The OC Showroom is a bustling space that represents over twenty international and domestic designer collections. In our new column, Showroom and Tell, the Showroom team will be sharing sneak peeks of upcoming collections, snaps of visiting buyers and designers, and more. In our second installment, we meet Lucio Castro, whose first collection will be in OC stores in the upcoming weeks. Here, the Argentinean designer talks to Joey about his trip to Vietnam and the making of his forthcoming Fall/Winter 2012 collection.
Joey Laurenti: What inspired you to start Lucio Castro?
Lucio Castro: After working for big fashion labels in New York for the last ten years, I felt that there was space for an independent designer to create a brand that did not just focus on its originality but also on each step involved in the production of a garment.
JL: Tell me about your background and how it has influenced what you do.
LC: I was born in Buenos Aires to a telenovela [soap opera] actress mother and a physicist father, who communicated with one another through never-ending chess matches. (My mother always lost but kept trying.) I was definitely influenced in equal parts by both my parents––by my father’s practicality and my mother’s flair for the unexpected. They were also huge film buffs and started taking me to the movies at least twice a week when I was very young.
Before starting my own line, I worked at DKNY Jeans and Marc Jacobs. Then I was the director of men’s sweaters and knitwear at Armani Exchange for six years. And for the past four years, I have also been teaching an annual six-day fashion experimentation workshop in an arts center in Argentina.
JL: I know that you are very conscientious in your design and production process.
LC: I just really respect every step in the production process and I aim to work with people I like. I want the clothes that carry my label to have been touched by ultimately good people. For this season, I traveled to Vietnam and spent two weeks working closely with a tailor that a friend of mine had recommended. Her name is Thuy, and she is based in a small seaside village in the middle of the country, called Hoi-an, known for its amazing region-specific food and long tradition of tailor shops. As a designer, it felt like some kind of ideal playland, with fittings in the morning, a delicious lunch with her family, maybe an early afternoon stroll to the beach, and fit revisions in the afternoon that would continue into the night.
JL: So overall it was a positive experience?
LC: Yes, working with a small tailor shop of this kind allowed me to try out ideas and have a very fast return. I was also able to really streamline the design and details, and come up with a product that really represented my aesthetic. It was also a way to try out new ideas more freely, and have more space to make mistakes that (sometimes) led to really interesting results. It also allowed me to be inside the sample room, talking to seamstresses and pattern-makers, and discussing technical problems and solutions. The knowledge went in both directions.
JL: These photos are beautiful. Did you travel anywhere else around Vietnam?
LC: I also visited the indigo plantations of the Red Dzao and Hmong tribes in the North, on the border with China. It's a beautiful region, somewhat reminiscent of the Alps, with rice paddys that create an amazing line contours around the mountains. In these tribes, the women work and embroider, and the men stay at home to raise the children. They developed a natural way of dy
Joey Laurenti: What inspired you to start Lucio Castro?
Lucio Castro: After working for big fashion labels in New York for the last ten years, I felt that there was space for an independent designer to create a brand that did not just focus on its originality but also on each step involved in the production of a garment.
JL: Tell me about your background and how it has influenced what you do.
LC: I was born in Buenos Aires to a telenovela [soap opera] actress mother and a physicist father, who communicated with one another through never-ending chess matches. (My mother always lost but kept trying.) I was definitely influenced in equal parts by both my parents––by my father’s practicality and my mother’s flair for the unexpected. They were also huge film buffs and started taking me to the movies at least twice a week when I was very young.
Before starting my own line, I worked at DKNY Jeans and Marc Jacobs. Then I was the director of men’s sweaters and knitwear at Armani Exchange for six years. And for the past four years, I have also been teaching an annual six-day fashion experimentation workshop in an arts center in Argentina.
JL: I know that you are very conscientious in your design and production process.
LC: I just really respect every step in the production process and I aim to work with people I like. I want the clothes that carry my label to have been touched by ultimately good people. For this season, I traveled to Vietnam and spent two weeks working closely with a tailor that a friend of mine had recommended. Her name is Thuy, and she is based in a small seaside village in the middle of the country, called Hoi-an, known for its amazing region-specific food and long tradition of tailor shops. As a designer, it felt like some kind of ideal playland, with fittings in the morning, a delicious lunch with her family, maybe an early afternoon stroll to the beach, and fit revisions in the afternoon that would continue into the night.
JL: So overall it was a positive experience?
LC: Yes, working with a small tailor shop of this kind allowed me to try out ideas and have a very fast return. I was also able to really streamline the design and details, and come up with a product that really represented my aesthetic. It was also a way to try out new ideas more freely, and have more space to make mistakes that (sometimes) led to really interesting results. It also allowed me to be inside the sample room, talking to seamstresses and pattern-makers, and discussing technical problems and solutions. The knowledge went in both directions.
JL: These photos are beautiful. Did you travel anywhere else around Vietnam?
LC: I also visited the indigo plantations of the Red Dzao and Hmong tribes in the North, on the border with China. It's a beautiful region, somewhat reminiscent of the Alps, with rice paddys that create an amazing line contours around the mountains. In these tribes, the women work and embroider, and the men stay at home to raise the children. They developed a natural way of dy