Passion for Fashion: GCDS x BRATZ

December 24, 2021

Italian clothing brand, GCDS and the beloved and chic doll makers at BRATZ have teamed up to bring us a whimsical and childlike capsule that will allow us to live out our childhood fantasies of being “that bitch.”

GCDS is the anti-label label. In the world of categorizing and naming and branding and labeling everything we see, how can you create a brand, a line of clothing, the goal of which is not to label anyone who wears it as any one thing?

Founder Giuliano Calza, speaks of his youth in Naples, Italy. “We had lots of groups of people. You could be the one doing drugs in the bathroom, the emo one, the metal one, but you really had that lifestyle. Today, I see people emulating a way of living, a way of dressing up, even when they’re not that person.” And he has grown up to create GCDS, which has stood for many different acronyms so as not to align itself too closely with any one definition.

Interview by Willa Beck
Photos courtesy of GCDS

Play is another very important factor for GCDS and for Giuliano. Remembering to play and to have fun and to not take things too seriously keeps the world interesting. And probably keeps the world a lot kinder, as well. This is partly why a collaboration with BRATZ is so fitting. Dresses with graphic manga prints of Sasha, Chloe, Jade, and Yasmin’s faces, blingy gold BRATZ earrings, and “Passion for Fashion” emblazoned across hoodies, bras, shorts, and dresses, are among the items featured in this status-quo challenging collection.

The phrase “Passion for Fashion” is used both by BRATZ and GCDS to remind us that that’s all this is! It’s really not much deeper than that. It has a kind of “express yourself” message behind it. Calza strives to create clothes that remind us of this sentiment. Just have fun with it! Helping to make toys that dawn his creations reflects just how important it is to Giuliano.

Both GCDS and BRATZ encourage personal expression, acceptance, and different canons of beauty, which is further conveyed by the custom dolls Giuliano chose to create, modeled after some of his most admired icons — artists and musicians and straight up party girls who have challenged the norm in one way or another.

See our conversation with Giuliano below, as we discuss both the toy-sized and life-sized capsule and what the making of it meant to GCDS!

What is GCDS’s mission as a brand?

So, I travel the world and the 7 seas, and I’ve experienced so much in my life; I’ve met so many people. At some point, I realized Italy was a bit cussed out from this vision of global and fun and Pop, and I asked myself, Why can I not be this guy? To make Italian manufacture, make it Pop, make it relevant for the world and my generation? At the same time, I wanted to remind everyone that GCDS is about having fun. It’s about playing your personality, the game of personality, who you are for real, what’s your ambition, what do you wanna be in your life? Sometimes, BRATZ, in a silly way, reminded us of the same thing. If you have a passion for fashion, or just wanna be a bad bitch, just be that girl! I just wanted to create this fun, pink, gay world, call it a weird name that everyone would be pissed off at, and call it my scenario. And BRATZ were exactly the same. I remember one of my first shows, and one reviewer came and said to me, Oh, you do ugly clothes, and I said, Oh, thank you, but I think many people like ugly clothes! I think, today, rather than having the world be where we belong to a tribe and where we belong to a community, we emulate something or lifestyle in order to join one. To me, still, it’s a good reminder to stay young and play the role of who you want to be and not the role of who others want you to be. And BRATZ is exactly the same.

I love what you said about emulating a group you’d like to be a part of.

As a kid, I used to live in Naples, in the south of Italy, and I remember I used to go to a really normal school. We had lots of groups of people. You could be the one doing drugs in the bathroom, the emo one, the metal one, but you really had that lifestyle. Today, I see people emulating a way of living, a way of dressing up, even when they’re not that person. And me, personally, I’m always seeking truth to what I am, what I like, and what I want to be. When I see this thing, I said, Oh my gosh, let's make something that’s fun, let’s make something you just want to own because it’s a toy. Toys for adults, I want to do. This is my point of view on this weird world, where everyone wants to be something, but we don’t experience anything anymore. I used to go hardcore, to parties in China, and do crazy things, and I lived that life. I feel, still, I don’t own anything of that life. Instead, now, it’s enough to wear a metal band t-shirt and you are that girl! I’m like, okay!

What does GCDS stand for?

