Stephan Schneider Article

[Faust]

My article on Stephan Schneider, albeit abbreviated. Enjoy.

[laika]

you are getting very good at this interviewing business, faustie...the answers you elicited are actually far more interesting than i expected after our conversation.

I like the clarity and coherence of his vision.

In the Academy they want you to be a visionary, to do it your own away, so by the time I graduated, I felt a need to do nice, smart clothes. I think the Belgians makes clothes with a soul, but I wanted to give my clothes not a Bohemian humanity, but a smart humanity. Fashion doesn’t have to be so Bohemian. The person who wears my clothes doesn’t have to cover and hide his personality.....Clothes should be honest.

Interesting choice of words with "bohemian"...

[Faust]

I'll take that as a compliment

I am shopping around a more complete version of the article (twice the size), there is much more interesting stuff where that came from.

[laika]

lol, it was definitely intended as a compliment!

I would love to read the unabridged version, please.

[Pinoy]

Fantastic article, E. Despite being abridged, probably my second favorite of yours (after the Demeulemeester article).

I've always appreciated Schneider's work from afar. And after inspecting his work up close a few years ago, gained a new appreciation for the quiet beauty his clothing emanates.

This article sheds more light on a designer I never read or hear much about (at least in my case). As expected, Stephan's personality seems to be reflected in his clothing. Stephan strikes me as a cerebral, quiet worker... a humble fellow just doing his thing in his corner of the world.

As Laika mentioned, I would LOVE to read the unabridged version!

[Faust]

Glad you liked it this much, Pinoy. Here is the unabridged version:

STEPHAN SCHNEIDER
QUIET RIOT

On a recent afternoon during the Paris menswear fashion week Stephan Schneider, the German fashion designer of the esteemed Antwerp school, was milling around his brightly lit showroom, talking to the buyers and eyeing over the models that were changing clothes like human jukeboxes. A soft-spoken man in his forties, Schneider has been working since the mid 90s, gaining a loyal following among those who, although interested in fashion, would not be caught dead next to a fashionista. His clothes possess a quite, quirky spirit that is easy to overlook, a spirit of a reflective kid who stands in the school hallway during the break watching other teenagers act out their lives. Acting is the last thing that comes to mind when looking at Schneider’s deceptively simple, almost preppy creations. “There is no drama in my clothes,” says Schneider.

That is not to say that the clothes are not alive. The little details, such as different shades of color on the sleeves of a coat or a contrasting band peaking out from under the shirt’s collar, give Schneider’s garments their zest. “My customer is always a boy inside, even a man who is seventy,” says Schneider, “The charm of my customer is that they can keep a boyish attitude inside, and that I want to keep in the clothes. There is always a bit of humor in them.”

Schneider’s women, on the other hand, are cool and cerebral. They are not dry, but simply unfussy. “My woman likes a certain strict, masculine look, she is not of romantic attitude. She is neither the one who wants to bare her skin, nor the Comme des Garcons woman who wants to completely cover herself.”

Schneider is not interested in androgyny, but much of his work overlaps between the sexes. His gorgeous scarves are unisex, and he likes to create similar garments for men and women. “Many of my customers buy the men’s and the women’s,” says he. “Often it’s the husband and wife who are both my clients and they enjoy to dress similarly. The collection story is always the same, and the fabrics are the same.”


And the fabrics are half of the story. Unlike most designers, Schneider makes his own fabrics, which takes up an awful lot of time, but rewards him with materials that no other designer has. “Ninety percent of our fabrics are made in house,” says he, “I don’t want to make something that you can replace with something else. For the first seven years I refused to work with black color, because black felt easier to be replaced. We always start with the fabric design. We draw every line, every color.”

[Faust]

continued...

Schneider also keeps his production in factories around Antwerp, while many others have moved production outside of Europe to cut costs. But he insists that staying in Belgium is not about resisting cutting corners. “People in Vietnam stitch as well as a Belgian woman. This collection is still made in Belgium, but I can’t say to my customer that it’s better because it’s made in Belgium,” says he. Rather it’s about keeping close ties to the people who make his clothes. “I don’t like change too much,” says Schneider, “And I’ve been working with the same factories for years; one of them produced my graduation collection sixteen years ago. I think the longer you continue something, the higher the quality becomes. It’s hard for me to throw away the experience I have built up.“

Schneider was born in a small industrial town near Düsseldorf, where the blue-collar air was not conducive to creativity. Although always creatively inclined, in high school Schneider spent most of his time studying math and science, because he was mortified of being judged on something so subjective as art. At the same time he was an avid consumer of fashion. “I was a big fashion follower when I was a teenager. I spent all my money on clothes. I was a fascinated magazine reader, Face, i-D, Blitz. They introduced me to interesting designers like Yohji Yamamoto, Vivienne Westwood, and Gaultier,“ says Schneider. After graduating, he decided to study fashion design. He picked it out of all the creative disciplines because it seemed the most approachable and not as lofty as fine arts. "In fashion I like that the idea becomes a product. If the idea remains an idea, I don’t feel much tension in it. What fascinated me about Antwerp is that Belgian designers went directly into business. Dries van Noten opened his first store one year after his first collection." In 1989 Schneider was accepted to Antwerp Royal Academy, without having sewn a stitch in his life. In 1994, he graduated at the top of his class.

Today, Schneider splits his time between Antwerp and Berlin, where he teaches fashion design at Universität der Künste, a post he inherited from Vivienne Westwood. But Antwerp informs much of his work, in both the friendly and the adversary way. “The starting point for developing my esthetic was Antwerp,” says Schneider, “Coming there when the Belgians tore everything, washed everything, destroyed everything, which was a new amazing feeling of fashion. In the Academy they want you to be a visionary, to do it your own away, so by the time I graduated, I felt a need to do nice, smart clothes. I think the Belgians makes clothes with a soul, but I wanted to give my clothes not a Bohemian humanity, but a smart humanity. Fashion doesn’t have to be so Bohemian. The person who wears my clothes doesn’t have to cover and hide his personality.”

To keep free from drama, Schneider keeps his prices as low as he can – much lower than most designers who make their clothes in third-world countries. “Pricing is very important to me,” says he. “Clothes should be honest. When I see a shirt in a store that costs more than 250 euros, it becomes a status symbol, nearly unwearable. I want to keep it all alive and effortless.”

Schneider’s resistance to putting on airs has served him well. His clothes a staple in such influential stores like Opening Ceremony in the US, and Lift in Japan. But you know what they say; slow and steady wins the race.

[swami]

Great read , thanks !
Despite the nod to Opening Ceremony

[Faust]

lol. well, they are an influential store - what can i do?