Oliver Theyskens | Photo: Monika Bielskyte for SOME/THINGS

PARIS, FRANCE — Olivier Theyskens caused a veritable fashionista frenzy in New York earlier this month when he launched a capsule collection for American contemporary brand Theory, which is known for its accessible prices and well-fitting trousers, but not necessarily for its fashion aesthetic or production quality. It was a surprise move for Mr. Theyskens, a designer who has been criticised in the past as being out of touch with the commercial side of the business during his time at Rochas and Nina Ricci.

The new capsule collection — dubbed Theyskens’ Theory — put that criticism to rest, for once and for all. Suzy Menkes, the fashion critic for the International Herald Tribune, wrote that “if Theory succeeds in raising the quality, while keeping an acceptable price for the workmanship, Mr. Theyskens may be able to express himself even better than when he was at couture’s giddy heights.” Menkes’ colleague and counterpart at the New York Times, Cathy Horyn, said the clothes were “remarkable because they reflect Mr. Theyskens’s signature drainpipe style, but also look like Theory’s urban wardrobe.” And Style.com’s Nicole Phelps concluded that Theory CEO Andrew Rosen “made Olivier Theyskens fans into some very happy girls,” with high-quality fabrics from Italy and Japan, manufactured into desirable garments in America and China, keeping most of the garments well below $1,000.

But don’t let this newfound pragmatism fool you into thinking that Theyskens is out of touch with his more creative, esoteric side. I had the privilege of sitting alongside Mr Theyskens on the graduate jury at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts last year, and witnessed first hand his passion for the raw creativity on display at one of the finest fashion schools in the world. And today, The Business of Fashion can exclusively bring to you an excerpt of an extensive, candid interview with Theyskens by Stephen Todd, kindly provided to us by SOME/THINGS magazine, which was featured in BoF last year.

Photographed by the magazine’s founder Monika Bielskyte in an intimate one-on-one photo shoot, Theyskens reveals himself to be an alluring subject for the camera, distinctly different from the somewhat ethereal images we have seen of him in the past, and shares his love of cats, the creative process, and the role of drama in his life.

Stephen Todd: In a previous conversation, when I mentioned to you that you’d fallen asleep curled up in a ball on a tiny couch at Jacky’s (co-founder of Shirtology & one of Olivier’s best friends) place, you said you were like a kitten!

Olivier Theyskens: I’m very cat! I love all animals, but cats are particularly beautiful. A cat is everything more than we are: more supple, more streamlined, more independent, faster, more agile. Everything! I have a chat sauvage, a once feral cat, that I had to leave in Belgium because she is in her habitat there. She’s incredible: blacker than black, with enormous whiskers, truly extraordinary. She’s a fantastic hunter, a real feline creature.

ST: I find it interesting that you give yourself so easily to being photographed. I always think of you as someone who keeps a distance, solitary. You’ve never struck me as the kind of guy who allows easy access to himself.

OT: Solitary? I can be, and I certainly have been during different periods of my life. But I can also be extremely social, although I’m very conscious not to allow myself to grow tired of that. Tired of people. I can see people non-stop and then, all of a sudden, have an almost visceral need to be alone. Often that corresponds with a great flood of creativity, when I feel this incredible need to isolate myself and think, and dream and draw. But then, after a few days of that, I feel the need again to be social, to see friends, or colleagues to chat, to reflect on what I’ve done, to input their points of view.

I really admire people who have that incredible discipline to draw all alone every morning. But that’s not me. I’m too sporadic in my desires. That said, when I began in fashion, I believed as a designer you had to draw all alone, to be isolated in your creative space, à la Yves Saint Laurent. But it’s not true. Not even for Saint Laurent, he had Loulou and all these other little satellites revolving around him, showing him fabric, accessories, saying ‘What do you think of this, of that?’ and that, would it look good… So, in fact, despite the myth, he never really worked completely alone. Sure, sometimes he found himself alone in the room, him and his solitude. He had a kind of mini Court of Versailles nonetheless. And the thing with having a little court is that from time to time you feel the impulse to escape, the need to be alone in order to breathe.

ST: Your aesthetic has a distinctly dramatic side. What role does drama have in your life?

OT: I’ve always liked drama, that’s for sure. But on the podium, not in my QUOTIDIaN! I always like it when behind first appearances there is an undertow of drama, a potential for an explosion of emotion or an extravagant gesture that will make everybody stop and pay attention. If you need to have strength in life, it’s because something out there could harm you. Or at least make you feel fragile, vulnerable, so you have to be constantly on the look-out.