GCDS is multiple names. At the beginning, it was my first company in China, Giuliano Calza Design Studio. Then, I said I wanted to do streetwear because I was obsessed with seeing people and what they were doing with their own life, their clothes. So I decided God Can’t Destroy Streetwear, because I felt like the world of streetwear was limited to straight people. So I said, I don’t think this can be judged in any way possible, so not even God can destroy it. Then it became Girls Can Desire Sex, because I was obsessed with the idea that my generation can desire sex. I wanted to create a brand that was not labeling in any way possible who was buying it. It had to be a puzzle, a game, it has to evolve.

I saw in the press release that you don’t call GCDS streetwear, but “culture wear.” What is your definition of “culture wear”?

In a way, I don’t think you can define streetwear. What is streetwear today? I love to see hoes in high heels and a mini dress, I love to see punks. To me, it’s more becoming a “culture wear'', in the way it defines your own culture. I’m just trying to portray this; I’m not trying to create something that is based on an ideal of the past or an ideal of the future. I think this is the moment I’m describing, and this is my culture. I always say, Meme is my culture. There is nothing more relevant in our generation than memes. So, I think this is my idea of culture. I’ve studied political science, I’ve studied economy, I fully speak Chinese, I’ve studied French, I’ve studied English. Still, I don’t feel resident in any of these cultures. I just want to create something laughable, doable, enjoyable, ironically good, and you can just wear it!

Will you describe GCDS’ relationship with the LGBTQ+ community? It seems like a significant part of the brand’s identity.

I don’t think it’s an identity. You don’t define yourself with an identity. I belong to a generation that comes with new ideals. They are not the 50’s ideals of what you have to sexually be or how you have to define yourself. I don’t even like pronouns. I don’t think anyone should say I’m this or that. I think we’re living in a culture that puts us in the wave of being culturally connected, living the world, eating food from all over the world. And this is a matter of fact. Kids today are already teaching us how to do better. We should be learning from the younger generation on how to use new media, or how to use your persona and your voice. I’m just speaking up for my generation. I didn’t find myself in any old advertising from any brand. I couldn’t see myself. I was not standard Italian, I was not a guy from anywhere in the world, I just wanted to represent these people. I just want to represent different communities. I just want to represent even the LGBTQ+ world in a way that is not saying, Oh, I represent the LGBTQ. This is my casting. There is going to be trans people, there is going to be gay people, there is going to be cis people. But this is where I live. What really made me come up with this seniority idea of the GCDS logo, was that I was living in a college with kids from all over the world. I was in Shanghai, and I had my best friend from Japan, people from Kazakhstan, people from Russia, people from Colombia. I was not questioning why. I was just fully embracing it. This is my idea of where I should stand for my ideals and what is the generation today. Is there anything, like gender norms, or a beauty standard. What are the standards today? I don’t think anyone can say, Oh, this is right and this is wrong. This is not where we live anymore today. Everything is more organic, even Instagram. You choose what you like. It’s not TV anymore, where I tell you, You need to like this, this is the new product. No, I’m gonna choose what is right for me, and this is my menu. I’m gonna do my own DIY menu.

So, I guess you could say, then, that you’re very much focused on the individual. You’re not trying to define anything or to belong to any one style or community per se, but you’re just making something authentic that people can identify with in whatever way that works for them.

Yes, exactly this in the end. I never set out to do this as my job. I studied Political Science. I was really into art. I’ve always been drawing, I’ve always been painting, but I was not saying, One day I’m gonna design for people, and I’m gonna show what I can do. It just happened to be that people liked what I was doing and it got bigger and bigger. In this journey, I took on my card, artists, people enjoying my work, people really liking it because it’s new, because it’s different, or because it’s really bad, or because it’s really good.

Why does the collaboration with BRATZ make sense for GCDS?

They were the bad dolls. They were ugly, they had ugly makeup. They were different. For this, they were not right. GCDS at the beginning was not right for fashion, was not right for streetwear, was not belonging, but it became a huge success. As soon as they rang my bell, I was so excited, because they were LGBTQ. In any way, these people were pioneering what they were doing. These dolls were going to every place with fashion, with gender norms, with beauty and makeup. In a way, I just felt like they belong to my world. Ten years ago, they did what we’re talking about today. Maybe today, we’re doing something with GCDS that in ten years is still gonna be relevant. I just wanted to fully celebrate it. What I really loved, and I didn’t think about it, is that most of the people that came to the stores when I was releasing the dolls were men. This shows you the impact of a doll can be big. Even on the sexuality of a little young man, that ten years later still is celebrating what he wanted to have as a kid. I think that’s amazing.

