness education that The Sex Ed provides through our website, thesexed.com, our live talks and events and this podcast.
For this episode, I traveled to Milan with my producer Chloe and sound engineer Jeremy to attend the Gucci Fall Winter 2020 show. I asked showgoers what attracted them to Alessandro, before sitting down with the man, the myth, the legend himself in his beautiful office.
Liz:
What’s attractive to you about Alessandro? What attracts you to him?
Speaker 1:
Man, his mind, his commitment to other, I mean, the fact that... I sometimes think that he must have crazy dreams at night. I love the fact that he cares about the other, meaning, those who are not necessarily what standardly would think is beautiful, but he lets them be represented because he believes in beauty in that way. And I just love his sensibility of style. I'm very impressed with him.
Speaker 2:
He radiates magic. He glows. He's very open and warm, and you can feel that he is absorbing everything around, absorbing you. He's drinking you in, seeing everything.
Speaker 3:
The mystery and the... In French we say baroque like it's really barocco? I don't know how to say it in English. It is intoxicating. I'd say so. And certainly after theatricality, I really love theatricality and the pleasure of it.
Speaker 4:
I think it's the beard. The beard is a beautiful beard. You mean his work or...
Liz:
Or him. I agree. His hair care routine seems very impressive.
Speaker 4:
I just went for, straight away, the physical, the hair and the beard. But also the work of course. I mean the poetry of his work.
Liz:
Okay. I have to ask you something, Alessandro. How do you maintain these luscious locks of yours?
Alessandro Michele:
I mean, from the very first day of my life. I mean, I had always a bunch of ... A lot of hair. I mean, also, my parents they were saying that I described my hair as a wig. When I was super young I remember that my mom usually would try to manage my hair with pink kind of [inaudible 00:01:06] as a girl because also when they were short they were very, you know ... [inaudible 00:01:13] it was another me. I grew up with a dad with long hair.
Liz:
Your dad had long hair?
Alessandro:
Yeah. Long hair. Super long hair.
Liz:
Was he a hippie?
Alessandro:
Kind of. Yeah. He was an artist, a very particular person. I grew up with a [inaudible 00:01:39] hair and I don't know. I mean, I don't do a lot of things. I usually wash my hair at the hairdresser because I hate ... I mean, I hate to wash my hair too much and I love to do the bath.
Liz:
I'm glad you like to do the bath.
Alessandro:
Every morning.
Liz:
Oh, then the salts are going to be a new thing for you.
Alessandro:
Now it will be with the salts. I'm not usually washing my hair every day because my dad told me that you are going to ruin the hair with washing and washing and washing every day because he always told me, "We are like animals."
Liz:
Our oils clean us.
Alessandro:
Yeah. I love to go to a hairdresser because he takes care of my hair.
Liz:
It's the same hairdresser forever?
Alessandro:
Yeah. 15 years.
Liz:
In Rome.
Alessandro:
Yeah. It's in Rome. I mean, I change a lot because I live in a lot of cities but I was usually almost to come back ... Yes, to wash it's not easy but I love to blow dry and sometimes ... I mean, they came just natural as they are. Yeah.
Alessandro:
For me, it's a really important part of my look because... Maybe because I'm from [inaudible 00:03:04] that there is something ... I mean, there is a relation between the hair and the personality and the power.
Liz:
The power. I think ... Was it Salome in the story of Salome? Because I was thinking like you've got to be careful that somebody doesn't snip a lock of your hair, no?
Alessandro:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I am usually keep the hair super long or every four, five years to cut everything and let ... Like the plants. You know? I love long hair. I think that they cover me, protect me.
Liz:
Hide you.
Alessandro:
Yeah. It's beautiful. I mean, it's a way to be closer to the nature, you know? It's something. It grow and they have an own life on your head. It is beautiful. I mean, make me [inaudible 00:04:04] to a lot of things.
Liz:
Your father was a passionate naturist?
Alessandro:
Yeah. Yeah.
Liz:
Is that where you got it from?
Alessandro:
Yeah. A lot. He loved ... I mean, he would usually talk with birds. Yeah. He played a lot of instruments, he was a sculptor. Yeah. He was such a well connected guy with the earth. I still feel myself connected to the nature everyday. I live in a city, I have a countryside house but it's something that lives inside of me.
Liz:
Do you grow? Do you have a garden? Do you grow things?
Alessandro:
Yeah. I'm really good.
Liz:
Yeah? What are you growing?
