Mixte Magazine

As a child, Victor Weinsanto never imagined his future would be in the fashion industry. A classical dancer from the age of 4 to 17, it was through ballet – and more broadly via the stage – that fashion became obvious to him, an envelope of the body in motion that he keeps deconstructing from the inside and the outside. This native of the French region of Alsace started out at Atelier Chardon Savard before gaining experience at Y/Project, Jean Paul Gaultier, Lecourt Mansion, Maxime Simoëns and Chloé, before eventually presenting his first collection at Paris Fashion Week in September 2020. Today, the young designer revisits a retro-futuristic universe with a touch of cabaret paying hommage to the pop divas of the 2000s and to Queer and Camp culture. We met in his studio in the heart of the Parisian district of Belleville, where he shared with us, in eight key points, the creative guidelines shaping his everyday life.

1. EMBRACE YOUR REFERENCES

“Apart from my love of cabaret, Drag and circus, I’ve accumulated a lot of conflicting references throughout my life. My father gave me a Rock education: I bathed in the sounds of Nina Hagen and, as a child, he took me to Red Hot Chili Peppers concerts. At the same time, I was the only one in my family who liked the colour pink. Later, I went through a major Britney phase where I was fascinated by crop tops and low-rise jeans, the Y2K era that still appears in my work. This multitude of contrasting references can also be found in my feminine inspirations. My personal icons are sometimes very different from one another. I love Rihanna as much as Avril Lavigne or Amy Lee (singer of the band Evanescence); I also love the glamorous femininity of the film Chicago as well as the more warlike one of Tomb Raider, but also the characters of the cartoon Totally Spies!, Cruella de Vil and The Addams Family. Especially the last two. I really like the fact that Cruella and Morticia are supposed to be evil, yet funny and endearing at the same time: they are complete and complex characters. It’s this idea of nuance and subtlety that I like. In the same way, when I take inspiration from past eras, I try not to do it too literally – which can be the case when working on a vintage basis. I’m more interested in creating a general, quirky vibe that you can feel, rather than a slightly too obvious mix.”

2. CAMP IT UP

“If I had to pick out a woman with a particularly inspiring relationship to fashion, it would have to be Cher, and her many different outfits over the years. She has this thing, this extravagance in the way she dresses that is very Camp, and always fabulous. I think of Camp in a very broad sense by the way. I called my very first collection Connes-sur-Mer (Cunts-on-Sea, translator’s note), a title meant to be taken with a pinch, perhaps even a handful of salt. I was living in Cannes at the time and I kept seeing these orange-tanned grannies with their poodles on the beach. The idea that I wanted to defend was that we can all be cagoles (a term referring to “Bimbos” from the South of France, generally loud, “vulgar” women with outrageous outfits, attitude and makeup, translator’s note), and that we can accept ourselves as we are without exposing ourselves to condescending criticism. The title of this collection reflects a desire in my work to reclaim and turn around a commonly denigrated feminine terminology. The cagole can be very Camp, like many French feminine archetypes. I was a fan of Loana (I used to watch Loft Story on the sly) and Nabilla (both reality TV celebrities in France, translator’s note), especially during the period when she was being ridiculed, I loved her brand of humour, her bad taste… In another vein, I also love Isabelle Huppert and Daphne Guinness. In their own way, they all have something very Camp.”

3. ASSERT YOUR QUEERNESS

“If there’s one thing I claim, it’s my queerness, and I can’t stand to see a brand taking hold of these codes and sell this so called brand image while appropriating something they know nothing about! I make this point in my own way, with my family, for instance. I try to keep them alert, to educate them about certain things and realities. I studied with Nix Lecourt Mansion, who’s always put the Queer community at the centre of her work, and I think that’s great. Today, I am noticing a real breakthrough on these topics: people are talking about it and being heard, more and more… We are finally visible.”

4. LEARN FROM THE GREATS

“My experience with Jean Paul Gaultier was the most memorable of them all. I got into fashion by being a fan of Monsieur. I applied many times. By chance, one day, photographers Pierre and Gilles, who are old friends, received a commission from Jean Paul, who wanted a version of him as a young man to make an appearance in his Fashion Freak Show, and to embody him they thought of… me. I ended up applying for an internship and stayed on. I worked there as an assistant where I discovered a world of fashion made up of good people, who knew that they were not saving lives, but who preserved a high fashion knowledge that’s no longer seen in today’s fashion houses, truly in the old way. Above all, while I was working for him, I learned to have fun: ‘Don’t think about what people will say, and choose instead to always have fun’. That’s the piece of advice he gave me. He always told me that and I see it today: everything is so subjective, some people will like it, others won’t. Dancing is extremely concrete, but fashion is not, and that’s where I learned freedom.”