It’s that tensile feeling that I find both compelling & repelling. There is nothing that inspires me less than someone who is completely happy in the face of life, who goes about life completely content with all that is thrown in their path. The person who just floats along, with no idea where they’re going, no engagement with the world. Let’s just say, she would not be my muse! I appreciate people who are conscious, awake, who are alive to what’s going on around them. Who, when they see something cruel, cry. I find that really important. For me, beauty could never function in conjunction with a stance that is beyond reality.

The complete interview with Olivier Theyskens appears in ISSUE003 of SOME/THINGS, available in select fashion stores and art galleries in 20 countries around the world. The magazine will be hosting a launch party to close out Paris Fashion Week on 6 October 2010. For further information, please contact events@someslashthings.com.

Some/Things Issue 001 | Photo: Monika Bielskyte

PARIS, France — With all the talk of layoffs at Condé Nast in the face of a technological revolution that is transforming fashion media as we know it, the days of the good old-fashioned hard copy magazine may seem numbered. But, while traditional media behemoths struggle to translate their content and brands to the online space, niche fashion publications are sprouting up to offer a completely different kind of magazine experience altogether.

At a soirée on Friday hosted by Rick Owens and Michèle Lamy, copies of two such magazines — Sang Bleu and Some/Things — were laid out sparsely on the galvanised steel tables in the brushed concrete headquarters of Owenscorp in Paris’ Place du Palais Bourbon. Art lovers in town for the FIAC art fair, musicians visiting from Los Angeles and international fashion folk leafed through the heavy matte pages with black and white images of rooftops in Cairo’s Bab-el-Louk and sinewy bodies covered with intricate tattoos.

Swan Tattoo | Source: Sang Bleu III/IV

Sang Bleu, or ‘blue blood’, is the labour of love of Maxime Buechi, who was first introduced to me at the Festival d’Hyères earlier this year by Diane Pernet.  In Issue III/IV, tattoos are showcased as a sophisticated form of personal expression at the heart of a growing contemporary tattoo culture.

“I got my first tattoo back in 2002. It was a back piece by Filip Leu,” says Buechi. “At the same time I started to get more personally involved in the tattoo culture. I noticed a void in the panorama of tattoo-related publications. The idea of Sang Bleu therefore came naturally from a desire for a publication that would approach tattoo and other underground cultures from another angle, similar to that of contemporary art or fashion.”

For its part, Some/Things also has a strongly personal bent, striving for a timeless appeal and deep engagement with the reader. “We shun a fast approach and we want to take time to discover and re-discover works that transcend the boundaries of their medium — and engage with reality,” declares a manifesto on the project’s website. “A magazine for us is more than a printed matter. It’s part of our world and part of our own lives. It’s our vision — subjective as it may be.”

That vision can be explored in formats that extend beyond the magazine itself, resulting in a model which is something more like a personal art project than a magazine, strictly speaking. Some/Things refers to itself “a bi-annual book/magazine publication, publishing house producing limited edition artist books/objects, and art/design consulting agency” which aims “to create something that goes beyond a basic product — something more involved, engaging and personal — something with a story.”

In this way, these magazines are something to savour for a long time rather than to browse quickly and then, throw away.

But is there a viable business model here? Up until now, neither Sang Bleu nor Some/Things have focused on advertising revenue. Instead a significant sticker price positions the magazines more as art books, and supplemental income comes from other related collaborations and agency work.

“Sang Bleu is not a magazine, it is a project — a Gesamtkunstwerk,” says Buechi, referencing the German word for a work of art that makes use of all or many art forms, a so-called universal work of art.  For Sang Bleu, the project includes a compilation of texts, and catalogues for Elisabeth Llach and an upcoming exhibition in Lausanne, entitled “inbetweenout“.

“It is like that because it couldn’t be any other way,” he continues. “No one would invest in such a project in the beginning, so I borrowed money and sold it as a book. It has worked, I guess, since I have not been put in jail for not paying my rent. I achieved my goal of creating something that didn’t exist before and that people would enjoy reading and draw inspiration from. My real aspirations always were artistic. But now, if it can go on as a financially viable publication, it’d be even nicer.”

Indeed, Buechi is on the hunt for advertisers for the next issue of Sang Bleu due out in February 2010. And, unlike advertisements in say Vogue or Glamour, these ones will be cherished alongside deeply personal editorial and photography for many years to come.

Now that’s what I call a long-term value proposition.

Imran Amed is Editor and Founder of The Business of Fashion