London Fashion Week Brit/Brazilian duo is Basso & Brooke, aka ‘the masters of the digital print’, or as Tim Blanks (Style.com) calls them, ‘the Pixar of clothes’. Armed with a magnificent explosion of colour, B&B burst onto the fashion scene like kaleidoscopic visionaries from another planet in 2004, and soon proved to be revolutionaries in textile technology. But what’s next for the pioneers of print? We catch up with the pair just before their S/S12 show to find out.
SS: The digital print process has revolutionised the fashion industry, and you were the first to develop the technique by using it head-to-toe for a full collection in 2004. How did people react at first?
B&B: The innovation was so in your face, and that was hard for the fashion industry to fully comprehend. But even if you didn’t like the style, you couldn’t deny the impact and technological innovation – the amount of colours we put in a simple piece of fabric was revolutionary. With digital, suddenly we could produce 16,000,000 print colours, including ones your eyes can’t even see! Reporting on our second show in 2005, Style.com said they didn’t believe that anyone would be wearing head-to-toe colour in 2010. The hilarious thing is, that exact year it was everywhere – from the high street to the red carpet!
SS: Seems like you had a whole new vision for how to dress… What were you hoping to achieve?
B&B: We had a new vision of the future – we are fascinated with people who change our perceptions. Heroes like Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer – his creations are so visionary and futuristic that even after 60 years, his work still feels new. Our first years were spent fighting socially for people to understand firstly this new digital print idea, and secondly the social acceptance of ‘colour’.
SS: Sounds like a proper fashion battle?!
B&B: Sometimes it felt like that! London only learnt to fully embrace colour fairly recently. Colour is emotion, and our clothes appeal to the emotional senses. Our collection from 2006 still gets called in five years after we showed it, because it still looks ‘new’ to the eye. After our first collection we were picked up by Aeffe – an Italian company who produce Jean Paul Gaultier and Moschino – and regardless of how ‘shockingly’ colourful it was, and how many porno images of spurting cocks and boobs were in our prints, they recognised the market potential… so we were happy!
SS: Bruno (Basso), you trained in graphic design – whereas Christopher (Brooke), you studied fashion design at Central Saint Martins. In my opinion, it’s this vital mix of craftsmanship that creates the harmonious fusion of shape and print. How does your process work, exactly?
BB: I set up a small selection of colour rules, then I decide on lines – be it angular, fluid, strict etc. Our colour palettes often come from nature. Then, we set up contrasts, like cold colour/warm colour. Sometimes I’ll decide – as I did this season – to use colours I’m not comfortable with as a challenge, and other times it will be intense pastels or pop art shades… It depends what kind of mood we’re feeling.
CB: The initial process is very free. My process involves physically attaching shapes together to see what inspires me. I’m not the kind of designer to hang lots of pictures of style icons on my wall and copy what they are wearing – that’s so cliché! Then, we eventually work together on the engineering of individual panels for the garment. This is a complex process that we developed – it means we can get the print fitting the body perfectly.
SS: You’ve dressed all the celebrity babes, from Florence Welch, Rihanna, Tori Amos, Robyn, Lara Stone, Rosie Huntington Whitely and La Roux to Iris Apfel and even Michelle Obama! How do you want your clothes make people feel?
B&B: When people wear our clothes, they are being given a different ability, to highlight parts of their personality that sometimes don’t get emphasised. We are often told by people who wear our dresses that the clothes enable them to reveal themselves in a new way, or that they find parts of their character that they didn’t know they had!
SS: Tell us about your upcoming new digital print workshop, where you’re going to teach people how to do digital printing (how can we join up???).
B&B: We are great fans of education and recognise that this is a new technique. We have a responsibility to ensure that the new generation learn the process correctly, so that they are free to do their own designs and innovate more future techniques. We are taking small groups and giving them a guide into the process. Each student will build a simple shift dress in their own print design, with their very own finished garment delivered to them about a month later. If you are interested to join us please email workshop@bassoandbrooke.com.
SS: Although you are a luxury label, there are many SuperSuper readers who would love to wear your designs – is a diffusion line on the cards?
B&B: Yes, we were thinking the same – all our work has been in the luxury market and the next step, seeing as the whole process has become more accessible, is basics – caps, sweatshirts, tees, hoodies etc. Lots of men want to wear our stuff too, so things are all about to change…
Interview: Namalee Bolle
