"Sustainability is clothes for the rich." A decade ago, Oliviero Toscani already left the (pen) last debate that is heating up the fashion business today: “All this environmentalism seems to me something for a little rich people. But rich with a soft, light r. Sustainability, by contrast, is a word that should never be uttered lightly.”
With what has happened since then, including the stream of acts of contrition and proposals for amendment by the textile industry, the photographer who forever changed the language of brand communication has not budged, however, from his positions. , not one iota: “Only the rich can afford to do something that, for them, should be considered an obligation. Yes, of course they have to be sustainable, and pay the price that it costs to be so”.
There is anger in the words of Doctor Toscani, who sentences when he speaks. Perhaps because he has just left the hospital, which has been 81 years of fighting and ailments do not spare even the brave. Back at his home in Tuscany, he doesn't give up on the other side of the screen either: the first thing he wants to know is how messy the patio is in Spain.
“I hope that the drift there is less fascist than in Italy. Mamma mia! But what is happening to us? Look how bad the brains are,” she says. Genius and figure, he continues without losing sight of the bickering of world politics, which he has been reporting on at least since 1982, when he began to orchestrate those campaigns as artistic director of the Benetton group, more than standard advertising, genuine bombs of sociocultural clockwork. A committed, even activist look, which inevitably comes to light in Raza Humana, the photographic project he embarked on in 2007 and which has no sign of concluding.
Defined as a “sociopolitical, cultural and anthropological study through the morphology of people”, Razza Umana –in its original Italian– puts a face to diversity long before diversity and inclusion dominated the fashion conversation (and Not only). Toscani, special envoy to the center of globalized society, praises the difference without filters or artifice for which he has traveled Israel, Palestine, Japan, Namibia and Guatemala, in addition to countless transalpine locations.
Until, in 2019, he found what seems to have become his favorite playing field: the Kappa FuturFestival in Turin, a macro international meeting of electronic dance music and visual arts with a strong environmental discipline that in its physical return last year, after the rigors of the pandemic, it brought together 85,000 people of 105 nationalities. What a fertile field to demonstrate that, like politics, what is sustainable is personal.
Are humanity and sustainability the same?
No… Well, yes, but we are handling the issue as if they were opposed. We are only speculating, and the only certain thing is that evolution, as we understand it today, is not compatible with a sustainable practice, because the planet does not have enough natural resources to be consumed at the voracious rate demanded by our idea of progress. .
In other words, we are a stupid race.
We are a part of nature that does not work. Although she does not correspond to us at all well. Nature is very bad when it suits it, it sends us diseases, cancer, tsunamis, earthquakes... Nature is also dangerous. And on top of that, the human being, with his actions, has spoiled it even more. The only solution is to start over, from the beginning. It will take time, several generations. I won't see it, and surely you won't either, but it will be inevitable.
Photographed in 2022, the new faces of this diverse humanity that will be exhibited during the three days of the next edition of the festival (from June 30 to July 3) look more vibrant than ever. It is intentional, of course. “40-year-olds are already old. The future is like this. And what I am looking for is the face of the future. In Turin I have discovered that there are many to choose from, ”he reasons, before returning to the charge with another rant:“ Young people are not as stupid and negative as old people. Those who are between 40 and 60 years old are indeed imbeciles, a disaster”.
But hadn't we agreed that old age is experience and our elders, transmitters of wisdom?
“Nah, the old people have done nothing but annoy her, over and over again. They have left us countless dead, they have brought us sadness, ”she continues. Suddenly, he qualifies: "The problem, in reality, is not the youngest or the oldest, but the mediocre 50 and 60-year-olds who run the show, send balls...". And she initialed with a laugh.
Are you referring to climate change deniers?
Against them, my hopes are pinned on generation Z. They must be encouraged to continue the fight, to continue being a ball player, constantly. Because of course global warming is a very serious problem.
But there are also young people with conservative ideas...
Those do not interest me, I mean those that are useful. If you're young, you can't go conservative through life and be smart. Those who matter are those who act outside the rules, who create crises, who get into discussions and, as I say, play balls a lot.
"God, country, family and property are the ruin of humanity." Let it not be said that Oliviero Toscani has stopped serving headlines to five columns on a tray. His fame as a polemicist, as a provocateur who likes to stick his finger into a sore spot, has followed him since the beginning of his career in the visual arts (let's not forget that, in addition to photography, he studied design at the University of Zurich).
When he retires, if he ever does, it will be stinging: that his longest-running personal project includes such a sensitive term right now as race –chosen consciously because it is social dynamite– once again attests to his proverbial combative spirit.
“Immigration and racism are the big problem to solve. I would take a million Africans to an American state like Wyoming and I guarantee that, in ten years, it would never be a racist, nationalist place again. That's sustainability, too,” she concedes.
And it is enough to mention fashion, a field in which he has spent many of his professional cartridges, for him to turn on again: “Ah, fashion also makes us idiots. All you have to do is look at those jerks who buy clothes with loud logos, madonna. The fascination that it can exert is such that it turns us into its servants”.
You who defend the kids so much, how do you explain that while you hold the clothing industry accountable for overproduction, pollution and lack of work ethic, it continues to surrender to fast fashion brands?
I do not think that such consumer behavior can be attributed to a majority. In any case, as long as there is only one that deviates from the norm, it's fine for me. Because what counts is the individual.
Let's close the circle. Toscani maintains that the poor are never going to lead the eco-sustainable revolution, "because they have more urgent problems to solve, although I don't know how long they are going to put up with that friend of yours buying luxury bags three by three." So the human race has no solution? “The world is a constant conflict; watch your friends, your family, everything is a struggle. Either we subvert the value system or we're not going anywhere.
United Dancers of
Thus, he managed to create his own visual language that would end up changing brand communication, considering the concept –almost always disruptive– before the product itself. With those same wickers he founded Colors, that “magazine about the rest of the world” with a multicultural ideology and provocative style, while the same was required by Chanel as by the Italian Ministry of Labor. After founding the Fabrica and La Sterpaia agencies, his latest adventure is Oliviero Toscani Circus, a platform for cultural encounters and an "ego washer".
