Gilles Mendel | The Magnificent Others with Billy Corgan

You don't have to be experienced in fashion to feel what's, you know, the electricity, the magic of the place when you come to us. Yeah. Because you see it. You know, beauty is beauty. The fashion business is very punishing. It's relentless. Yes, definitely. No, it's really, really hard. So around 2012, I show up in your life. Yes, I remember that. So let's talk about that. What is my daughter doing? I cannot believe it, you know. I started to look in the internet who you were, and I became even worse. Gio Mendel, welcome to The Magnificent Others. So full disclosure, you are my father-in-law, so we have to get that out of the way first. How do you feel about that? No, just wait. We'll get to that. Okay. um sarah jessica parker taylor swift j-lo celine dion michelle obama melania trump nancy reagan lisa minnelli anna kendrick heidi klum claire dane scarlett johansson carrie washington sandra bullock these are just some of the beautiful women that you've dressed through the years being in the fashion business yeah it's been quite an incredible experience i have to say you know i mean just i can't believe in fact i'm happy you did you gave that list because i was afraid you were going to ask me who did i dress i would have never got to that point did i leave anyone off the list uh anna kendrick's uh nicole kidman okay ha you know but no more or less i mean yeah there's so many i'm through the years so but i felt like we needed to start there because they were family but also be um people that wouldn't necessarily if they know you're a fashion designer, they wouldn't necessarily know the arc of accomplishment. As you know, in American culture, you're judged by the level of celebrity that you reach. Yeah, I mean, as I said, it's quite an experience. I have to say, I just saw recently a documentary on Ferragamo, the shoemaker, and he was talking. I mean, the experience was the same, from the love of a product, the love of making something beautiful, from the understanding he came to america you know and he developed he basically dressed all these big celebrities as well and it was the same principles you know the principle of loving the making the making the product you know the the respect of the material i mean this whole love into the artesany which is basically what i come from you know this yeah this mastery of artisan that proud of their work i mean yeah this is like what fire was behind my experiences so the my aspiration in interviewing you and the reason I asked you is because most people really don't understand the fashion business. I mean, they have a sort of celebrity tinged hue of what it's like, but obviously because we've been family for many years now, I have an insider view and I realize in talking to people in my life, most people really don't understand the grind of the fashion business. And it starts with the love, but we'll get there for a second, but I want to get into your background a bit if you don't mind. So you were born in post-war France, 1955? Yes. 5-1-55? Yes. Lucky numbers, right? Yes. What are your memories of post-war France? Because Paris obviously famously was not bombed. No. I mean, you know, I mean, I grew up, you know, in a, in a, in a, in a, I mean, I grew up in an area in Paris called Neuilly, you know, which is a little wood of Boulogne. In fact, I was born at the American hospital in Paris, which is the American hospital. Who do know that later on? Here we are. Here I am, you know, in America. I mean, you know, I grew up surrounded by, obviously, my parents that had, you know, such tremendous experience with the war and so on. So it was they, during my whole youth, they tried not to impose in me, you know, what they went through. Even my religious, I have not been religiously educated in any way. You know, it was very free because they really suffered enormously. My mom went, you know, to a terrible concentration camp. I just read recently that, you know, in Drancier where she was staying, where she stood during the war, 70,000 people went in and only 2,000 went out. And she was one of them. So it's like incredible. And, you know, to date, unfortunately, she passed away. But till the last moment, she really never really wanted to talk about it. I mean, it was such a trauma. I mean, you could imagine. I can't. I just can't imagine. I think that's what, it's almost unimaginable. Unimaginable. What people went through. Incredible. And my dad, the same thing. You know, his story is incredible. This man was a man of multi-talented, but, you know, he grew up as a furrier because he was, you know, in the Jewish family. The first son, the first boy, you know, he tries to become a doctor. They try to give him an education. The second, my dad had to go and work with a family. That's how it is. So from the age of six, seven years old, he was already starting to work and help, you know, the mother and my grandfather, you know, as a furrier, you know, to do things. And so he, during the war, which is crazy, if you think of it, you know, he, I mean, first of all, should I talk about that for a minute? it's right here okay so you you're doing it for me yeah okay i mean it's insane i mean this is a man who was barely educated for a long time he was really purely educated as a master furry i mean he learned from my grandfather you know the trade and so on but when he was in his 20s you would think that how do you how do you you know the war started and you know what makes you fight and become a part of the resistance you would think well in his he wrote a book my dad after a while and you know and in his book he says that basically the story was that he fell in love