New Object Research - The Aitor Throup Thread

Exclusive interview with AITOR THROUP.

At KUL BRITANIA we had the chance to do an exclusive interview with London menswear designer, creative director of Damon Albarn's first ever solo album and creative director of Kasabians 4th and 5th studio albums, AITOR THROUP.

Aitor talked to us about everything; growing up in Burnley surrounded by football hooligans and developing this passion for brands such as CP Company and Stone Island which led him to pursue a career in fashion design.

However, Aitor makes it quite clear that the casual subculture introduced him to those brands but that was just the door to his real passion which is creating timeless products, and art which will stand the test of time.

AITOR THROUP is a man who has got involved in several different projects from reinventing the conventional approach to fashion design and garment construction to creating videos and artworks for the likes of Damon Albarn or Kasabian. Recently and, to add more names to this ever-growing portfolio, the London-based artist and designer born in Buenos Aires has been appointed as a creative consultant to G-Star Raw. We chatted with him about his past and present projects and his love and passion for creating art.

Read the first part of the interview with AITOR THROUP: THE PORTRAIT OF AN ARTIST.



KUL BRITANIA: AITOR LETS BEGIN AT THE BEGINNING , YOU WERE BORN IN BUENOS AIRES THEN YOU MOVED TO SPAIN TO FINALLY MOVE TO ENGLAND? WHAT ARE YOUR CHILDHOOD MEMORIES OF BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA?

AITOR THROUP: Let me think...I grew up in Buenos Aires but the thing is we lived in different places and different areas so I can't really remember specifically where I lived.



KB: BY THE AGE OF 12, YOU MOVED TO ENGLAND, BURNLEY TO BE PRECISE, WAS IT TOUGH FOR YOU TO KIND OF ADAPT TO LIVING IN A PLACE WHERE SPANISH WAS NOT SPOKEN OR WERE YOU ALREADY BILINGUAL AT THE TIME?

AT: No, I wasn't bilingual. I couldn't speak English at all really ....maybe a couple of words, like the ones you learn at school at that age. It was difficult but I guess I always adapted easily. I've always been sociable and confident and I 've never relied on community, on being part of the group, I've never relied on popularity, you know, I was very interested in the self, in individualism and it was more like:"how can one person be themselves yet and being able to be part of a group of people? I think a lot of people rely on associating themselves with a country or a community. I never really had that. I'm not patriotic. I think it's only irrelevant.I believe we're children of the universe. It doesn't matter really. When people ask you "Where're you from?" they mean "Where was I born?" , they mean "My accent?", because my acccent is quite strong from the north of England, do they mean "my ethnicity?" , "my ancestry?", "my name?", and they may all get different answers,you know?



KB: TALKING ABOUT YOUR ART, DO YOU REMEMBER THE FIRST THINGS YOU STARTED DRAWING AS A YOUNG CHILD?

AT: Yes, I do. I always drew the human body. I always drew people. Drawing is the one thing I remember doing from being very, very young. It's the one constant thing in my life. It was always like a character. It was always like a human body moving. And when I was very young, that was unusual for my parents, teachers, etc. That awareness of motion was unusual for them. How the body moved was beyond my age in a way and I was always surrounded by -growing up in Buenos Aires- medical books, Biology books, because my mom was training to become a doctor and somehow I had this interest in characters and moving people and this real kind of photo-realistic quite gruesome medical imagery that I grew up with, somehow this anatomical awareness was there from the very beginning.



KB: WHEN YOU MOVED TO BURNLEY IN THE 90S, YOU SAID THAT YOU DEVELOPED THIS LOVE FOR BRANDS LIKE CP AND STONE ISLAND, BRANDS ASSOCIATED WITH THE PREVALENT "CASUAL" SCENE AT THE TIME, DID THIS SUBCULTURE INFLUENCE YOUR POINT OF VIEW OR DESIGN PERSPECTIVE?

AT: Yes, that subculture introduced me to those brands. That was the door really. A lot of people are interested in the door but I was more interested in what was behind that door. And it was actually because of football and the football subculture that I ended up being surrounded by this uniform. The fact that those brands were appropriated by the subculture is just a coincidence. Maybe they could have been appropriated by another subculture and I would have come across them through another subculture, but like I said that is just the door. It doesn't matter how I would have been introduced to it, it was more what was behind the door. Where those brands come from, how those brands were born, how those products were born, is completely nothing to that subculture, it is an adoption. And it was through the football subculture that I found the work of Massimo Osti. And for years I didn't understand why I was interested in his work. It just didn't make sense. And I began to be interested in - very effectively- in the anatomy of the product, how something can be constructed from so many multiple facets/layers and effectively it is just like the human body were an object either has integrity and soul componentry and complexity or not. I didn't know that at the time that's why I was reacting to it and for years I was just fascinated by it rather than doing something. I continued to draw and it wasn't for a few years later that the two came together really.


KB: YOU WERE ASKED A WHILE AGO TO REDESIGN THE MILLE MIGLIA JACKET AN ICONIC CP COMPANY CREATION (HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE THE MILLE MIGLIA JACKET?)

