All of downtown New York came out to celebrate the reboot of Bernadette Corporation and its retrospective at Artists Space during Fashion Week. For the uninitiated, Bernadette Corporation is a collaborative group of artists and designers that spearheaded the underground New York fashion and art scene in the mid-late 90s, and moved on to examine their ideas into art, publishing, and cinema.
I sat down for lunch with the curators of the show, Stefan Kalmár and Richard Birkett, and talked about the birth of Bernadette Corporation, 90s "ghetto" fashion, Rihanna, and why Bernadette Corporation is as relevant today as it was back then. Check out my interview and photos from the opening night.
Edward Lorenz: What is Bernadette Corporation?
Richard Birkett: It is quite an amorphous thing. It’s been through different phases over the last 20 years and it’s never taken on a fixed identity. The people involved in the group have adapted over the years as they've moved from organizing club nights to having a fashion label, to publishing a magazine and novels, to video work, to functioning in political spheres, and to the art world.
Stefan Kalmár: Bernadette is a real person but also a corporation. The name Bernadette Corporation is an intentional play on the relationship between the individual and the corporate sphere, the fictional and the real. The real Bernadette was one of the first members, and then came the idea of the corporation. The retrospective is a chronology of BC.
RB: BC’s fashion collections were and are investing in particular notions of streetwear and a kind of “ghetto” fashion. It’s a lot more relevant today than it was then. Today, fashion is referencing high-end streetwear from the 90s.
SK: There was a time when things were not just styles, but when the style of local subculture actually had meaning among communities. However, since the 90s, global brands have drastically increased the commercialization and the appropriation of subcultural styles, bringing them into the market and into the mainstream. By doing so, they are debasing those "styles" from their local (subcultural) context, and hence negating the place of difference and resistance.
RB: Antek [Walczak, a member of the Corporation] recently said that people who were into haute couture during the 90s were seen as freaks. It’s not like today where couture is an aspirational thing—it was the reverse. People who were into hardcore fashion were seen as freaks.
EL: Do you think BC influenced this? Was its world recognized around the world?
RB: In a way. The stuff BC did with magazines like Purple—mediating images through a photographer’s work—that’s really important to the fashion world these days. Today, fashion is not just about producing clothes but it’s about producing images. So that’s where there’s influence to be seen.
EL: I see a lot of BC references in today's fashion and publishing spheres.
RB: Yes, I think there is very clearly a lineage that needs to be considered in today's very different context. I don't think BC was ever attempting to find an economic strand to exist within; it was more about finding different spaces for confluence.
I sat down for lunch with the curators of the show, Stefan Kalmár and Richard Birkett, and talked about the birth of Bernadette Corporation, 90s "ghetto" fashion, Rihanna, and why Bernadette Corporation is as relevant today as it was back then. Check out my interview and photos from the opening night.
Edward Lorenz: What is Bernadette Corporation?
Richard Birkett: It is quite an amorphous thing. It’s been through different phases over the last 20 years and it’s never taken on a fixed identity. The people involved in the group have adapted over the years as they've moved from organizing club nights to having a fashion label, to publishing a magazine and novels, to video work, to functioning in political spheres, and to the art world.
Stefan Kalmár: Bernadette is a real person but also a corporation. The name Bernadette Corporation is an intentional play on the relationship between the individual and the corporate sphere, the fictional and the real. The real Bernadette was one of the first members, and then came the idea of the corporation. The retrospective is a chronology of BC.
RB: BC’s fashion collections were and are investing in particular notions of streetwear and a kind of “ghetto” fashion. It’s a lot more relevant today than it was then. Today, fashion is referencing high-end streetwear from the 90s.
SK: There was a time when things were not just styles, but when the style of local subculture actually had meaning among communities. However, since the 90s, global brands have drastically increased the commercialization and the appropriation of subcultural styles, bringing them into the market and into the mainstream. By doing so, they are debasing those "styles" from their local (subcultural) context, and hence negating the place of difference and resistance.
RB: Antek [Walczak, a member of the Corporation] recently said that people who were into haute couture during the 90s were seen as freaks. It’s not like today where couture is an aspirational thing—it was the reverse. People who were into hardcore fashion were seen as freaks.
EL: Do you think BC influenced this? Was its world recognized around the world?
RB: In a way. The stuff BC did with magazines like Purple—mediating images through a photographer’s work—that’s really important to the fashion world these days. Today, fashion is not just about producing clothes but it’s about producing images. So that’s where there’s influence to be seen.
EL: I see a lot of BC references in today's fashion and publishing spheres.
RB: Yes, I think there is very clearly a lineage that needs to be considered in today's very different context. I don't think BC was ever attempting to find an economic strand to exist within; it was more about finding different spaces for confluence.
SK: BC was never ironic. Today things are often presented as ironic and there is this very exclusive humor that comes with irony—it is a humor that distinguishes between the "insider" and "outsider" —as a last resort. The idea of being unsuccessful and not selling out is what BC really is about. I'm sure Bernadette could be styling for, say, Vuitton or consult for a brand but she chooses not to. It is her political choice not t