Finding Harmony in Tension with Fai Khadra

January 11, 2022

"I am a very holistic person when it comes to a vision," says Fai Khadra, the multi-hyphenate model, architect, designer, and creative director. Yet it's certainly rare to find someone who takes dedication in their vision with quite as much rigor as Fai. office sat down with the newest collaborator of heritage eyewear label Oliver Peoples to discuss their latest collection together, the first that Oliver Peoples has embarked on with a single individual. However, in our conversation with Fai, it quickly became apparent that his capabilities far surpass those of a mere individual, and represent the institutional, refined, and thoughtful ethos with which he approaches every project he takes part in. From the meticulous design of the frames, to the stunning campaign shot by Hugo Comte, all the way down to the design and seating arrangements for the collection's launch event, Fai sees through with his vision and executes his role as a creative director with the utmost zeal.

The result? A timeless eyewear collection and campaign that seamlessly integrates decades of artistic influence with a forward-thinking mindset. In pertinence to the developmental process for the collaboration, Fai explains that "in a kind of world where we see a lot of colorful images and products, I wanted to do something that felt like the antithesis to that."

Interview by Deren Owji
Photos by Hugo Comte

His motivations could not be made more evident than in the images from the campaign for the collaboration, starring Jordan Daniels and Fai himself. Comte's stunning black and white portraits and motion shots convey a polished elegance in throws with a pent-up recklessness. Such a balanced conflict is precisely what Fai has in mind. As he shares, "the things that are most interesting exist when there's a tension between them, yet they are somehow able to blend harmoniously."

Read the exclusive interview with Fai below.

Congratulations on your new collaboration with Oliver Peoples.

Thank you so much. It's my first time designing eyewear, so it was really fun to take on the challenge and try to create something that felt unique to me. I also wanted to push the boundaries of what Oliver Peoples is able to do and what they stand for as well. It was interesting to get that conversation started. This has been almost eight months in the works and it has been a very detail-oriented experience. A lot of different journeys encapsulated in it all.

Having gone to school for architecture, where do you see the most distinct parallels between fashion and architecture when it comes to designing?

I was just actually with a friend of mine who also went to architecture school, and we were saying how, if you want to do anything in design, we really think the best education you could get is going to architecture school. Even when presenting drawings or projects or even creating a layout, picking the fonts, and you know, choosing how to present these images: it’s all graphic design and questioning whether it fulfills the purpose it was designed for. You have to switch between thinking of things aesthetically, and also thinking of things functionally. And so I think I've kind of approached this collaboration with a similar mindset.

Given that mindset, what was starting the process of this collaboration like?

I've never designed eyewear and my entry point into this collaboration wasn't necessarily how the glasses were going to look, but more of what feeling or story or aesthetic is being conveyed. You can see a lot of references to artists I love, whether it be Robert Longo or Richard Avedon. I was also really thinking about this kind of rock and roll, LA in the 90s, Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee aesthetic. Something kind of reckless.

Something I find really fascinating about the designs is the corewire in the frame emulating the look of barbed wire. Where did the idea for that come from?

You know the kind of classic barbed wire tattoo that many people had in the 90s? It’s that kind of aesthetic and then relating it back to what Oliver Peoples does, which is just really, really beautiful, handcrafted glasses. It was also really fun learning all the technical terms of all these different aspects of the sunglasses, you know. Like the line that’s in the temples is called the corewire and they can do so many interesting things with them technologically and visually. We were able to three-dimensionally create that corewire into looking like barbed wire based on that inspiration.

What kind of other inspirations did you draw from in creating the rest of the frame and the campaign for it?

I was thinking about the polarity of these super clean, really classic images from Robert Longo in free form. That kind of expression mixed with something that was a little bit more rough, like the Pam and Tommy era, which I also just am fascinated by. I wanted to explore how we could bridge that gap. Is there a way to connect those two things that maybe no one thought to connect before? That is kind of how I always think. The things that are most interesting exist when there's a tension between them, yet they are somehow able to blend harmoniously. It creates an interesting tension which could be subliminally felt through the product or through the campaign.

How was the experience of modeling for and creative directing the campaign for the collaboration shot by Hugo Comte?