Alessandro:
Everything. Everything. I mean, now it's a little bit different because I don't have so much time to spend. Sometimes I come out from the work really late and sometimes I don't have time to work as a gardener on my terrace. It's huge. Me and my boyfriend we are really good, both obsessed with things that ... You know? Plants and flowers and also the countryside.
Alessandro:
I think, I mean, care of things that grow it's something religious. See things that, you know, they care about plants and animals is a way to talk with the earth.
Liz:
I agree. I grow all my food. I have 26 rose bushes that my grandmother planted in the 1930s and then I grew up with at my father's house that I have now. I have a chakra balancing pentagram of flowers.
Alessandro:
Wow.
Liz:
I feel also that time when I get so busy, sometimes just to go outside and have the feet in the earth [crosstalk 00:06:16].
Alessandro:
Yeah. It's beautiful.
Liz:
And pull weeds.
Alessandro:
Yeah. Yeah. It's like a ritual. You know?
Liz:
Yeah.
Alessandro:
You feel connected because when you go back, I mean, the day after and the day after to look at what happened to the plants it's like that you are ... I mean, both energy. Your energy and the plant's energy something happens. I really feel it.
Liz:
You're also reminded that things take time, not to be in a rush and that things have to die.
Alessandro:
Yeah. Yeah.
Liz:
Things have to die to be reborn.
Alessandro:
You need to have patience to wait because now we don't wait anymore, nothing. Everything is now.
Liz:
Especially in your business.
Alessandro:
Yeah. I'm trying to make the thing, let the things look a different way, convince the people that they have to take care of the beautiful things that they have, that fashion is also about care, the things that you have, the things that you bought two years ago they are still beautiful.
Alessandro:
I mean, the most important thing is that they represent you. That's fashion. Fashion is about personality, about things that represent you in the way you feel. I mean, that's the words to describe fashion. I mean, I would love to stay in this business, otherwise, no, I don't care to be obsessed with the things that you must get if you ... I mean, today you have an amazing, beautiful pink dress ...
Liz:
It's 1960s St. John from San Francisco.
Alessandro:
Yeah. It's so beautiful, the most beautiful pink.
Liz:
But with your Gucci latex boots.
Alessandro:
Yeah. You look amazing. It's so beautiful. I mean, fashion is your own world.
Liz:
Your father really gave you this love of nature and then your mother was working adjacent to the cinema?
Alessandro:
Yeah. She was kind of a Hollywood girl.
Liz:
Yeah?
Alessandro:
Yeah.
Liz:
Cinecitta girl?
Alessandro:
Cinecitta girl. She worked for the [inaudible 00:08:46] English ... How do you say?
Liz:
Production company?
Alessandro:
Production company that after a few years they make it ... I think they made together the 20th Century Fox and the [inaudible 00:09:06]. She was usually being in contact with Hollywood stars and Italian French stars because Rome was such an amazing place because everybody moved ... Working with Cinecitta was less expensive, I mean, best hands, you know?
Alessandro:
The most beautiful costume designer, blah, blah, blah and everything. I mean, the city was amazing. My mom was usually saying that Via Veneto was unbelievable. It was like an exhibition of Hollywood stars. I mean, taking the coffee and cappuccino during the days.
Alessandro:
She was fascinating to the perfection of the era. I grew up with all the stories, I mean, also hidden stories that she heard in the office ...
Liz:
Of the great Italian directors?
Alessandro:
And everybody. I mean, she worked for an English company so she was in touch with [inaudible 00:10:20] and [inaudible 00:10:23] but also, I mean, English and American actors. She was in love with Rock Hudson. I remember when she discovered after years and years ... She was a real groupie.
Liz:
She wasn't quite aware of his sexuality.
Alessandro:
She met him a few times. The thing that she said, "I mean, he's the most sweet and beautiful man, the most beautiful smile." I remember we were in the countryside during the summer when she bought this magazine and it was the very beginning of AIDS.
Liz:
Yeah. I remember. It was like People magazine on the cover.
Alessandro:
Yeah. He was everywhere. My mom was completely shocked but also she was to the point to cry for him because she didn't care. She said ... It was beautiful because she said, "Who cares if he's gay? He's not gay." I mean, he was amazing and I hope that he will survive because he's so my life ... I mean, she was like a teenage ...
Alessandro:
She grew up ... We would usually go to the cinema together and she was like, "I didn't like this movie" because ... "I don't care. I love when the actors they go in bed with the makeup." I mean, she was not beautiful. I remember, for example, Lana Turner in this movie, blah, blah, blah. She went in the bed, she had sex with makeup. I mean, she was in the bed with a beautiful lingerie ... I mean, she was completely obsessed with the idea that Hollywood and Cinecitta... She thought they build these unbelievable ...