with a girl you know and that girl happened to be in the resistance and the next day he you know he wanted somebody to date her that she took him one day and he said okay come over we have something we're going to go and bomb a bridge and he was suddenly in a car with a grenade between his legs going to bomb the bridge where the Germans were coming. That's how he started the war. Then the Germans, obviously after that, the Gestapo were searching for him. And he went for one year in the south of France, hidden in a little farm where he couldn't get out. He had to hide because they were looking for him. So the only time he could get out, maybe it's at nighttime a little bit. But anyway, so he started to read. And he read everything he could find, right? So until that moment, since I know my dad, until his last breath. He would send me first, you know, faxes before the emails, but he would send me faxes and stories, and he could never talk to me without poetry. He would write. It was always beautiful. He wouldn't say to me, Gilles, maybe today you should do this, you know, in work, or you should, you know, I advise you to do that. No, no. He would come with maybe a poem from Baudelaire or something. He would come out with, it was insane. You know, the man was kind of a special guy. Are you sure he was decorated after the war by Mitterrand and a resistance fighter? He got a medal, yes. He was decorated. And talk a little bit about how your parents met because it's this unlikely sort of meeting. I mean, how they met, I'm not sure. I mean, they met through family. In those days, my mother had many brothers. And when you had to meet, if you met my dad, in order to meet her, I had to meet all the brothers. she couldn't go out without the six brothers behind her going anywhere they met in paris i mean that's where they met and uh during the war after the war they just met right after the war but nothing i don't think there was anything particularly i thought your daughter had told me a story that involved something a little bit more poetic like a movie like a movie scene oh really no i don't recall that no well we blame her for giving me the information So you're the fifth generation of your family that entered what we would loosely call the fashion business, but it was really the furrier business. Yes. Yeah. I mean, you know, from, you know, 1870, you know, from Nicholas II, where I'm sure they had, you know, the Jews were, as you know, during that time in the late 19th century, you know, they were kind of segregated in some areas of Russia. I think it was called the Pelset Settlement. It was an area between Belarus and Ukraine. There was an area where they could live. And if they had special skill of some sort, you would be able to go to Leningrad and eventually do things like my great-grandfather was doing for the Tsar. He could make fur. He had this extraordinary talent and artistry. He brought to there the knowledge of all the making of the fur, the artesany. His technical skills were very high, and I think that's why, because of his skill, he was able to start. Can you define what that skill would have been in the late 1800s? The skill was really, I mean, to make a fur coat, if you think of it, it's a very, very complicated and very artistic effort. because, you know, I don't want to be too literal, but, you know, there's a lot of cutting, a lot of symmetrical things. You have to understand an animal doesn't have, you know, the same character from the neck to the bottom of his, you know, the skin has, the hair has a different. So in order to make a garment very uniform, you have to really understand the leather, on the leather side, how to cut the skins to make it right. So there is a huge, huge amount of technical knowledge that in those days, you know, was required. And my great-grandfather, you know, got this from his trade. I mean, the Jewish people, you know, I think the fur trade comes from hundreds and hundreds of years, you know. So I think he was highly skilled. He was extremely skilled. And when he came, when my grandfather, you know, left after the revolution, you know, this Russian area and came to France, he brought with him this you know this his knowledge his technical knowledge and uh that's how he started to build something in paris what um what economic situation were your parents in when you were young you know were they poor were they sort of middle class or they were no they were a little bit they were middle class maybe a little bit better than middle class i mean you You know, my father would come home at night and continue to do his work, watching television, you know, at home on front of the TV, but still trying to make up a little bit so he could the next day have already advanced his work. He had an atelier. Originally, when I was little, my dad had a beautiful little shop, but, you know, with an atelier with one sewer. And he was making, I mean, in those days, there was maybe four or five styles, you know, that he would offer to the clients. and they were all bespoke pieces. Basically, at the time somebody would come, he would make them for a customer. And, you know, it's... But from him, I learned... And when I was little, you know, I would go to the workshop and I, you know, smelled, you know, the workshop and all this, the noise of the machine. And I would look at this man who was very handsome with, you know, long hands, a little diamond ring. And he would be... I would look at him nailing the skins on a board. And, you know, it would be like looking at the architecture of Versailles, the gardens of Versailles. You know, all these skins were laid out on the board and he had like all nails and a tool that maybe belonged