Explosive character, cosmopolitan soul and a natural inclination towards everything that is beautiful, vintage and unconventional. Let’s learn more about the designer, contributor and fashion expert: Alessandro Enriquez
TBS: Alessandro, your career is made of powerful bonds between art, fashion, writing and food, which is the focus of your first book “10×10 – An Italian Theory”, in which you analyse 10 great artists through their relationship with food. Do you believe there’s a link between an artist’s creative horizon and the flavours he’s most affectionate to?
Enriquez: Of course, we are what we eat. The kitchen is very connected with creativity. I love cooking, and, in many collections, I combined these great passions of mine, for example when I realized a capsule with jacquard knitwear embroidered with different types of pasta, not including prints and drawings of various kind of food.
TBS: Your personality has a strong multicultural aspect because of your origins, can we find this in your apparel brand Alessandro Enriquez?
Enriquez: Yes, I think so. I’m Sicilian, born and raised in Palermo, but my dad has French-Tunisine and Spanish origins, as you can understand from my last name. This made me try to always deepen these different cultures through many trips done in Tunisia, France and Spain, reflecting all of this in my collections (almost unconsciously). A designer’s heritage becomes most of the time an inextricable ingredient of his creation process.
TBS: Your work is very dynamic and varied, in fact, besides being a designer, you are also a writer, fashion consultant, and you have created the communication agency Cup Studio. What is the relationship between these activities?
Enriquez: I love doing many things: I started working in the Costume National style office, and I’ve worked there for almost 8 years. In the last period I dedicated myself to writing my book and then I started to collaborate with different magazines like Vogue, Elle and Marie Claire. Then, I started feeling the desire to create something new and with my partner Veronica I created Cup Studio, with which I’m always involved in many communication and fashion consulting projects.
TBS: In your new FW 19/20 collection you used a lot of velvet, twill and tie-dye prints. Where did you get inspiration from? But above all… Where does its name Sexissima come from?
Enriquez: Everyone loved this name! (laughs) It’s called Sexissima because it’s a collection dedicated to love. Years ago, I had made a collection that expressed the different aspects of love, starting from the first kiss and arriving as far as cheating, and all this was told through cartoons and hearts, that were the focus of everything. This time I wanted to show a different face of love, the sexiest one. I was inspired by vintage lingerie advertisements and sexuality of the fifties, always expressed through a cartoon design. The protagonists of the patterns are inspired to the Parisian revue’s performances, like the ones of the famous Lidò and its silhouettes with those super long legs, but also to all those ex voto, icons of my brand, turned for the occasion in “sex voto”.
TBS: Last question. We know that your mantra is ‘beauty exists, and I’m trying to create it’. How do you see yourself in 10 years and what dreams you would like to achieve?
Enriquez: I think I’ll keep carrying out all my projects and hope that everything I’ve done so far will continue to grow. Obviously, I also dream of always creating something new with my collections, my writing and even with Cup Studio. I can’t stand still, I get bored very easily.