Liz:
Fantasies?
Alessandro:
Yeah. Fantasy, mythology about beauty and sexiness and the way they look. She didn't like ... I mean, I remember she said ... At the very end between the '60s and the '70s in Italy, I mean, the end of the Neorealism she was like, "I mean, cinema is going on a bad way." She loved gods.
Liz:
Yeah. Like Fellini ... The first movie my dad showed me was 8 1⁄2 but the fashion, the ecclesiastical fashion show in Roma is like ...
Alessandro:
Yeah. It's amazing.
Liz:
Hands down.
Alessandro:
It was like a dream. You know?
Liz:
That period also of Italian design I have some things from Sorelle Fontana.
Alessandro:
Fontana. Yeah.
Liz:
I have a horsehair ballgown that belonged to Ava Gardner. I mean, it was like ...
Alessandro:
All about this kind of speechless beauty.
Liz:
And surrealism.
Alessandro:
Yeah. Yeah, and surrealism. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There was a golden age. You know? I think that a piece of United States imagery came in such old land, you know? Old city. As Rome. Everything needs to match, became kind of unbelievable. Fellini is almost the result of this kind of surrealism and the idea that cinema is like a bridge. You know? Everything in him was about imagination. You can really understand if you are watching a real story only it's just something that you dreamt.
Liz:
Do you have the book of his dreams?
Alessandro:
Yeah.
Liz:
I love that book.
Alessandro:
It's amazing. I think Federico Fellini it's one of ... I mean, one of the person that I would love to meet in my life.
Liz:
Me too.
Alessandro:
Because I think that he had such a good relation with the bad part of the world and the beauty. He found the real beauty, you know? That it's something you must discover. You know? I think that he had the most amazing eyes to go through the stereotypes.
Liz:
The grotesque and the divine. What was your favorite Roman god or goddess?
Alessandro:
There are two. I mean, they are all ... I mean, both men. One is Orpheus god of the ... He talked to all the animals of the earth and Apollo ... I mean, he invited him because invite him because he was with his flute how do you call it?
Liz:
Yeah. Like his flute, playing his flute.
Alessandro:
Yeah. He was very powerful with all the nymphs.
Liz:
You're very powerful with the nymphs.
Alessandro:
It's amazing because it's such a powerful story about a man that used the music to attract animals and humans. The other is Apollo because Apollo is really ... He's the representation of human beings, that we love to be attractive. In a way we are us ... He was a man but in the way that he ... Look at the statues, try to describe his beauty.
Alessandro:
You can see that he's a half-man/half-woman because there are parts of the anatomy of the statues that if you don't look at the other part you can be confused with a woman because it's like the beauty of a man is a mix between man and woman. It's like the sexuality of a human being. It's talking about both language. That you can really be just one thing.
Alessandro:
He had this shape, this idea of human because, I mean, gods are just the representation of humans in the past. I'm not really Catholic. I'm not really Christian.
Liz:
Were you raised with religion?
Alessandro:
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, my dad almost liked to say ... He loved a lot ... How do you say?
Liz:
Pagan?
Alessandro:
No, I'm Pagan. I feel myself Pagan a lot.
Liz:
Yeah. Me too.
Alessandro:
I feel totally Pagan maybe because I grew up in Rome.
Liz:
Rome is so Pagan, no?
Alessandro:
Rome is just so Pagan because after gods Roman people their approach to saints, Jesus, and all of the things as the same thing that they approach to the gods of Pagan [inaudible 00:17:52]. It's completely the same. I mean, it's almost the same story but ...
Alessandro:
I mean, I feel myself Pagan because I love humans. When you go in a museum, not just in Rome but almost everywhere because, I mean, it's full everywhere. You don't need to come to Rome to have them. You can go also in New York, you can go in London because they produce so many things.
Alessandro:
When you see all these amazing bodies there is like ... It's like they wrote the most unbelievable poems about the gravity of the body and the beauty of the shapes and the faces and the realization of humanity is still powerful.
Alessandro:
I mean, I was a child and my dad was usually bring me in a lot of Roman museums. I remember I was so impressed from this huge legs like columns. You know?
Liz:
Powerful.
Alessandro:
Powerful. They spend times to describe. Every single ... To glorify.
Liz:
The tendons and the muscles.
