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On Our Radar: Aziz Bekkaoui

Reflecting on his 20 years in fashion and design, Moroccan-born Aziz Bekkaoui recounts to Style.com/Arabia that while he initially wanted to become an inventor, following winning the coveted Hyères Festival prize he found joy expressing himself via his clothes. Here, he discusses the evolved designer landscape, working with Marina Abramović, and how one can be generous through fashion.

ON FASHION BEING JUST ANOTHER CLICHÉ

I grew up having a very cliché image about fashion, I thought it was just glamour and red carpets. But when I went to art school to study architecture and graphics, I finally decided to do fashion because I thought, “If I do fashion my way, it won’t be cliché.” In the end, it doesn’t matter because it’s about expressing yourself, an idea, and the people around you. I think that when you are a teenager, you will always be confronted with clichés representing some scale of the fashion world, or movies, or politics; and while it is good to know the clichés, it is also good to know how to make something your own.

ON COMMUNICATING VIA CLOTHES

Something that you wear on your skin is the best form of communication. It’s not what kind of car or house you have, it’s the clothes that are your first means of communicating who you are, what you’re thinking about, and what kind of vision you have about life. That’s why, for me, fashion is not just something glamorous, but rather something that is essential.

ON THE EVOLVED DESIGNER LANDSCAPE

I think fashion is like art. It’s a landscape of different levels, different styles, and different needs, and there’s no one cliché of a designer. Today, we have the ability to showcase all our work via Instagram and other social media, so anybody can be a designer and anybody can publish or sell. If somebody has the dream to become a designer in this way, it’s possible. It’s no longer about skills and knowing the technicalities of fashion—if you have a vision about fashion, it’s now possible to create your own line. It’s not old school anymore—where you once had to have a dream about construction—like Balenciaga or Saint Laurent. And to be honest, I get happy when I see that because more people are inspired about fashion. It’s not like it was 20 years ago when I started and people didn’t take it seriously. They said, “Oh, you’re going to art school to do fashion?” “Are you sure about your life? You will struggle.”

ON WORKING WITH MARINA ABRAMOVIĆ

When I started to do fashion, even in arts school, we didn’t communicate with visual arts students because we were considered “different people.” For me, it’s necessary to not only join tradition and fashion, but to also collaborate with art and other disciplines, especially because people from art think very “in the box” when it comes to fashion. The more I work (20 years) with Marina Abramović, the more we get to know each other and learn that we have a lot in common. I work a great deal with artists, making installations and clothes for them. Ultimately, we need to communicate with others and that’s where the richness of our jobs lies.

ON BEING GENEROUS THROUGH FASHION

In all my collections, I always use symbols and source traditions or religions from different parts of the world. I think that when you use Arabic symbols, people assume that they are directly connected to your roots. I think that a designer should be free to use and be inspired by every tradition. Nowadays, we have a lot of friends from all over the world and we’re traveling a lot; we should be generous and share all our inspirations with people.

ON HIS SPRING 2015 COLLECTION

The name of the new collection is “Ready to Share.” We are now so advanced digitally that it seems that we can see the whole world from behind our computers; we are now ready to share all of our experiences, traditions, and symbols and think outside boxes. I no longer think, “Oh, I don’t have to do that because I’m Arab,” or “Oh, I don’t have to do that because of religion or it’s too fashionable.” It’s about finding a relief from all these clichés and all these boxes. So here, I’ve mix different traditions, like stripes and kafiyas, with the checks from France.

www.azizbekkaoui.com

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