I am a very holistic person when it comes to a vision, which Oliver Peoples was very accommodating of. I will take over not only just the design of the glasses, but choose the campaign and how the stories are being told, all the way down to the event details for the launch. I designed the event and what it's supposed to look like down to seating assignments. I even designed the tables people will be seated at, so it's a very holistic approach to design which I think is more fun for me. It also tells the story best. When it came to the campaign, Hugo’s a friend of mine, and so is Jordan Daniels, and luckily we were able to get them for the shoot. I didn't design the glasses with any gender in mind. But even the way that Jordan is dressed shows it’s a little bit more masculine, as she's wearing a suit. You know, I'm wearing a suit and there's just kind of this play on the masculine and feminine. Hugo is so great at capturing that vision.

You can see that juxtaposition through the motion shots too. They convey a kind of fluidity which is really intriguing when thinking about what the story of the campaign is.

In a kind of world where we see a lot of colorful images and products, I wanted to do something that felt like the antithesis to that. Oliver Peoples makes such a wide range of glasses but when I first went into the store, I noticed that a lot of the frames are a little larger, and I automatically gravitated to doing something that was the opposite. We started to think about these more sleek and thin forms and from there developed what the eventual shape became. Oliver Peoples is also such a classic heritage brand, and I wanted to keep that essence by creating something that felt timeless, yet engaging a different kind of energy that may be more daring.

I read that there were references to a vintage frame in the design process. What kind of other materials were sourced as reference in the creation of this collection?

We initially took a 3D model of my face and then started playing around with different shapes on the computer, without even looking at anything in reality. While we were doing that, I also would just go around and look for different source materials. I would find different shapes and different lenses, and then we kind of collaged those things until we reached what would eventually become the final product.

Thinking conceptually about the glasses out in the world, what is one city or location anywhere at all that you think is most representative of the aesthetic and ethos of this collaboration?

For me, there is a very strong feeling of LA in the 90s.

It’s interesting to hear you say that because my first impression was of a more mid-century, European, Brutalist aesthetic. Especially with the narrow, angular frame and the barbed corewire.

I love that people are going to get different feelings from looking at them and wearing them out. What I said is only my feeling of it. It's not the correct feeling. It was just my interpretation, but I would love for people to have their own interpretation and their own kind of experience with them. I love that that's what you got when you saw them because I love all those things too. I love industrial looking things and brutalist architecture. I wanted to explore how to mix it with something that is maybe a little sleeker and more refined.

Explore Fai Khadra's collaboration with Oliver Peoples here.

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After 30 years and over 100 cult fragrances, COMME DES GARÇONS PARFUMS 1994–2025 BY SIMONETT & BAER launches this month

December 17, 2024

“I have to add that the topic is, of course, an irrational one, because it's not art and it's not fashion. It has to do with scent, which is something in the air,” explains Dino Simonett, renowned art-book maker and designer/publisher of the new COMME des GARÇONS x SIMONETT & BAER book, which details 30 years of CDG perfumes.

“The moment you smell something is irrational,” he continues. “This book transports you and brings you to the idea behind the perfumes. People have gotten thousands of art catalogues from me, but this fucking perfume thing really drives people a little bit crazy, you know? Because everybody has this bottle; and that bottle smells like this on them; and this bottle I need; and all the memories and everything. I like it a lot that we made this.”

As fans and family of the world’s coolest brand prepared to gather at Dover Street Parfums Market in Paris to celebrate the launch of the book, our Editor-At-Large Paige Silveria shared some coffee and cigarettes with Simonett to discuss his wild trajectory, making books with Joseph Beuys and Tilda Swinton early on, and the importance of nonconformal thinking.

By Paige Silveria

This fucking perfume thing really drives people a little bit crazy.

Paige Silveria: Tell me about yourself. You make books.

Dino Simonett: My books are my art. Each book might be a painting or sculpture. And you should not do the same sculpture all the time. When you hike somewhere, you never should go the same way back home — this is something my mother taught me when I was young. In the same way, it's boring to make the same stuff all the time. So I try to find a way to invent my own language.

PS: This book you’ve made is really beautiful.

DS: It’s hyperrealistic larger-than-life images of boxes and flacons in an endless row presented on paper the thickness of a children’s book.

PS: I loved how it said in the press release that you woke up one Sunday morning and the idea for the book suddenly came to you.

