Ana Locking: "I lead fear by the hand"
In Ana Locking's studio, the amazing models of her latest collection shine with rage, whose title: Too young to die old, today seems disturbingly premonitory. Shortly after presenting her at Madrid Fashion Week in 2020, days before confinement, she was diagnosed with breast cancer for which she had to undergo surgery and whose treatment has not ruined her red hair, as she does not require chemotherapy, she herself recounts. . His voice sounds cheerful behind the black surgical mask with white polka dots, his design for a popular Spanish firm, which he wears throughout the interview and only takes off for the video. In the background, his partner and head of communication, who also became seriously ill with covid, attends the talk. The complicity of the survivors to the vicissitudes of life and long relationships is noticeable among them.
I interviewed her 8 years ago in a report on anxiety. How have we been doing since then?
Before the pandemic, fashion was riding like a runaway horse off a cliff. Too many collections, too many clothes, too much everything. We don't need that much. After the break, the reflection should be: let's be more responsible. We demand it from buyers, so let's be it with what we offer and with the ability to enjoy our work. We are privileged to be able to do what we like
I was referring to his own anxiety.
At that time I learned to manage it with therapy and medication, but I got hooked on the pills and had a really hard time coming off. I control her now, but she never quite leaves you. Lately I hardly enjoyed the collections. He demanded more and more of me: more color, more clothes, more product. Each time I had to offer more and I demanded more of myself. That was not the way.
And suddenly, the world stopped. Cancer, confinement, covid. How did you handle so many earthquakes?
The diagnosis was a brutal collapse: the first days you have real awareness of death. Suddenly, you understand cancer, you don't feel in real connection with it until you have it and you feel in yourself the power of the disease. Nobody prepares you for that.
Did he get pissed off at the world?
The first moment is shocking, like those movies where someone has a terrible accident and, first of all, they start looking for the lipstick that they dropped. Then comes the emotional. The first day you cry in the corners. But, in my case, the second, you have to take things as they come. You cannot be a coward, I have become brave, very brave. Fear becomes a travel companion that always accompanies you. But I take him by the hand, not he me.
Did she surprise herself?
A lot, because, when I got home, my partner came down with covid and I had to go from being sick to being a nurse. You don't think, you act. I didn't have time to lick my wounds and, seen over time, it suited me very well. In 2020 I collapsed and was reborn.
The virus has attacked the elderly. Are your parents alive?
Yeah, and I'm an only child, which I've always hated. I have always turned like an animal against the stereotypes of the only child.
Was she a spoiled child?
I came out very weird and very rebellious. My mother was a seamstress and I wanted to do the opposite of her. I have always had a complicated relationship with her, but the disease has brought us closer. I have been aware that life is finite, and that we cannot regret not having done things when people are no longer around. I have seen my parents with different eyes and that has made me more understanding with them than ever.
What is pandemic fashion like, beyond pajamas and tracksuits?
This year we have misdressed ourselves, we have muddled through. But dressing is not fashion. Fashion with capital letters has nothing to do with the clothes you buy out of necessity. Fashion creates an illusion, it is an effort to sophisticate reality. Now that there are no events or parties, we do not sell anything. I think that when there are again, people will need to get out of this harsh reality, and post-pandemic fashion will be bright, colorful, it will create a beauty that we can dream of. Fashion also gives perspectives in life.
How has time passed? Do you understand Demi Moore and her relentless desire to look younger?
Of course I understand. The illusion is perfectly respectable. I don't have that need to polish over time. It seems good to me that science makes available to each person to be who they want to be. In the end, the identity is made by oneself, and one is happier the closer one gets to the idea one has of him.
And what is your idea of yourself?
Sometimes, excessively responsible. I have a very strong class conscience, I come from a humble, hard-working family, and that conscience weighs too heavily on me. I would like to be freer when it comes to letting myself go, feeling, expressing myself.
But her ecosystem as a designer is luxury and elite. How do you balance it?
That dichotomy has always been present. I believe that in that collision is the key to my success, and my strength, too. Because I have always known, and I have not forgotten, where I come from, but I have known how to convert all of that, make it more sophisticated, and take it to a level that has made me enjoy life and dream and make people dream.
Do you think Carolina Herrera would shave that long hair almost to the waist at 50?
It seems like a real barbarity to me. It is not a question of style, it is a question of freedom, and how the woman uses it to be herself. If you feel free to be an object woman, or play with fashion to feel like someone else, go ahead. That does not mean that you are banal. There is no superficial clothing. There are looks and superficial people. And that seems to me a tremendously superficial look at women.
Will the pandemic affect fashion consumption? We have seen that, teleworking, we live with three rags.
I think it will go to a more responsible consumption. That we will realize that buying things at a price that, if you think about it, only slaves can make, is not sensible. And that implies that people, instead of buying ten garments a month at a ridiculous price to accumulate, buy two or three, of quality, that make them dream.
So what would you say to shopaholics? It's for a friend.
Okay, I can understand them, but how can I understand a gambling addict. Everything is understandable, but I would seek help.
TRAVESÍA DE LOS 50
Ana Álvarez Rodríguez (Toledo, 50 years old), Ana Locking for the world of fashion, never thought that 2020, the year of her 50th birthday, would return her from the reverse figuratively and literally. The pandemic, a diagnosis and operation for breast cancer in full confinement and her partner's convalescence from Covid. they have turned her into a new and "braver" version of herself. In 2021, the year of her twenty-fifth anniversary as a professional designer, in addition to collecting the National Design Award that was awarded to her a few months ago, she is presenting an exhibition in Madrid on the impact of the pandemic on the fashion universe. Few like her know what they expose. He has suffered it in his own flesh and soul.
