Interview with designer Guillem Rodríguez

By Gioia Gange

http://www.guillemrodriguez.net/

https://www.instagram.com/guillemrodriguez/

When and how you decided that you wanted to be a designer?

Since I was a child I felt attraction for plastic arts and colours, so I was drawing all day. I always had an adoration to woman, I was drawing womens all day, maybe this where my femenin side came across on my designs. Then suddenly when I was 15 I realise that I would love to be a fashion designer, at then time I was always looking for fashion at VOGUE, looking for references. Even my fascination to womenswear I prefer to design for menswear.

It was your dream job?

I would like to have my own studio, working there with a nice team. But I think that even in the Dream job there always will be trouble, since I think that troubles are necesary for a good result.

Which is the first thing you designed and for who (yourself,a friend…)?

Shoulder off t shirt, at the school. It was a complete desaster, I was 17 years old at that time and my grandma helped me and teach me the frist steps.

Who’s the designer you admire the most and why?

I have to confess that I have an adoration to Cristobal Balenciaga and the way he sees garments and volumes in such an elegant, confortable and clean way. I also felt in love with the period that Raf Simons where at Dior, for the way he read the modern woman who wears Dior. And I admire the work that JWAnderson is doing at LOEWE, for the way he mix modernity and tradition in such a new way of luxury.

Who’s your muse, your icon, when you create a dress?

I dont like to personalize on that. I mean, i don’t have only one icon that i follow, but instead i have many references that I always go back to them in order to find myself in inspiration, things that I feel aproach to them. Maybe could be a picture of a dress, a profile on instagram of someone who I found elegant, or a picture with a good colours and lighting, or maybe a feeling. So, at some point I can fins many muses on my mind.

If you had to design an entire collection using just one color, which is the one you’d pick and why?

Recently I present my last Capsule collection called FLEURIR, and I was using only Black and white. If I had to choose one colour, i think it would be something between a pale pink and the perfect nude skin.

Who’s the first person you show your sketches to?

My close team. I use to show it first to the pattern maker, and then the stylist. I like to comunicate with them in order to make the collection better, also we are good friends, so that makes the comunication even better since we can understand the other point of view easily.

The fabric you love the most…silk, lace, velvet and why?

Fluid satin silk with sand wash. It is Effortless, it brings a soft movement and incredible hand feeling is soft and delicate. I like to bring that fluid and warm feeling to men.

If your clothes had a soundtrack, which songs you’d choose?

Simphony 5, Gustav Mahler.

Do you have any trick to avoid that “blank page” moment when you’re at the beginning of the designing of a new collection? Do you watch a movie, flip an old magazine…

At the first sight I like to put all the references and inspirations on the table, all together. Then I start to analyse and create small groups of references, by feeling, cuts… then the line up starts to grow up. In every process it has to be a time of reflection and trouble. When I get upset its when I stop working and go out for a walk, running or swim, it help me to clear up my mind.

If you weren’t a designer which job in the fashion world you would like to do ?

 Maybe I would love to do Stylist or productions.