DS: The backstory is that Remo Hallauer [COO of COMME des GARÇONS International] is a true book lover. We met at the Offprint book fair in Paris. And one day, shortly after peak COVID, this email came from him asking if I’d think about a possible collaboration with one of the young stars here — and no hard feelings, but it didn’t work out. So then, as it is in life, which is the essential thing, you have to have an idea. And most of the time, they’re not good enough. You have to have another and another and then you go, Ah ha! Perfume.

PS: And you’d already been pretty familiar with their fragrances?

DS: I’ve known this stuff since the beginning. I wore the first perfume they created. It was part of my life all the time, and I thought, It's so funny. There’s a connection with how I make the books: like two, three books a year, all collaborations and each is different. Just like their perfumes. So I immediately texted Remo.

PS: And what perfect timing, with the 30-year anniversary.

DS: Yes, but this was two years ago or so. I hadn’t had the jubilee in mind. It might not look like much, but there was a lot of work to do.

PS: Many of the advertisements and images weren’t archived, physically or digitally, right? You had to search all over for a good portion of the material?

DS: Well we also had to wait for the official deal to go through in the beginning. Adrian Joffe [President of COMME des GARÇONS International and Dover Street Market International] wanted to do it but he didn’t have the mind space at the time; they were about to open the Dover Street Market here in Paris. So we were on our own for a bit, developing the project from zero. We looked all over the Internet and tried to create the chronology. I had a young guy helping me. He kept reminding me to be patient and to continue to work on growing the book. The door was open, but we had to wait in front of the next room. So we took little steps to prepare ourselves. And stuff slowly worked out.

PS: And thank God for the Internet.

DS: Yes, because as you mentioned, there was no archive. We thought surely they’d have something in the basement. But no, that didn’t exist. At one point they sent us a list of all the perfumes so we had a clear checklist to manage. I had to become an expert.

PS: There are so many, over 100?

DS: Yeah, and at one point the CDG team was activated. It was like a machine and in the spring suddenly a load of stuff was coming. First we had to grow the grapes, then make the wine and then the grappa. And at the end, it's a really strong grappa. And so things came together, and then one day Adrian said, “All is fine, but Rei [Kawakubo] must now also approve it. This is how the system works.” But nobody had told me! So Remo met with Rei to show her the book.

PS: That’s a bit of pressure!

DS: She could have said no and we’d have to throw everything in the garbage, two years of work. There was indeed a little bit of pressure. But it was fine. She liked the book. Then at the end of this summer we met again and they asked if they could have some of the finished copies on 20 November in Tokyo. I said, “I’m sorry, what?” He was thinking that the book was finished, you know? I told him we still needed a lot of material to finish it. Sometimes it's nice though to have this pressure. It's motivating and thrilling when you finally accomplish it all.

PS: Let’s go back. How did your upbringing inform who you are?

DS: It has to do with nonconformal thinking. Most people think the same. And we’re constantly pressured as well, by everything around us to conform. You have to really fight to keep your head and so I had this upbringing with this rather eccentric mother who was absolutely nonconformistic in every way. She was resolute. Why should we follow the path of the masses? It was never my thing. Voilà.

PS: How were you in school?

DS: I was not so good at school. I was only skateboarding at that time. I was on the Swiss National Team. I even was here in Paris at a European championship when I was 15 at the Trocadero. And my mother said, “You are not going to school anymore. You need an apprenticeship. It makes no sense to send you to school any longer.” I was independent and had my first salary at 16.

PS: What were you doing?

DS: I was a carpenter making tables, chairs, all that stuff. All my friends went to high school with like 16-week holidays, while I had only four. And so it was really, really tough shit for a 16 year old. But I learned two important things. The first one was discipline; seven o'clock each day it started and lasted nine hours. And the second thing was precision; you have to do things right. People always said to me that the apprenticeship was good as I’d really use it for the rest of my life. And I always thought that was such bullshit. But actually, it's kind of true. And so anyways, the moment I finished my apprenticeship, the very last day of the last test, I went on the Interrail for one month and never went back to a carpenter shop.

PS: What’d you do after?

