Interview - Sophie Cochevelou: "Our culture becomes richer when we have elements from different cultures in it”
I met with East London designer and artist Sophie Cochevelou to talk about her passion for inclusivity and sustainability in fashion - and, of course, her art-fuelled, colour-saturated, LEGO-laced creations.
Words: Danai Molocha. Photography: Anthony Lycett
Backdropped by monumental headpieces, bedecked with a battalion of gaudy plastic toys, and intricate costumes punctuated with pom-poms and dolls’ heads, costume and jewellery designer Anne-Sophie Cochevelou talks about making a deal with the devil. Or, at least, that’s how some people perceive the furiously creative young designer’s sporadic collaborations with brands, such as Belgian chocolatier Godiva and Scottish producer Hendrick’s Gin.
“There’s always this dichotomy between brand and art, but actually that’s where the most interesting projects are”, she responds to critics. “Obviously I love doing my small independent projects, but sometimes you just need to go bigger, and you can’t do it without the brand”. From the long fake eyelashes she dons on the day of our rendezvous to the wild outfits dotting her Instagram feed, Cochevelou bares an irrepressible desire to go big.
The French native studied Literature & Drama in Paris, before an MA in Performance Design & Practice in Central Saint Martins brought her to London. And she stuck around. France’s adulation for minimalist style - black dress, jeans, white pearl neckless - was never her cup of tea.
“In London there was this kind of wacky, crazy, colorful style. I realized that if I want to sell my work I have to be here, not in Paris. People in France are actually fascinated by what I do, but I don’t sell”, she’s quick to point out. She got her first big solo exhibition at the Isabelle Gounod Gallery in the French capital’s stylish Marais district, and she got on French National TV. “They like it as an image; but they don’t want it in their home”, though she concedes that such attention made her feel more recognised as an artist.
Hard as it may be to fathom, Cochevelou wasn’t always such a showstopper. It’s been a long journey for the “little bird” trying to blend in at an all-girl school, where looks were excruciatingly X-rayed and criticised. But she found studying drama and costume really empowering. Her flamboyant, larger-than-life creations are now celebrated by more than 60 thousand people on Instagram.
Her laboriously tailored garments, sprinkled with nostalgic childhood references - from Barbies to board games - are a frequent conversation-starter. “Even if you didn’t have a good childhood they still convey a positive feeling. I love fashion that creates a link between people. I’m not really into fashion that is more about elitism, that divides. Everybody can be good, everybody can experiment”.
A testament to both her talent and tenacity - a garment can take from a couple of days to a few weeks to make - her creations bring a true joie de vivre through treasures unearthed in flea markets and car boot sales, like the one held every weekend in Princes May School in Dalston. “Mundane things and everyday objects you wouldn’t really look at turn into something fashionable and arty and wearable. Then people look at them differently”.
I point to further clues of dichotomy in her work. Distractingly bright, her potent sartorial cocktail is served with a dash of melancholia. The decapitated Barbies are a nod to idealized femininity, deconstructed. There’s a touching human story behind every bucketful of plastic attached to a Cochevelou coat; painstaking craftmanship behind every fluff-laced frock. A true method to the madness, which slingshots her garments from fashion to full-blown wearable art.
“That’s what I think makes the work more interesting and multi-dimensional. There are several readings, and you can pick yours”.
As the first drops of rain begin to fall on her studio’s glass roof (an otherwise light-filled converted warehouse in Stoke Newington) my attention shifts towards a vibrantly dressed dummy splashing a quiet corner with colour. Dag up at another car boot sale, the plastic tribal design on the garment comes from a Cameroonian carnival costume, now interwoven with dolls and pom-poms.
“I love a cultural mash-up”, she replies matter-of-factly to the praise. “There’s a big thing about cultural appropriation, which I try to be careful with. I feel that we can all learn from each other and actually our culture becomes richer when we have elements from different cultures in it. London is so multicultural, and there are so many influences, that obviously translates to my designs”.
Although the artist found her spectacularly colourful tribe in London, she is completely discombobulated by the normcore trends sweeping over the fashion-conscious younger generation. She finds the gender fluid concept interesting, “...but there’s this part of it that makes people really neutral. For me gender fluidity is more about crazy colour”.
The irony is not lost on her. “When I started out I felt I was designing for the young, the fashion students. The young in general want to stay safe, they’re more into labels. People that really love my work and buy it are women over 50. They’ve had their children and their job and now it’s time for themselves. And they go completely wild. There’s a whole movement of these women, being like “we don’t want to disappear. We exist”. And I love that”.
The conversation inevitably switches back to how an independent designer can financially survive in the notoriously expensive British capital. “People think that one year they’re going to build their business and it’s going to be successful. It doesn’t happen overnight. You have to live it and breathe it”. Despite her online popularity and freedom granted by the aforementioned brand collaborations, unpaid solo ventures are perennially part of the vestiary equation.
“As a creative in London, if you only do paid gigs you don’t develop your aesthetic. You have to do some free things that are really more creative”.
One of these things for her was the recent London Queer Fashion show, a “renegade” event on the fringes of London Fashion Week, which took place at the V&A Museum of Childhood. Her all-powerful, all-glittering costumes (“I kind of became a gay icon without even trying to”) dressed a typically diverse team of performers and people with an interesting personality rather than traditional catwalk models. Among them, members of Drag Syndrome, a drag troupe with Down Syndrome she regularly works with, and who are at the moment touring all over the world. Mirroring a society made of people of any background and ability came naturally to the designer. “Nobody identifies with unrealistic models. People want authenticity, they want people that look more like them”.
Authenticity, of course, in the Cochevelou universe comes with a sense-rattling edge. Her garments are sometimes so elaborate that eventually have to be dismantled, or incorporated into other designs, as there’s no way of storing them all. Her tour de force was a gargantuan wearable art gallery, built around a collapsible wood structure displaying abstract paintings by artist John Baldwin.
The canvas showstopper was one of the creations she presented at the long-standing Alternative Miss World competition, held at Shakespeare's Globe last year - a norm-busting beauty pageant founded by British sculptor and performance artist Andrew Logan. Another outfit included a rainbow-coloured boat structure.
“I was stuck at the stage door, they had to help me out. It was the longest 15 seconds of my life! I could see the audience wondering what’s happening. But people thought it was funny, so that’s fine”.