So Catchy! Where Fashion Begins was there at the end of June, to witness MOVE Seville, the Forum for Creative Fashion from the CEADE Leonardo School of Design, and the work of Yvan Andreu who graduated this year. When we saw his work the second time around at South 36.32N, it was like falling in love again.
The final collection of the 28 year-old from Alicante, “Transition of Emotions”, piqued our interest and so we decided to try and get to know more about it. I was sure that there must be certain amount of mystery behind the artist and I was right. Yvan is at once captivating and timid, with an air of melancholy about him and the air of an artist, all of which are qualities that we like here at So Catchy!
While many of us are never sure about what we should do with our lives, Yvan knew, as he says, from nursery school. After studying design and patternmaking in Alicante, he presented his first collection, “Brilliant” and began working as a designer for Üala, a magazine based in Alicante. Soon after, he felt the calling to continue his studies elsewhere. With family in Seville, the decision was made even easier and so he signed up for classes at the CEADE Leonardo School. Three years later, he has just graduated with “Transition of Emotions”, a collection that has won him the recognition and respect of his classmates and even his professors, receiving the highest marks in his design class.
His own mother sewed many of the articles from his attractive, manga-themed collection, with leather as the main material and black and white as the principal colors, the “no-colors”, as he puts it, the “yes and the no”. Ghoulish masks and grills finished off the looks that, accompanied by well-chosen songs from Oneohtrix (“Music for steamed rocks”) and Björk, at least from my seat in the front row, left everyone talking. It was indeed an authentic show on the catwalk and in the end, after working the crowd and thanking everyone, he finally came to us.
At So Catchy! Where Fashion Begins, we’ve had the good luck to be the first to interview this promising young designer.
SO CATCHY!: You’re finishing an important period in your life, what do you see looking back on your last three years at the CEADE Leonardo School in Seville?
YVAN ANDREU: Truthfully, when I arrived to CEADE, I was a bit off put by many things. I don’t think I came into it on the right footing but I feel that I’m leaving much better. At times I can be a bit controversial because I don’t like to keep my mouth shut when I see something I dislike. In the end, I’ve learned a lot from my classmates and I really want to thank Salomé Góngora because she also helped me to see what I’ve got inside. The people at CEADE are wonderful professionals but she new just what buttons she needed to push.
SC!: “Transition of Emotions” is your graduation collection, what were you trying to say with it?
YA: It’s about the transition between light and darkness, the internal battle that is fought between opposing poles. I’m referring to the moments in life that affect you, all of the interior processes that can result from them, and even the bursts of color that you feel in your eyes. For example, the pattern of the collection represents the mental transition from light to darkness. And then there’s the design, the pieces resemble armor, crude, coarse, with overlapping layers. Human beings are a bit like armor in the sense that we cover ourselves to hide ourselves from scrutiny. We defend ourselves from the outside world by wearing a breastplate. The same goes for the masks since we oftentimes don’t say what we really think, nor do we dare to fight for what we really want. It’s black and white, the contrast.
SC!: You used leather almost exclusively for the collection, what was the reasoning for this?
YA: My mother has spend her life making leather shoes and my father was a manufacturer so I’ve always had it in my life and as a result I’ve always wanted to work with it. And the collection required the use of leather to provide the robust aspect of armor.
SC!: Who was the first person to critique your work?
YA: My mother. She has never put limits to anything related to my work but we did have a few arguments. When I showed her the patterns she said, “honey, this is very difficult”, but in the end, everything worked out wonderfully.
SC!: What did your professors have to say about the collection?
YA: They told me some amazing things. Salomé like it a lot, she congratulated me and told me that if I keep up this quality of work, I can achieve anything I put my mind to.
SC!: What do you do to find inspiration?
YA: I listen to music more than anything because I find it best for transmitting emotions. I like the kind of music, experimental electronic music, which I used for the presentation of my collection. I like it when the music makes you feel emotions and that it can take you to another place. Literature is also useful, mainly Asiatic, like Candy by Mian Mian, and I love manga. In my free time I can also find inspiration, the sunrise is very important for me, staying awake all night to see it. When I’m bordering on exhaustion after a long night, I can come up with some interesting things
SC!: A designer you like…
YA: I love Marc Jacobs, Margiela, Dior with Raf Simons and Galliano, Givenchy, Moschino, Helmut Lang, Mugler and Balenciaga when Nicolas Ghesquière was there, but I go through periods.
SC!: Are there any new designers you like?
YA: I love Leandro Cano. I found out about him when I started at CEADE and he awoke a side of me that I didn’t know. His gothic style, how he uses the stitching, the new and interesting forms. He’s an important point of reference who came out of my school, someone whose footsteps I could follow in.
SC!: A color and a fabric
YA: Black and leather.
SC!: What do you think about the esthetic similarities between your collection and Marcelo Burlon’s, who also showed his work the same week as you?
YA: I couldn’t believe it. And the masks were quite the coincidence because I’d originally gone for another style but I didn’t like them as much. I’ve seen his work and we’ve got some similarities: the colors, the geometry, and the overlaps. He also congratulated me on my Facebook page, he said I have good taste (laughs).
SC!: What are you going to do after the summer and some well-deserved vacation time?
YA: I’d like to study a bit of English so I can go abroad, to Berlin or London, to look for an internship or something similar. In the long-term, I’d like to set up my own business and try to make a name for myself, not only working for
Written by Anabel Cuervas
Photos by Anabel Cuervas, Lourdes Rodríguez and Michael Padilla.
Translated by Michael Padilla
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