DS: I wrote a letter to this very super famous music guy, Claude Nobs who was organizing the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland, telling him I’d like to work there that summer. I mentioned that I’d just finished my apprenticeship for carpentry. He phoned me back immediately after getting the letter. He said, “Oh you’re a carpenter? You can come right now.” He was renovating his apartment in Montreux. So I stayed and worked there alone while he was up at his chalet. I felt like Kevin McCallister from Home Alone in this completely furnished apartment. And then the festival started, and there was this guy from New York doing a large mural painting. It was Keith Haring. I had no idea who he was. We became friends. Then I met George Benson and Herbie Hancock. It started from nothing and then one thing comes, another thing comes, another thing comes. This is how I started, which is maybe not the natural way. But I was following my intuition and taking chances and putting myself out there.

PS: And you're going after what you have a passion for.

DS: I think that’s the best way to live one's life. It was like my own private art school. I met all the guys I was totally hot about. I met Joseph Beuys and told him I wanted to do an art project with him. I got his number and he told me to ask for his assistant. But I took everything for granted, what people said to me. So I had this phone number in Berlin. And I called the guy 20 times until this fucking meeting with Beuys finally happened. And we met and made a small collaboration art magazine called “Quer.” You just have to stick to the stuff.

PS: Wow. You don't still have one of those copies around, do you?

DS: I had one and I brought it to Remo at one of our meetings. Adrian saw it and immediately took it … I hope he gave it back to Remo. Adrian has a pile of my stuff that he wanted to see, so that’s good.

PS: Yeah, of any coffee table in the world for it to be displayed, his is probably in the top 10.

DS: So then I decided my dream was to be a film director. There was a film school in Berlin that I applied to. They only took about 18 people from 600. We waited all week to see this list on the wall for the final call back meeting. And my name wasn’t there. I was like, “Shit!” And then a week later, I received a letter saying I’d been accepted. Later the director told me it was clear enough with my application and the art magazine I’d sent that I’d be accepted. I don’t say this to brag. I say this to tell you that every young person that wants to go somewhere, all they have to do is fight. You have to get out of your house and your small town and your comfort zone and all that shit.

PS: I agree. So you’ve made films?

DS: I made a feature movie and went to the film festival. It was really amazing and everything, but I was not Tarantino, you know? So it’s the last semester and Tilda Swinton is supposed to teach a seminar. I really wanted to attend it. It would be the cherry on top of the cake. Then she postponed it once, then twice. The third time, I’m on the tube and there’s a woman in front of me with a newspaper that says that Tilda’s super mentor, Derek Jarman, had passed away. It’s the very Monday morning that her seminar is set to begin. And I thought, Oh shit. She’s not going to be there. But then she was there after all and it was a fantastic week. There were only five of us students and we all fell in love with her. And she fell in love with us. I’ve known her since.

PS: I can only imagine. How’d you make the transition into books?

DS: You have to find out what you're really good at. I had long discussions with this guru, an old guy who was a very diligent, very bright guy. I was really miserable, feeling directionless. He asked me why I wasn’t continuing with filmmaking. And I couldn't give him an answer. Then he said right into my face, “Probably it’s because you’re not good enough.” The message was one-hundred percent received. It was a relief; I'm not a bad person. This guy told me the truth, and I could accept it. And when you can do this, you can figure out what you actually want to do, what you’re actually good at. I started making books. I made one with another film director. And we visited Tilda at her hotel, bringing one to her as a present. As we’re knocking, I thought to myself, If I did another book focused on people in this business, it’d have to be her. And she opens the door, looks at the book and says, “Oh, I would like to have a book like this on me.”

PS: These situations seem unreal.

DS: I spent five years on her book, which was an enormous success. It included stills from all her films and launched it in different cities. Fantastic shit.

PS: And now you’ve just released this soon-to-be iconic CDG book.

DS: I've learned to be patient; things can take you years. This book with Adrian and Remo took two years and I didn’t even know if it was going to be approved! Follow your dreams as much as you can. It's not so important which dream it is exactly. If I see a step in front of me, I try to take each chance I get. This is what I wish for everybody, in whatever situation you find yourself, start to do something with nothing. This book started with just a simple idea. You can not find anything like this on the Internet, this compilation, this narrative. It’s something we had to bring together with enormous work. And here we are. I think in our digital, splattered times sometimes you have to make something which is real. That you can sit with and focus on in silence and really take time alone with it.