AT: For me it was a real challenge. First of all it was the biggest honour imaginable because it was that particular jacket that first inspired me to become a designer. But the challenge was that it was a jacket that I considered to be almost perfect so it was almost scary to have to redesign it effectively. But because all my work was and is actually informed by a deconstruction conceptually of what that jacket achieved, what that design achieved, I just extracted the system from that jacket and redesigned it based on its own system.

What the system is basically is about starting a narrative or a concept. You start with context from A to B in this way and conditions, etc. The context , the setting, the narrative and then you have a purpose to the work that you do. For the driver to survive those conditions; the driver needs to drive, needs to protect his head, look at his watch while he's driving, all of these elements, right? So the jacket needs to be comfortable to do that and that's exactly what Massimo Osti did as well so I'm going through the same process as him but I'm being a purist about it. He and I basically had the same goal of working. You start with context in a way in order to inform a process that evolves into innovation so you don't know where it's gonna end up. So by going to concept to context to function, you have purpose then you go to process that reforms a process of what materials you need, what ergonomics you need to consider, etc. And then, in the end, all of those things result in this product, which is completely new, you'd never seen before Massimo did it, a jacket with a hood like that, with a watch viewer like that and the rest of it and you're not afraid of what the concept results in in terms of innovation, it's resulting because it's a natural product design. So I was doing the same thing but making it really, really work in the Mille Miglia so it had to be waterproof, it had to fit properly, you had to be able to move your head left and right and the goggle stay in front of your eyes. You had to eliminate the bulk of fabric in front of your stomach when you sit down so that results in an innovation of releasing the tension from the front and changing the shape of the jacket into a sitting position when driving.

All of these solutions end up creating a completely new product that was only born from the concept.


KB: YOU SAID THAT INSPIRED YOU: IS THAT WHY YOU STUDIED FASHION DESIGN? ACTUALLY YOUR GRADUATE COLLECTION CALLED — WHEN FOOTBALL HOOLIGANS BECOME HINDU GODS — WON THE INTERNATIONAL TALENT SUPPORT AWARD IN 2006 FOR GRADUATE COLLECTION OF THE YEAR.WHAT CAN U TELL US ABOUT THAT) AND HOW DID U COME UP WITH THE IDEA?

AT: Well, what happened was, if you rewind a few years, I ended up being interested in designing garments, not in becoming a fashion designer but in designing these jackets. So by accident almost, I started drawing these jackets and these characters that I always drew, started becoming more and more detailed in terms of the jackets so it was because of football hooligans that I became interested in design.

Then I started studying and I went to Manchester, I did my degree there. I started learning new techniques, having new ideas, new inspirations, you know, going away from the football hooligans in a way and also from Massimo Osti and Stone Island, CP company, and I started getting inspiration from everywhere, and I tried to develop a new approach to clothing design.

So if we go fast forward another three years, by the time I got to the final stages of my Masters Degree, I was surrounded by a completely different kind of inspiration which was informed by my surroundings at the time. In this case it was a good friend of mine called Mayor. He was a Hindu guy and he used to sit next to me everyday at college, and we used to travel to college together because he lived near me and sometimes he would not be allowed to eat, he was fasting or whatever or he was coming in with a BINDI from a religious festival the previous day and he was a colourful character, completely opposite from the kind of uniform that I had surrounded myself, you know, this kind of religious colourful thing that surrounded him and I became interested in it .

I'm a very inquisitve person in general, So I would ask him why he is not eating, what are these festivals about, what does the bindi represent? and the colours and actually I started learning a lot about Hinduism and as a result of that, I became genuinely interested in it, particularly in the simbolism. I think it is interesting when you think about character design, how the visual, physical attributes of the character are informed by the characteristics.

A Hindu God may have four arms to hold four different things so it has these four arms because it can only hold these four objects and it needs to hold those four objects because they are symbols of four different attributes of that particular God. It is like form follows function in a way but in terms of metaphorical symbolism is like form follows reason. So in a way, it is like comic book character design ,like superheroe design. When you look at Batman suit it is definitely form follows reason.There is no function in his ears for example and there's a reason for them. So I'm very interested in this notion: form follows reason.

And when you look at religion, the kind of symbolism throughout history it is this idea of form follows reason and I think that is what my work is about and Hinduism really tapped into that and so I was interested in hinduism and I surrounded myself in it.

I was basically making a collection about Hinduism and about deconstructing these ideas - form follows reason - and then one day I felt "this is crazy I got into this industry because I was surrounded by football hooligans and now Im doing my final collection for my final degree at my Masters level and I'm surrounded by Hindu Gods. I was never a football hooligan and I was never a Hindu God either.

So "WHEN FOOTBALL HOOLIGANS BECOME HINDU GODS" is really a symbol in itself. It's a metaphorical narrative with my own path which is an interesting thing, I didn't make clear at the time. And as a concept in itself it has obviously a morale purpose to highlight the reality of racism; particularly in British football Hooliganism which is also something personally connected to myself Something that I grew up experiencing and I think that creative energy should be morale, should be concious. We should use creativity ethically to communicate a message of something that can inspire or include humanity. So I don't want to be talking about "this season I'm inspired by Hawaii" for example.


