February 24, 2005

Exerpt: Muiccia interviews Andre

Muiccia Prada: Absolutely--the "90s?

Andre Leon Talley: More probing, more contemplative, a reaction to the '80s and mass consumerism and vulgarity. In the '90s there was a return to a kind of intellectual elegance, a sensibility about clothes being a vary important part of your life, but it was a pragmatic chic.

MP: And now?

ALT: Now? Well, after September 11, 2001, fashion went into a very dark period. In the last year it's come out of that period and it's going back into what fashion should be--desire. Women are wanting to get dressed up again with more attention to a kind of glamour. Maybe it's the '40s, maybe it's the '50s, maybe it's the '30s, but it's glamorous without just being Hollywood flamboyance. And it's back again to the thing that I grew up with--the glove, the handbag, the shoe. The most important thing for a woman to me is her eyes, her hands, her feet, her ankles, her legs. Not the breast or the derriere. I mean, those are erotic zones that most people universally consider the sexy part of a woman. But it's the turn of her hand, the way a woman wears her shoes, the turn of her ankle, the pivotal way the ball of her feet move within her shoe.

(From Interview Magazine, Nov 2003)

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