Claudia and Carlotta, the Creative Directors of oh carla, choose to embrace a way far from the dynamics of the Fashion System, far from the trends, inspired by uniqueness: ‘ohcarlize’ people and clothes, transforming them into something new.
What is your background: studies, events that made you choose the way of fashion, passions, etc. Tell us something about yourselves.
Claudia: From an early age I felt that I would do this, a fascination for the clothes but especially for the materials with which the clothes around me were made. After high school I studied at the Academy of Costume and Fashion and then an internship at Romeo Gigli in 2000 with which I was lucky enough to work in these 20 years and from which I could learn and nurture the passion for textiles and the relationship between form and matter. For ten years I have been teaching in Naba fashion design with the aim of transmitting to young designers everything I had the good fortune to learn doing this job and it was in Naba that I had the opportunity to meet Carlotta.
Carlotta: I think in the same way as Claudia, since I was a little girl I remember having always been attracted by art in general, especially by colors and I always had fun using my hands to create “something” and at the beginning it was just a fun afterwards, after graduating from art school, I realized that was my way of expressing myself but drawing wasn’t enough anymore and I decided to enroll at Naba to become a designer, so let’s say my passion for fashion came after falling in love and studying art.
As an emerging brand, what is your philosophy? How do you see it in five years: Will it continue unchanged or will you adapt it to the context?
Claudia /Carlotta: What pushed us to create oh carla was the desire for a shared creativity in which clothes become one of the means of communication for our aesthetic, away from the dynamics of the fashion system, from trends. We feel the need to tell through different forms creating our own language thinking that each project takes its own identity strength thanks to all those who work with us and who marry the vision. We see “Carla” as a way of being, an attitude that in the garment takes a shape on the body that wears it. Our goal is to succeed in the time to have a physical, multifunctional space in which to be able to express all this, working with different creatives for small unique projects.
King George, Kaiser Karl, are some of the names given to great designers. At the peak of your (future) career how would you like to be recognized? Or do you already have some hidden name?
Claudia/Carlotta: No, there’s no hidden name, “oh carla” is already complex to explain!!!
What we would definitely like is to “ohcarlize” everyone who want it, give ways to people to create with us a unique garment, craft or maybe give us the opportunity to work on a garment of their own, to which they are particularly attached and which with us could become something else, precisely “ohcarlization” it.
Define the concept of ‘beauty’.
Claudia: Beauty today is a concept that I feel particularly, I look for it, as if I felt the need to realize it. What we are living in this period leads me to tell you that beauty is a look, a movement, a gesture that I can grasp and that becomes eternal, becomes memory.
Carlotta: Beauty is now an increasingly rare concept to find in my opinion especially in the aesthetic field and this of course includes our fashion sector, to me what’s considered ugly is also beautiful. I do not know how to explain it, even an imperfection is beauty. For me it is very difficult to give a definition of beauty, but when there is emotion, truth and feelings and let’s say a little vocation in what you do, the beautiful becomes relative, I might dislike tomorrow what today I find beautiful, but maybe I’m a very complicated person and so spontaneous and instinctive that giving you an answer to such a broad and subjective concept is a bit difficult for me.
We are moving towards an increasingly digital world. Everything that is social and virtual is gaining ground in our lives. What do you think about it? Is there the possibility that “the love for the product” will be less and less in favour of a faker approach?
Claudia / Carlotta: For us who work on unique pieces, in which the recycled material is embroidered andwoven, the love for the product and the desire to touch to fall in love with it, is fundamental, so as to dream of being able one day to open our atelier. It is not always easy to show our creations and communicate everything that is behind each garment with a photo, it requires a great creative effort but in the era that we are living this can also be a great stimulus.
Ours is always a manual approach, material but the challenge is just that and if you can achieve it has the power to reach more people in every part of the world.
Complete the sentence: “You can be sustainable if…”. Motivate the answer.
Claudia/ Carlotta: you can be sustainable if what you produce is unique. In a consumer society the desire to accumulate things that are not indispensable would lead me to say that to be sustainable one should no longer produce but this is obviously not feasible. Ourdesire is to produce only garments that someone really wants and that every time he finds them in the closet he remembers exactly how much he wanted them reliving every time, that feeling, day after day.
Click here to find out more about Oh Carla!
Photography Jon Bronxl
Muse Nina Granic
Styling Ivan Bontchev
Styling assistant Francesca Farina
Art Drection Francesca Ballardini
Beauty Martina Russo