Alessandro:
Everything. The hands. You feel like, "Oh my gosh."
Liz:
Emotional.
Alessandro:
Emotional. Yeah. We did this almost the same with Jesus, that we glorified his body, his face. It's not about the way you look. It's about how your body can be in touch with your brain and when the power of a human being because the way you move your hands, the way you look at a person, it's so powerful.
Alessandro:
I mean, we are gods. That's why we love saints because they were humans. I mean, everything is about the power that lives asleep in every single human being and with them.
Liz:
Yeah. We need to wake up.
Alessandro:
For sure. Because sometimes it's like we are waiting for someone else to move something for us.
Liz:
Yeah. We're looking for a guru.
Alessandro:
A guru.
Liz:
But what we don't realize is we are all the guru.
Alessandro:
Yeah.
Liz:
We have the answers.
Alessandro:
Totally agree with you.
Liz:
Going back to Hollywood and fashion for a minute, my dad used to have this saying about Hollywood that it's better not to ever be the flavor of the month because then you're not the flavor anymore. It's better to be a classic. Like how I look at Italian cinema, this is classic. It's so interesting to me because you've been at Gucci for almost two decades.
Alessandro:
Yeah.
Liz:
You really know what every person's job is at this company.
Alessandro:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Liz:
You came up with every person in this company and the show that I just saw you celebrated les petits mains. You put them in the front.
Alessandro:
Yeah.
Liz:
You've kind of labored in obscurity for a long time and now you are literally the god of Gucci.
Alessandro:
It's almost the same thing that we were saying before. If you believe in you and the passion that you have about things that you love ... I mean, I'm working almost from 25 years in fashion. I mean, I would say that I was a teenage, an old teenage, and now I'm a young man.
Liz:
You're aging in reverse.
Alessandro:
Yeah. I think that it's beautiful to grow up with people that you love. I mean, I went through a lot of interesting people that work with me for a long time. I have memories of a lot of beautiful things, people that work in this company with such a big passion. I learn a lot of things in my career from Karl, from Tom. I mean, Tom is such a Hollywood guy.
Liz:
Tom Ford we're talking about, listeners.
Alessandro:
Sorry. I mean, Tom Ford is a piece of this mythology. He's a myth.
Liz:
He's also such a great businessman.
Alessandro:
Yeah.
Liz:
Very, very smart guy.
Alessandro:
He's a smart guy but he has this kind of aura. It's really unpredictable, that you can really describe ... It's interesting. I grew up in the company and I love to think about the things that surround me and in the last few months I was thinking how it's powerful that we have the rites of the things, why we are so, I mean, affectionate to the rites, you know? Fashion show is a rite. Working fashion is like a rite. I mean, this started before the fashion show.
Alessandro:
It's almost the same thing when you care about plants. I mean, they die, they're reborn and the spring comes again. It's a rite. We don't care if at the end it will almost finish but we know it's like the show of last night. I mean, it's circular, you know? It's like energy.
Alessandro:
I was thinking if I was a scientist they use numbers and maths to represent things that we can touch. How can I represent the power of this rite? You know? This fashion show?
Alessandro:
I started to think the circular shape and I started to give to fashion and to the rite of fashion that is ... The catwalk still consistence. I put all the people that work with me that are pieces of this power, of this energy. I mean, it's been hard.
Liz:
Hard why?
Alessandro:
Yeah, because it was like a performance.
Liz:
Yeah.
Alessandro:
A performance with no actors and no artists. I mean, just with people that work. I was trying to suggest them that it's about things that you do everyday. Don't be scared. I was scared.
Liz:
That's what's interesting to me about you because fashion so likes to be like, "You're the next big thing." You have both humility and you're being mythologized at the same time but because you've been so long at this company, because you've seen so many things it's a good attitude to take, no? Because you know that it's, as you say, a rite. It comes, it goes, it's here, it's there.
Alessandro:
Yeah. That's true. It's mysterious.
Liz:
Yeah.
Alessandro:
I think that I have some facilities. One is that I love people. I have a big passion from other stories, other faces. I'm really open to being touched with a lot of people and fashion is about curiosity, to share, to listen to other people, to get energy because you are sharing something and you are getting something from someone else and you are giving something else. That's really great because you feel really alive, you feel really on the playground, you know?
Alessandro:
I mean, I didn't stop to be part of the team. Yeah. I'm happy because I'm surrounded from a lot of friends and people that I knew from a long time. They are all talented. We share the same passion. It's like a chemical process that are from me to the tailor to the people that work in the factories, we share the same thing. It's like that we are every time building something that we must feel represents. You know?