How did you come up with the concept of the custom dolls?

I took all the people that were icons to me. Sita has always been by my side, and she has always been the one, like, Fuck it. Then, I went with Shea Couleé, because I’m a huge fan of Ru Paul’s drag race. While there’s beauty queen, and there’s glam queen, she was the fun one. She was dressing up as whatever you dream to be. Icons for me that are not beauty icons or norm icons. Just people that represent their artistry in a different way. Dua Lipa for me was just singing pop style. And people are trying to be different, but sometimes a good pop song, everyone can enjoy it. All different categories of people that have taught me so much. To not care anymore. These rules, what is right, what is asked to be. I don’t think they belong anymore to our generation.

What relationship does this collaboration have with the idea of childhood? You briefly mentioned that these men were able to have the doll that they always wanted.

I think GCDS is very much based on childhood. If you’ve seen my show, once I made a giant T-Rex. I always want to make people feel like they’re a small child looking at something big, or something they aspire to. Dolls are something you think you can only play with when you’re young. But there are many people who shouldn’t forget how it is to play. I think when you lose the playfulness of it all, the world gets boring. I’d rather be celebrating ten years younger people, and just be like, let’s enjoy it, than to create something that is boring.

The clothing created alongside the dolls, what was your vision for that?

First of all, I wanted to create a meme. Because Passion for Fashion is something everyone knows. I think as a kid, you listened to it a million times. Passion for Fashion! This was the first idea. Even when there’s a drama or a trouble in the office, or the casting, or the campaign, the shoot goes bad, I’m like, This is passion for fashion. It makes the room exhale. We’re just doing clothes, guys. On the other side, I wanted to put the dolls in my most iconic prints. And my most iconic print is the naked girls with boobs out. They said absolutely no. This is a doll. Anyway, kids are gonna buy it! So I recreated the manga print by myself. I redid it all with Sasha, Yasmin, Chloe, in a manga way. I did the final inception. I put it on them, and I put it on the people that were buying them.

All the details in the clothing, the graphic quality, even the earrings, it’s all amazing.

The good thing, I wish you could see, but we have no dolls, they sold out but will be restocked soon, is that my gold heart bag has a chain. The chain was designed by me, and each part of the chain is G-C-D-S, G-C-D-S. They recreated it exactly the same on the doll. One day, I was at my desk looking at the doll, and I got closer and closer and realized they made the chain exactly. So detailed! Even the fur has the lining of the fur with the little black cat, because the logo of Sasha is a black cat. My white boots with the logo GCDS as metallic heels. They recreated the metallic heels.

What a fun project!

Honestly, when you’re creating a life sized collection, you have the boundaries of reality. Sales campaign, press, everyone is gonna tell you this is childish or not real enough. With dolls, you have no boundaries. You can say, I’m gonna dress her up in a catsuit, then I’m going to get a babydoll dress with Swarovski, then I’m gonna put on fur, then I’m gonna braid their hair to the floor. The Bratz people were like, Yes, we love this.

How long was the process of making the dolls?

To make a doll, it takes one and a half years. It’s endless just to get approvals on the materials. It’s not hard to design. The difficult thing was to think of this doll not only as an item, but something that people will play with. Even things I planned to do at the beginning changed on the ride to the end. Everything has to change, it cannot stay the same from the beginning. At the beginning, I wanted to have bling makeup, and then they said, no you cannot put stones on the face because collectors are gonna be nasty about it. The most fun I’ve ever had in a capsule collection or anything I’ve done before.

It seems fun! Like a dream! For those who’d like to purchase something from this collection, where can they find it?

The capsule collection is available in my stores in Milan, London, and Rome, or at GCDS.com. The doll is now sold out on all platforms, but it’s going to have a restock in Target and all the Toys R Us in the world and also on GCDS.com.

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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.