Kostas Murkudis was one of the most significant influences over 1990s fashion. Otherwise known as the right-hand man to Helmut Lang during this period, he went on to create an enduringly poetic and unflinching progressive body of work that reaches beyond fashion and continually looks forward. With the bulk of his archive held by a collector, the chance to look backwards had not been presented to him – until now.
This shoot is a very rare glimpse into your past collections. How did it come about?
I got the archive back almost half a year ago. My brother was saying, “OK, let’s do a show in my gallery space,” Andreas Murkudis in Berlin, and so I went through these pieces. There were literally… I don’t know… 24 boxes. With everything: slides, VHS, whatever. And a lot of clothes! I had believed that they were never coming back to me because they were held for many years due to various legal issues. We exhibited a few pieces, but there were so many that we couldn’t display all of them. And people came to see it and they started talking… My aim is to find the right people and to do a book. I don’t want to make just a nice coffee-table book with a lot of photographs. Then I would love to get rid of all the clothes because, of course, they occupy space and time. You have to look after all these babies, and it’s not easy.
I am interested to know what it felt like to open up those boxes after so long.
Weird, but also a very special and emotional moment. Once I unpacked the pieces I was surprised by my own memories: every single detail of the actual pieces, the process to make them, who was wearing that particular style at the show, conversations with the models about their personal lives, the sound and light at the venues…
Are you still making your own collections? Do you sell them?
I do mostly collaborations with partners who are excellent in one particular field. And other than that, I did a show last year in Athens of one-off pieces I didn’t intend to produce or sell. So it was sort of a fashion show meets art, which is something I like to be at the edge of. I love to interact with art, of course, but to become an artist is actually not my goal at all – and it will never be
Speaking of fashion designers turned artists, your ex-colleague Helmut Lang shredded a large part of his archive for an art piece…
There’s still a lot of pieces around. A friend of mine actually runs the biggest archive. He almost knows better than me what we did at that time.
Did you keep things from that era?
No I didn’t, I am not a collector of things in general. I collect my memories. There were very good and deep moments while I was working with Helmut. Personal treasures!
I found a whole new appreciation of your clothes via Instagram. You have one account that does a deep dive into your work (@kostasmurkudisarchive),and one that is an exhaustive collection of images that inspire you (@kostasmurkudismoods). It’s very generous of you to share all of that. What is your relationship to social media, and do you think it’s possible to create a lasting archive out of a medium that is inherently disposable?
Good question. First of all, the mood has been blocked by Meta.
Really? Did you show a nipple or something?
Yeah, they said there are some legal infringements. It’s absolute bullshit. But it’s nice to hear that you’re enjoying looking into that professional account of mine and appreciating the quality of my posts, even though the images are sometimes very bad. Apologies for that. It’s an interesting way of archiving things.
Yes, the detail shots are especially great, so intricate. You can divorce the garments from the more distracting formalities of a shoot, like the model or the styling, and just zero in on the construction. That’s where you can really see the sculptural element of what you do.
It was always clear that I wanted to put as much time and patience into creating the bright interior of a garment. So my aim was always that I could turn it inside-out and the piece was maybe even more beautiful on the inside than on the outside, and nobody does that these days.
Everybody’s just like “Wow, this is an amazing sculptural volume” or “This is new”. And when you see things up close, you can judge how much time and love was put into the garment or not. I mean there’s also other good examples out there… but many bad examples.
I think that really comes through, and I think that more people appreciate it than you probably know.
Great, good to know.
Are you critical of your own work, looking back?
A lot. I mean, I guess it’s normal, I’m not the only one.
You’d probably be a monster if you said no.
When you finish a collection, two weeks before the show and you kind of hate it, you can’t do anything about it. And then you have to pack it to bring it to Paris, and to unpack again, and have the chance to see it with fresh eyes in a different climate zone, in a different light, in a different cultural environment…and then hopefully start to love it again.
That’s why you need this stuff preserved and kept properly… so that you can go back to it and love it again.
Exactly.
I wanted to put as much time and patience into creating the bright interior of a garment, so the piece was maybe even more beautiful on the inside.
Model: Annabel van Tilborg at Platform.
Casting: Benedikt Hetz for Piotr Chamier Casting at Streeters.
Production: Berlin Westend.
Photo assistant: Charlotte Helwig. Face paint: Jonathan Drews.
Special thanks to Kostas Murkudis, Thorsten Kowalowka from K+S Zielitz
and Till Wiedeck from Hello Me studio.