Alessandro:
It's like when you're in the past. I don't want to say now in the politic because now it's different. When you was on a stage talking in a very sincere way to the people and you are trying to let them understand that we are doing something great, something that is really powerful. I think that I'm lucky because we are still connect, we are still in the conversation.
Liz:
Do you think it helps keeping your design office in Rome? Kind of separate from ... Milan is the center of fashion for Italy.
Alessandro:
First of all, there is a problem of capacity because so many people. It's such a big company. I mean, I love to stay in Rome because it's one step away from the world of fashion. I'm not against ... I love to work my garden. You know? Like we were saying. I want to care for my garden and then be connected with fashion and with the earth. I want to be connected with everybody.
Alessandro:
In Rome, it's such a crazy place where people don't care about things, I mean, things that are fashionable because if you think about Rome she's in a way fashionable from a really long time. She will be probably the same. I talk about her as a lady because, for me, Rome is like an old lady.
Liz:
She's decayed glamour.
Alessandro:
Decayed glamour. She's a bitch. Yeah. She's like a bitch. The most beautiful bitch. She can do what you want. She can be a mistress. She can be a mom, a nun, a priest. Also, she's not a man because she doesn't care. She's attractive. She's dirty. She looks like a poem but she's also ... Yeah. She can be tough.
Liz:
How does she taste?
Alessandro:
Yeah. She tastes as something sweet but like a witch plant ... You can die.
Liz:
Bella Donna.
Alessandro:
Bella Donna. Yeah, because when you come to Rome, first of all, the first impression is that you felt yourself in a strange way connected. It's like a place that ... Maybe because it's kind of popular in the imagination of people. It's like New York.
Liz:
It's very different than New York.
Alessandro:
Yeah, but it's almost like because it's kind of an icon of something. If you think of Rome you think of a city, a super old city with the Roman Empire, the Pope, and all the beautiful story around the city but at the same time there is something that you feel connected. I don't know why. You feel ... It's like she's open ...
Alessandro:
I mean, Fellini talk about Roma as a bitch. She opened her arms, it's sunny, you can be outside looking at this beautiful place, square, ruins. It's like the time has stopped. Also, chaotic but you can stop yourself. She's not pushing you to be chaotic. It's like, okay, outside there is a kind of a crazy atmosphere, cars, and ... I mean, it's like layers. Rome is about layers but you can stop yourself in a coffee shop for hours. You know?
Alessandro:
It's like dangerous because there is a time that you don't want to leave the city. You start to think about, "I must leave this place, otherwise, I will be a prisoner." Can I say that when you start to have a good relation with a city it's like ... Rome is like to have a boyfriend or a girlfriend and after another lover and it's the city because she's like a mermaid whispering in your ear. You want to leave but you can't. I left the city for a long time.
Liz:
To go where?
Alessandro:
Everywhere. Florence, Bologna, London, Milan. I travel a lot. I have a lot of houses and places. I mean, I love to travel. At the end, I came back. I don't know why. Also I hate her. It's like the worst lover that you can't forget. You know? You start another relation and at the end you come back to the first.
Liz:
And your family was there.
Alessandro:
Yeah. My family was there but they were ... I mean, they were in the city but I didn't leave there. When I came back, they died. Yeah. Two years before.
Liz:
Wow.
Alessandro:
I still feel their souls in the city. My mom would usually say she was not from Rome. She was from another region of Italy. She came after the Second World and she said, "In my life I have dad, that is my lover, you and your sister but on the same level I have Rome that is like my mom." I can feel ... She was always usually say that she felt the smell of the city. She recognized the smell of the city. When she was usually come back from a trip to the train station. She came out and she said, "That's the smell of Rome."
Liz:
Do you feel them with you, your parents?
Alessandro:
Yeah. Yeah. Always. I completely think that the energy of people stays around us. I don't know where. I don't know if it's wrong or if it is right. I would love to believe in the idea that the energy stays here. I don't know why. I feel that when I'm alone in my room, in a hotel or in my house, at home, along also with my two dogs, I don't know, there is always something that talks to me, in a very strange way, like we are here around you.
Alessandro:
I mean, there are the little signs of their energy. I don't know why. For example, yesterday night ... It's just so strange. I don't want people to think about me as a crazy guy but I was saying to my boyfriend always, "When you are not with me there is always [inaudible 00:34:31] room, at home, the lights turn always ..."
Liz:
That's the ghosts.
