Benito Fernández: "Fashion quickly interprets what happens to us"
Benito Fernández (60) is the Argentine designer who achieves a perfect balance between his ideas and the trend.He knew how to build an identity without roofs.From haute couture, perfumes, footwear, gender -free options, garments for the smallest and most cancheros looks form a very marked and defined personal stamp.He dressed great personalities from Argentina and the world.
Undoubtedly, Benito is living his best personal moment.However, this well -being is not the result of chance, but of the long personal work that has been doing in recent years.Today he enjoys his life that, to evidence and error, manages to reinvent himself until he reaches his best version.
- How were your first steps in the fashion world?
–I reality, I started late.I studied law at the Catholic University, and I realized that this was not my way.At 24 I decided to move to Paris to study a career, which in Argentina did not exist.Since I was a child I liked to accompany my grandmother sewing to dress her six daughters women.I have many memories designing my own clothes.In 1986 I opened my first boutique on Arroyo Street.While when I returned from France I had several interviews to work, I always did it personally.Today I have 28 multi -brand stores throughout the country and three stores in Buenos Aires.
- Who were your referents?
- Since always what inspired me were the designers who appropriated things, which in my unconscious was the personal engine to find my own inspirations.Valentino's red dress, the fall of Armani's bags, Paco Rabanne's metal, Chanel camellia, Karl Lagerfeld's ideas.I was motivated by the issue of appropriation of abstract, universal concepts for all.There I began to generate my own DNA, my own identity, beyond aesthetics.I loved how Versace appropriated the luxury and how irreverent he was, the morbidity that generated his collections.He wore Lady Di, a woman who after divorcing crossed all the barriers.That was an inspiration to start looking for my own way.
- What implies being a designer?
I am dyslexico and, not reading, I was never a scholar of others.The work and the constant search to generate my own seal with clothes was the way to transpolar my thoughts in every way.From what we have to live now with pandemic, to Latin identity, identity as a country.My ethnic collection had to go to New York Fashion Week 12 years ago, with a totally Latin American identity.
- Did you checked sacrifices to get where you are?What showed you the profession?
-Clearly.Much sacrifice in time.But it doesn't blame me.I am a laborer of this, I dedicate many years to my career.Constancy and perseverance as the first step.Work and education were my two pillars, that's why I got to dress the Queen of Holland.Beyond what I could have crossed in fashion, use Latin American when it was not used.I sacrificed my time, stop doing personal things.I learned that you have to be responsible, not to blame.You have to reinvent yourself, be supportive and inclusive.You have to be empathetic.Thanks to my career I could meet and dress many important people, or travel and meet divine places.The truth is that I see it from another place.I am grateful and I am left with other more important things, such as the textile industry, the sources of work that we generate in countries like ours.
Fashion interprets what happens to us and in front of a pandemic, a month we go out to produce chinxes.With the children's capsule by my daughter Marina we donate 500 garments from her collection to Mamis Solidarios.We also sympathized with the Pedro Elizalde hospital, where haute couture chins were finished off.We made Ponchos for UNHCR, which were used Valeria Mazza, Mirko, Marley and Juanita Viale, among others.Fashion is an industry that quickly adapts to people's lives.I love that, and it makes me mature, change, that's why I want and admire this industry so much.
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- Are the myths of the industry real?
–Mauchos believe that fashion is frivolous, not supportive or inclusive.It seems to me that the industry of many things that are not good.But they are issues that happen as a society, not punctually in fashion.Argentines discriminate as a society.Personally I had to go through many prejudices and discrimination.
- What personalities marked your career?
- Maximum Zorreguieta marked my career and continues to do it.18 years ago I had seen it and used more than 40 dresses of mine.A few days ago I sent you clothes for the daughters.Considering his reality, he could choose any designer around the world, and who chooses me is super flattering.Maximum is the woman I like to dress.Beyond its beauty, I love everything it transmits.Without any need, I repeat my dresses up to three times.
Two years ago I dressed Priscilla Presley, Elvis's wife.I had the pleasure of dressing Valeria Mazza, Pampita, Dolores Barreiro.There are many personalities that I have dressed and I love it.What I rescue from the people I like is that they are empowered women, who work, take care of their family, who are entrepreneurs.Is today's woman.Many stay with being beautiful and of good purchasing power, but I go beyond that.I seek to meet the woman who seen, to represent what I want to communicate.It has to do with work, education, respect, commitment and professionalism.
- What can you tell us about Arctic?
–It's my new collection, my return with the Benito brand.It has a lot of presence.We had the opportunity to present Arctic at New York Fashion Week.We recorded the parade in the San Clemente of Tuyú lighthouse, taking advantage of the scene of the places that Argentina has.It has a lot to do with our identity and our past, present and future.Arctic is that, what came out.Hats fell for something.I am happy to have achieved this parade and soon we are traveling to Jujuy to record in Las Salinas what we will present at the Marbella Fashion Week.
- How do you take the exhibition and your place on TV?
- Before it was well known in the graphic press thanks to the haute couture.But one day I fell to me that I did not represent me.I think the most urban looks are the ones that represent me, erotizan, that says much more than one style.That's when I started thinking that I needed to reinvent myself, make me more popular.That was added that I didn't like what I communicated in the notes before, the reports that made me consulting me about the color that would be used in the season bored me and felt that I was not for that.I didn't feel comfortable.
Thanks to a Ginzburg program I could start letting go more in front of the camera, achieving this character that I am really.It was very crazy and crazy.Then came the three musketeers with Ricky Sarkany and Fabián Medina Flores.So I went from not generating anything on TV to be able to find my own character.It was a part of my personality that could not free it, and I think television allowed me to explore it.Having some exhibition helped me fight prejudices.I love being close to people, move even more on social networks.This led me to make mass products.
On the other hand, I love that this fashion place has been given on open television.Court and preparation revalued the industry, the trade of sewing, weaving and embroidering, entertaining people.The program is very inclusive, in terms of participants, models and people who work.The ideas are very good, the way to recycle clothes, or how to make garments that look without gender, avoid waste, among others.I feel super good, regardless of the format.It is a program that has to be on television, because it entertains and allows an industry like this to generate jobs and make visible.
- What would you tell those who are starting with their career in the industry?
- The important thing is the work.I think you have to focus on working, beyond seeing results instantly.The anecdote of how I got to dress up is great for people who are just beginning in the industry.I received the call and answered with education.As I always say, I wasn't the first option.I was not the best, or number one, but I was working and that call involved dressing a queen.So, wanting to be the best, number one, who opens or closes the catwalk, the one that sells the most and leaves in the magazines, sometimes distracts us.You have to work and serve your clients with education, because everything else comes alone.
Photos: Valentina Marozzi @valumarozzi
