Kuki de Salvertes, Totem
MY WAY
Life and fashion: a combination with strong colours for Kuki de Salvertes
by Dina De Fina
More than twenty years have gone by since I first met and interviewed a benchmark of public relations in the fashion city par excellence, Paris. It is rare to feel that you are in the right place with the right person. Twenty years ago I was at Totem Girault, the PR agency founded and owned by Kuki de Salvertes, simply called Kuki and I felt that way. I meet him again in occasion of the ‘Une vie dans la mode’ exhibition dedicated to his 30 years and counting in fashion. The feeling is exactly the same. A chilly Paris in late January under the majestic arches of the Joyce Gallery in the Palais Royal’s Gardens. Chatting with Monsieur de Salvertes makes me at times savour some moments of his so unconventional and intense life as I perceive in full his strength, impetus, irreverent stubbornness, visionary instincts, and the epic 1990’s, the emblematic meetings with some legendary fashion figures, those determinants that pervaded with love a journey of contrasts, beliefs, refusals, faith.
As the story of Kuki is basically the story of Totem, this is how we begin our conversation.
Kuki and Totem are inseparable: Totem is therefore Kuki?
It is right to identify Totem with Kuki de Salvertes because Totem is the PR firm that I created in 1991 and where I developed and develop all my projects. Not surprisingly, the exhibition explains very well this mix: there aren’t two separate lives, the personal one and the professional one, there is only one. There are cross-pollinations between life and work that are inevitable: at work you can meet lovers, friends, you can fall in love with someone who deeply admire, a designer or a photographer. There is no separation.
The evolution of Totem is indeed tied to you, constantly searching and always looking.
I have not changed at all. Well, physically unfortunately some things have changed because I am now 54, but my way of thinking has not changed. That means that I am always very thrilled when need be, energetic when it is important to be, without any concessions.
What is your definition of fashion: do you identify it with love or hate?
Absolutely both, because there isn’t only an extraordinary and wonderful side, but two. It’s at the same time I love it and I hate it, I love it and I would like to kill it. At the same time I feel very strong feelings that are extremes and opposites.
Therefore you define fashion like a calling, a vocation?
Fashion is my life, passion, what I love more than anything in the world. I left my family at the age of 17 because I wanted to work in a world on which I left my mark. 35 years later I’m still here and I intend to continue, even if sometimes I suffered and had back luck. Fashion has always kept and keeps me alive: this is the right life for me.
I follow his eyes as he speaks to me about his great love, as they dart briefly to greet a guest and then another, as he hugs a friend, as they shine like those of someone madly in love. Were there any unforgettable encounters?
“Not one, but several. I will always remember some designers like Raf Simons, Jeremy Scott, Bernhard Willhelm, Olivier Theyskens, Alexander McQueen, some of the great fashion editors like Jacquelin Manescau and Isabella Blow.
Speaking of Belgian designers, whom you brought onto the international fashion scene in the 1990’s when they were practically unknown, do you think that in today’s emerging fashion designers there is a willingness to resume a bit those basic concepts the way the Belgians did?
The videos and photos in this exhibition of the first fashion shows by Raf Simons, by Veronique Branquinho in 1994, by Walter van Beirendonck give meaning to the exhibition itself. The Belgians I had brought on the scene around 1996 and 1967 had the same codes as Vetements and Y/Project have today. That’s why I’m proud to say that I represent the fashion of today and to work with designers that I found and pushed forward, first in Paris and then globally.
Is there any designer today who deserves to be noticed and who we are going to hear a lot about?
Without a doubt, Richard Quinn, a British young man who recently completed his studies at Central Saint Martins in London and is unquestionably the new Alexander McQueen. He is extraordinary because he has a sense for volumes, for cuts, for prints never seen before. He manages to blend romance with sex shop latex creating really strong and out of the ordinary silhouettes.
Is the Haute Couture definition still valid today or should we define it as Prêt-à-Couture?
Actually, I do not see haute couture really happening at the moment. It’s all just a big mix. I believe that what today can still be defined as haute couture is craftsmanship and authentic luxury. That is, a young artist who does everything by hand collaborating with craftspeople, who does not create a big collection because he or she does not have much money and more importantly without too much media exposure or fame. Something still mysterious that only very few women have the exceptional pleasure to know about and to wear. Not something you find in the duty free area of the Shanghai airport or in New York: that is not luxury, it is a media phenomenon, very expensive yes, but not luxury.
Social media changed the way the fashion system works: in what way have they changed your way of working?
There is no doubt that social media changed the way we communicate but they have not changed me. The way I work is exactly the same as when I started because I am are not a person who spends most of his time in front of a computer. I organise appointments upon appointments, I love meeting people, I prefer to watch them talk. For me that’s the most important thing, not sending email after email. Digital media inevitably makes printed media less strong. We don’t go anymore to the newsagents to buy Le Figaro, the world is over for newspapers and for monthly magazines. Today all the newspapers have more success in the digital rather than in the printed version. Therefore, we must integrate, be careful, remain open-minded. I think that it’s super important to continue to maintain physical and not just virtual contact and to appreciate the printed media because that’s where the love for fashion starts. One must always make the right choice when it comes to digital media because on one hand is formidable, on the other is to be avoided.
I remind him that I met him for the first time “just” twenty years and that this interview is for me a recap of his life and his work but also a little bit of my own life and career. Surprised, he smiles. I ask him again the same question asked when I was a student at the Sorbon University completing my Master thesis and needed his priceless opinion. How important are public relations in fashion?
The importance of public relations is always the same: they are essential. Find the right element and pursue the goal, with all your strength. Believe in the designers, in his or her story, understand everything about them and their work, dive unconditionally in their lives, live with them, love them and love what they have to say and make other people understand what they don’t see as yet. Today we manage and organise: it is rather like office work. But that’s not my life because I have always lived and worked on the field, in creative and photographic studios. This is also why I was one of the biggest influencers of my generation. Because I’ve never worked within the four walls of an office but I worked and lived as “a fashion kid” alongside the creatives being creative as a public relations person with a strong relationship not with the computer but with the creators, the fashion journalists, the fashion editors, the makeup artists, the models.
He replies accurately and without hesitation to the last question.
Which fashion show has a special place in your heart?
1999, Raf Simons, at the Géode. Ah oui… J’ai adoré.
The answer belongs to him, to his life, to his way of living fashion. Who could disagree?