Alessandro:
I don't know why.
Liz:
It does in my house too.
Alessandro:
Really?
Liz:
Yeah.
Alessandro:
I mean, always. I mean, we call a lot of people to check the electricity, everything. There is nothing. Yesterday he left and, again, this is not the first time, that there is a big light in my dining room and the room ... I switch off everything and it stays...
Liz:
Yeah. It stays illuminated.
Alessandro:
Illuminated.
Liz:
Yeah.
Alessandro:
I call the guy [inaudible 00:35:16] stay there for a long time and he said, "I don't know. Close the door and try to ..." I hate to sleep with the light. Also, it's far. Every time I'm alone there is a problem with the light. Everywhere.
Liz:
They're just letting you know that they're with you.
Alessandro:
Yeah. I'm sure. I'm starting to believe. It's so strange. It's impossible that every house has this problem, every room and every single hotel, same problem. I mean, I'm trying to ... I'm asking this ... It's strange but at the end I think that we are energy. When I saw my dad when he die he was like sleeping on a bed and I thought that he was alive. I didn't see before ...
Liz:
A dead body?
Alessandro:
Yeah. A dead body. Never.
Liz:
Same when I saw my father dead. It was the first time.
Alessandro:
First time. That's strange. I mean, I saw him and I was like ... I hugged him. I understood that his energy was not anymore there. I started to cry for a long time and talking to him like he was alive. I didn't have the chance to be in touch with a dead body so I was talking to him and at a certain point I looked at him and I said to myself, "Ale, maybe he's floating I don't know where." I mean, something came out from his body. It's just like a mannequin.
Liz:
Yeah.
Alessandro:
I felt myself happy because I understood ... It's like that I felt, okay, now I am sure and I understand more about the idea of the death.
Liz:
Yeah.
Alessandro:
It's just an empty machine and the energy is outside. It's so beautiful. I have this memory of ... I mean, every time I think about my dad I think about something magical, they disappear as a bird. He loved birds and I said, "Maybe now he's a bird."
Liz:
I see butterflies in my garden and I know it's my dad.
Alessandro:
Yeah. Maybe. I totally agree with you. I mean, maybe something that helped me but I don't think so. I think it's like that I felt something and I'm not really scared to the idea that I have to die.
Liz:
I'm not either. I like to talk about death on this show. It comes up a lot because sex and death are so taboo. People are so freaked out about it. They're such human experiences.
Alessandro:
Yeah. It's so true. I think there is a great relation between death and ...
Liz:
Well, orgasm is the petite mort, a little death.
Alessandro:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I have a good relation with sex, for example, because I think that I feel ... A part of me it's in a good relation with death. I don't try to run after sex. You know what I mean? I'm not obsessed. I mean, I love the idea of sex. Sex is just powerful. You know?
Liz:
It's energy.
Alessandro:
Energy. Yeah.
Liz:
Yeah.
Alessandro:
Sex is everywhere. I mean, I think that the idea of orgasm, of sex is everywhere. I mean, it's a beautiful thing, a beautiful sensation is an orgasm. I mean, it's the meaning of the word. We use just such in a specific way.
Liz:
Yeah.
Alessandro:
In the reality, orgasm is a moment. You know?
Liz:
You can have an orgasmic experience with the universe, with your garden.
Alessandro:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Liz:
With nature.
Alessandro:
I'm a person that when people, I mean, also friends of mine that are very close, when they ask me about sex I usually say, "It depends what you think about sex" because if sex is ... Like you were saying, an orgasm because I'm in front of the most beautiful painting, I'm having the most beautiful conversation with the most beautiful deep eyes, look at me.
Alessandro:
Or there is a sunset and I'm walking in the street and I stop and I try to take a picture and I can't because it's so powerful and I feel like in front of God.
Alessandro:
I'm a guy that I have sex almost every day but the idea of sex, that it's the most popular, it's about something dirty, very close to the idea that we must reproduce ourself it's very ... I don't want to say just physical. It's chemical. I mean, I understand that the Catholic Church built everywhere an idea of sex that is so close to phobic, the idea of sex is the idea of God, the idea of sex is the idea of energy, it's the idea of being in touch with the things that make me feel alive. You know? I mean, why we are obsessed when we are teenage to feel another body?
Liz:
Because we want to feel good about ourselves, we want to feel validated because we don't understand that nature and our relationship with spirit and God/Goddess gives us that sense of self-worth so we give other people that power to tell us, "You're worthwhile. You're valuable. You're loved."