KB: AND OBVIOUSLY YOU DONT WANT TO GET STUCK TO THIS IDEA OF SPRING SUMMER FALL WINTER COLLECTION?

AT: Of course not, I still don't even understand that system. I get it, I go shopping and I go like "I like that t shirt, I wanna buy it" and I hope I'm gonna go back to that store and there's gonna be a new t shirt because I wanna buy a new t shirt. I like fashion, I buy fashion. I'm just saying that is not what my work is . I'm not trying to get you to buy this t shirt. I'm trying to create art.


KB: SPEAKING OF FASHION AND FOOTBALL, WHO DO YOU SUPPORT?

AT: I support Burnley.


KB: CONGRATULATIONS YOU'VE JUST BEEN PROMOTED.

AT: I'm amazed that you know that.Thank you very much.


KB: DID / DO YOU GO TO SEE THEM?

AT: Yeah, sure. Actually I went recently with my friends from Kasabian with Serge and Tom and as Leicester got promoted too we went together. It was a big match. It was like the number one team and the number two team Burnley.I guess I'll be going to more games next season as they'll also be playing here in London.



KB: THE PREVIOUS QUESTION JUST BRINGS US TO THE NEXT ONE CONCERNING FOOTBALL AND THE ENGLAND KIT YOU DESIGNED FOR UMBRO BACK IN 2009. WE'VE SEEN A VIDEO OF YOU PRESENTING THE JERSEY TO TOM MEIGHAN. WAS THAT FIRST TIME YOU MET TOM?

AT: That was actually the first time I ever met Tom, which is crazy because we're good friends now. That's when we first met, I was already a fan of their music and I suggested that we involved Kasabian in the release. UMBRO wanted to so something with a musician or a band and I thought Kasabian would be perfect to do this and luckily it happened.


KB: AS YOU SAID BEFORE YOU ARRIVED IN BURNLEY IN 92 RIGHT?, YOU WERE ONLY 12 YEARS OLD BUT THEN 94-5-6 YOU EXPERIENCED ALL THAT "KULBRITANIA" "RULE BRITANIA" BRITISH INVASION AT FIRST HAND WHO WERE YOU LISTENING TO IN THOSE DAYS? DID THE MUSIC ALSO INFLUENCE YOUR WORK?

AT: I was surrounded in the whole subculture and it was definitely about football and it was also about those amazing bands from the 60's like The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and also from the Small faces to The Kinks. And then The Jam, The Stone Roses, Oasis obviously, you know, all that Indie Scene like Shed Seven and Ocean Colour Scene for sure. So I was very much that kind of Indie kid growing up.


KB: DID YOU EVER DREAM OF FORMING A BAND?

AT: Yes, absolutely. I think most kids did. We used to sit around playing guitar, singing and whatever but somehow it wasn't my calling yet. I feel that I can't do anything until I can do it properly. If I can't do something properly, I somehow get out of it because to do something properly it means that you do something meaningful. And I can't understand the idea of investing your energy into doing something not meaningful.

So I guess I didn't know enough. I didn't have the commitment enough to do something meaninful. And eventually I just invested back into what I already knew and had already mastered and that allowed me to do something meaningful ...visually, structurally and physically. But I got more and more involved with music and musicians. It's crazy how I can see my conceptual systems also applying to music. I've been in a lot of studios with interesting musicians and producers and I'm more and more interested in that.

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Kiet Tran said:

Does anyone know what the process of making those sculptures? for both the mesh ones and/or the tape armatures he uses in his studio. I'm a design student and would love to know.

thanks

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Death Veil Mask: Archetype #024 [002]

The result of an on-going collaboration between Aitor Throup and Steven Ellison a.k.a. Flying Lotus, the Death Veil Mask (v.002) is a multi-component product developed especially for the experimental musician to wear at his live shows. Throup and Ellison have been in conversation and in development of this unique New Object Research piece since early 2014, and it embodies their shared passion in the aesthetics of the exaggerated ‘persona’ (i.e: a Superhero), as well as mutual interest in the subject of death itself.

The mask is actually the second version of a product which Ellison and Throup tested for the 1st leg of the ‘You’re Dead!’ American tour (October 2014), and was first revealed at the sold-out Flying Lotus gig at the Roundhouse, London on the 7th November 2014.

The eyes of the Death Veil Mask light up via an integrated switch, which allows Ellison to control it within the performance, giving him an identity on-stage as the audience get a real and direct representation of the orientation of Ellison’s face, even when surrounded by the immersive and progressive visual show which has now become synonymous with a Flying Lotus performance. The various components which form the final modular design can each be interchanged with more evolved and/or limited edition versions of them as the piece evolves through time.



Throup recently collaborated with Flying Lotus on the artist’s exclusive film ‘A Portrait of Noomi Rapace’, which was especially commissioned by Nowness.com for their much anticipated re-launch in September 2014. The film is scored by 6 exclusive never previously released Flying Lotus tracks

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