5. HAVE FUN WHEN YOU CREATE

“The reactions to my work are the things I enjoy the most. I am often told: ‘It’s good, it’s funny’ rather than ‘It’s beautiful’. I really like the idea that you get into a delirium where funny can be pretty. I’m thinking of my big black XXL headdresses on the heads of the models on the catwalk like last season, or my Kougelhopf bag, big tassels… People will tell me that it’s quirky, it’s funny, it’s never meant to be purely pretty. I want to make people smile. For example, I’ve come up with a baguette bag inspired by Carrie Bradshaw’s in Sex and the City, a sculptural, rigid version, that you can use to put your drink down or roll a fag on, and you can unzip it, tie it around your waist and turn it into a fanny pack if you ever want to go dancing. I love the fact that a bag has many lives. The leather goods industry isn’t experimental enough to me. We think of it as couture, a form of sculpture that completes a silhouette. Having said that, I’m making a real distinction between my unwearable creations and my ready-to-wear pieces, meant to be sold and therefore worn. With the latter, I try to reflect my universe by adding a few details to a pair of overalls, for instance. The reality is that I would like to wear my clothes the same way my friends would wear them every day, so I also think in terms of a simplified commercial offer. The result is an in-between, for example, a corseted dress that is tight and suitable for everyday wear, with a lycra print of naked women in a slightly psychedelic pattern. My biggest concern is that people talk about it and think it’s beautiful without it truly finding its place in their everyday life.”

6. CULTIVATE YOUR COHORT

“Above all I love human contact, simple things and people, as I was able to observe with Jean Paul Gaultier, who treated everyone in the same way and surrounded himself with very different people. This desire to connect led me to work with people from all walks of life, with whom I have strong ties and who inspire me, such as Germain Louvet, a friend who is a dancer at the Paris Opera; with Mimi, a cabaret dancer, Raya (Martigny) and Amande (aka Bottes de Queer on Instagram) who walk the catwalk for me, with musician Sam Quealy, whom I also adore, all of whom are unique faces with strong personalities. There are also the Manko performers – I’m thinking in particular of Julie, one of my best friends, with an incredible look and presence, who brings along a very dark circus side. I like the idea that everyone has a story, a background, and that this contributes to the construction of a very rich narrative. And then it reminds me of my own, as a dancer, which I instinctively continue to take towards fashion.”

7. CELEBRATE YOUR HERITAGE

“When I was younger, I wasn’t really proud to say I was Alsatian, but over time I began to appreciate, and then to stand up for my cultural specificities: there is a particular brand of humour, the presence of certain clichés that speak to me a lot and that I have fun with. The big sauerkraut, the huge Alsatian headdresses, all this really moves me, and I feel more Alsatian today than I ever have before. In the past, it was important for me not to have an accent, but today I don’t care. On the contrary, I see it as something charming that I embrace. I even made an entire collection inspired by Alsace, which was called Hopla Geiss for Spring-Summer 2022. It’s an expression my grandmother used all the time, which means ‘come on, let’s go’, as if to say ‘let’s go, let’s eat’. Literally, it means ‘the jumping goat’ and it refers to an impulse. Here, I borrowed some rather connotative codes, such as pretzels in the hair, for example. Rather than just big frills, I slipped in a lot of small details and accessories, specific and reworked like these Alsatian bed linen and cushion patterns with black and red checks, translated in my own way but still recognisable.”

8. CHALLENGE YOUR SURROUNDINGS

“I often wonder about the relevance of creating and owning new clothes when we know that fashion is the second most polluting industry on the planet. However, I think that each of us, even at a very small level, can change the way we think about fashion and how we consume it. I recycle a lot of fabrics and I try to buy new ones as little as possible. My practice of upcycling is not the same as Jean Paul Gaultier’s: while he will deconstruct an existing jacket and make it into a new piece, I’m more likely to reclaim and use leather deadstock instead, to avoid generating a demand for new animal skins, when there’s already so many on the market. I have also opened my eyes to the use of fur. I do a lot of recycling and I hope I can, at my own level, help to bring about a change in mentality within the luxury industry.”