Alessandro:
Yeah. We are finding ourselves and the reason why we are on earth in another person. We want to find a very intimate conversation with earth but we can't so we need to go to the very beginning of everything. That could be the vagina, it could be what we know in terms of intimacy ... There is also the seed of the entire earth.
Alessandro:
It's like that we can't see everything so we need in a very ancestrale.
Liz:
Ancestral. Yeah.
Alessandro:
Ancestral way. You know? That's fascinating. It's like something that belongs to the energy of the earth. You feel like a voice. You know? You spend almost all of the years of your teenage moments looking for a reason. If you find the real reason you start to open as a flower does in front of the sun. I think it's beautiful. I hope that people can understand how sexiness is everywhere.
Alessandro:
Sex is such an easy word but it's a claustrophobic word because we give to this word just one meaning.
Liz:
No, we need to redefine a lot of things.
Alessandro:
Yeah.
Liz:
You made a manifesto on masculinity for your last show. It feels like something that you're really working actively towards also in your designs.
Alessandro:
Yeah. I'm working on it for a long time. I'm trying to let the people understand how it's complicated and beautiful, our soul. You know? How a man can be beautiful if a man forgot everything that he learned from his mom, from society and he really feels himself in this conversation with his femininity. A woman must be in conversation with her masculinity. I mean, we are both.
Liz:
We are yin/yang.
Alessandro:
Yeah. When you find a man that feels comfortable with his femininity he's such good with the other women because he really can find himself, a piece of himself. He approaches to the women as he's approaching in a delicate way, in a beautiful way, strong way as he approaches to himself because when I look at women I can look at myself. I don't feel that you are so different from me.
Liz:
Well, I have very masculine energy.
Alessandro:
Yeah. I can feel it.
Liz:
But I'm not androgynous in my presentation.
Alessandro:
Yeah. That is beautiful.
Liz:
I work but I work at that balance.
Alessandro:
Yeah. I think that it's beautiful. I can see a lot of men that are really in touch with their femininity and they look completely masculine but when you start to talk with them and you be in touch with the way they move, the way they really live ... I mean, they try to manage the energy, the space around them. You really feel their femininity. That it's so powerful.
Alessandro:
I can see that when we have in the room a guy that has a conversation with his femininity, women became crazy. That's so true. I think that we need to feel this part of us. When you try to in a way ...
Liz:
Suppress?
Alessandro:
Suppress. Everything became impossible. You know? I mean, it's unbelievable. I think that a part of our world is going to understand something now but there is still a part of humanity that want to keep ... If you open everything in this kind of believable conversation for a lot of people it's ... Yeah. They feel uncomfortable.
Liz:
Yeah.
Alessandro:
If you define you in just one way, I feel better because I know who you are, I can give you a label and everything make me feel sure.
Liz:
Yeah.
Alessandro:
Me, personally, I love when I'm not sure, when everything is a little bit ... French people say amorphe.
Liz:
Amorphous.
Alessandro:
Funky. You know? I can see all of you and I can feel more than one thing. When I don't start to be sure about you.
Liz:
People are uncomfortable with things they can't understand.
Alessandro:
Yeah. I know. Also, they feel ... It's strange because there is this approach from people, they don't like this kind of blurry ... I can't say blurry.
Liz:
Blurry lines.
Alessandro:
Blurry lines. I mean, if you say, "I'm bisexual" they start to be angry with me. It's like that I want to convince you ... You can get what you want. The idea that I am trying to say that I am more than just one thing, for example, I'm not trying to ... You can be as you feel but there is something about people that would love to have an earth that is well defined in every single category, in every single not too many possible. It's better if we are less. I don't like to define in general.
Liz:
How do you work then within the context of making men's and women's collections?
Alessandro:
I make beautiful things. I love to change the rules.
Liz:
Do you think we'll ever be in a place in fashion, it's such a big industry, will we ever get rid of those labels? Like things being marketed towards men, being marketed towards women.
Alessandro:
Maybe the market will be almost like as it is. I think that it's changed the idea that there is just men and women. I think that for sure we injected in the masculinity different things and there are a lot of men that are changing the way they look, they feel. The way you look is the way you are feeling yourself.
Alessandro:
I think that we are like building a place in the market that doesn't belong to a category. I can see that the young generation they are just using the words, "I love this." I love this because it represents the masculinity and the femininity. I mean, the young girls are approaching to the things that they love as, "I would love to have this." They don't care if it is something that belongs to the men or the ... I mean, they don't care.
Liz:
Well, your look when you came in was like a 1950s grandma going to the hair salon. With your coat and your little '50s bag.
Alessandro:
Yeah. Yeah.
Liz:
Which is probably like next season Gucci.
Alessandro:
I mean, I'm that guy that ... I'm not against the ... I love the things that came from such stereotypes, image ... If it is a stereotype it means that it's powerful. I love to play with a stereotype because when I try to dress a guy as a granny he becomes sexy.
Liz:
I loved when ASAP Rocky was doing the Gucci scarves on his head.
Alessandro:
Yeah.
Liz:
That's like my favorite look, the Babushka.
Alessandro:
Yeah. The Babushka but he also looked as a granny but he's so sexy.
Liz:
Yeah.
Alessandro:
He's so attractive.
Liz:
He's very attractive.
Alessandro:
When you kiss him, when I meet him he has the most amazing perfume. I mean, he's the guy with the most powerful, perfume kind of feminine perfume ... So good and he looks so attractive. You know? People that can play with other things, different things, they become so powerful, as a Greek God. That's me. I love to play. You said, "You look as a 1950 ..."
Liz:
Lady.
Alessandro:
Ladies in New York, in Madison Avenue.
Liz:
I love that.
Alessandro:
I think that it's great because it's a stereotype that makes me feel different to the idea that when I am naked I'm in my body. I'm a man and I have big hands but long hair that sometimes they look really as a woman's wig. I think that is such ... Getting inspired from Apollo is interesting. Confused the cards on the table means that we feel as ... I always used to say that we take away the death. We are on earth and we must play, we must have fun, and we must feel everything. You know?
Alessandro:
Maybe try to walk and to get inside other gardens, to look different flowers, different smells, and maybe leave something that you want to use as a protection because you are scared. We don't have to be scared because humanity is such a powerful piece of this mysterious project that is the earth. You know?
Alessandro:
There is nothing better to be curious and to accept the diversity of other people. Diversity makes you feel in every way, make you feel better. You go home as a different person. You will change the way you think and you look outside your window. You feel less depressed, less compressed, less ...
Alessandro:
It's like that you are adding oxygen in your life. It's such an easy thing. As you said, I was with a 1950s coat that looked like I took it from my granny. This morning I felt myself ... I felt like I'm free, I'm alive. I can take what I want. I mean, I don't care. If someone will look at me in a strange way it will be a great day because I will push someone else to be free and to do what he wants to be. Maybe he will not wear never in his life my coat but we wear something else, we'll do something else.
Alessandro:
It's amazing. I think being a designer in this era is more than just deciding the lengths of a skirt. I don't care if you have the right length of your dress. I'm more involved in the idea that you look so fucking you.
Liz:
Yeah.
Alessandro:
That's beautiful. It's the perfect length, it's the perfect color. That's the perfect necklace. Completely unexpected but perfect.
Liz:
What are you still learning about sex?
Alessandro:
What I'm still learning? I'm not really learning honestly. I don't want to learn. I prefer to feel. Learn, it means that ... I know it's the right word for us to describe the idea that you are understanding. I would love that I am more understanding than learning. I'm not as cool.
Alessandro:
Sex is the playground that is different from a classroom. We don't have to really learn. We have to feel outside the old idea of sex that we must learn to be a good lover, we must maybe experiment in a very personal way and to learn that you can have multiple orgasms, you can have multiple sex and I think that you can have to being very loyal.
Alessandro:
Having multiplied relation. That's another interesting thing because I feel myself that I'm having a lot of relations because I feel my personal satisfaction doing a lot of different kind of relation. I have my partner that I adore him. He's a big piece of my life because I have the most beautiful conversation with him and it's like an orgasm for sure. I can be tired because doing a penetration could be always the same but our conversation and our experience is always different and I can have just with him.
Alessandro:
We had a very strong physical relation at the very beginning of our relation. We still feel each other in a very strong way. I mean, the way he hug me it's like when I see a flower that is blooming. It's amazing. I feel the earth. We have the most beautiful conversation. A lot of relation with other friends, men and women. I feel that I have a lot of girlfriends. They perceive me as their boyfriend.
Liz:
And they want to borrow your clothes.
Alessandro:
Yeah.
Liz:
They want to steal your bags. I'm eyeing that one over there.
Alessandro:
That's beautiful. I mean, I feel myself in ... I don't want to be bored. That's the most important things. Rules are very dangerous, can put you in a very bad position and you will be bored.
Liz:
Thank you.
Alessandro:
Thank you.