to his father, femme old tool, you know, and he would do nail by nail, you know, stretching the skin, wetting the skin, stretching the skin on a board. And at the end, it would be immaculate. It was like, I mean, as I said, like a plan of Paris, you know, it was very beautiful. So, I mean, I saw him and I saw him doing that for many years until one day he moved to Rue Saint-Honoré in Paris. And, you know, it was a time my mother was very, very, very visionary, visionary. And she knew that this man was so talented, he needed to be more exposed to the world of fashion and so on. And Rue Saint-Honoré was the street and he's still the street in Paris to be in. So it was your mother that sort of pushed. My mother, yes. She was the one who really put my dad would have stayed where he was. He was very happy. Was her vision that he could sort of elevate himself in the fashion? Yeah. Folk world. You know, it's I don't think up to that time there was you talking so much. I mean, fashion. I think I have been more the one who brought more even this idea of fashion to the world. I mean, to that embrace more the fashion element. My dad looked at himself like, you know, like a craftsman. A craftsman who was making unbelievable things. He didn't need to do quantities. He didn't want to do anything that was beyond the artistry of his work. And he was very proud of it. And there was something my mom was the one pushing and saying, we should try to be more involved. You're so talented. You have so much to offer. Why don't you give that? Why don't you show that to more people? I see. And I was the instrument of that, basically. When I decided to move into my family's world, in the work world, I basically, I'm the one who instigated this connection with designers. Because my mother was basically this little bundle of beauty who was always constantly, you know, I would be one day in Paris. and she would arrive in a little mini cooper with a famous designer next to her, like Azina Laya. She had many very famous designers around her that loved her. And it was not about the spending of the money. It was more because she was very charismatic. She loved to dress. And she really was so inspiring. And she was definitely one of my best inspiration. yeah when we were last in paris your daughter and i we went to the alaya museum yes and she was talking about imagine my yes grandmother used to come here yes yeah it's yeah and i went when i was little i she would take me to the atelier of alaya and uh but she wasn't yeah she was incredible she really introduced me to that and you know and when i was at that age younger i would go to their atelier and that's how i discovered in fact completely fashion because i saw those designers in the you know and i saw their collections and i saw those assistants sketching for them and i was looking at those fittings with clothes that felt like surreal to me uh you know so looking at my dad who is making this most immaculate beautiful product but one of a kind every time and seeing those guys you know exploring you know the infinity of beauty really raising my i mean definitely inspire me to at that point in your life like let's say your teens your late teens Is your idea you're going to follow your father into the family trade or you're going to do something different? Yeah, I never really thought I would follow my family's, follow my father's, you know, steps and continue developing it. But I somehow, you know, I mean, you know, I did a business school. I was not too good in business school. I knew I'd shit pretty well. So I mean, business school just makes me laugh. Yeah. Thank you very much. So believe it or not during that time you know I mean I was trying to keep going by playing music you know I was I had a band I was playing I had a band called Silver Hill Silver Hill Silver Hill Silver Hill Ask me why I have no idea But anyway I was trying to escape from school as much as I could you know So I traveled a lot while I was at school. I, you know, even traveled to Guatemala. I discovered we're getting to Guatemala. OK. Yeah. But, you know, I did some some travel. But when I came back to Paris and I tried to be a businessman, you know, my best friend had a his dad was a very famous guy who was, you know, buying grains and selling grains, you know, all over the world and edging his buys at the Chicago trades, you know, world trade. Anyway, I was doing all that. And I said, what are you doing? I mean, this is not right. And I was always in I mean, I drew always very well. I was very that's something that I naturally had in me. And my mom was such an inspiration to me. And, you know, and by discovering those designers and so on, it really pushed me to say, you know what, I'm going to try to take this little jewel box of my father. And instead of saying that, I'm coming in. Because I knew right away that I could never be the master that he was. I mean, that mastery was impossible. But I could bring something he didn't have. So I said to, I used my mom's connections. And I introduced the first few months when I decided to work with him. I said, look, I come in, but let me bring designs. Let me bring a designer, a famous designer to do a collection with you. And maybe we'll go from there. So we had the first designer was Jean-Charles de Castelbajac, which is, you know, someone very renowned in France. And we did a collection. We did a runway show. And it went very well. My father was very happy. We got suddenly press all over the place. You know, we were in L'Officiel, Vogue. It was incredible. And then I said, what do I do? And, you know, I couldn't be in the shadow of this huge tree of my father. It was impossible. I could have never developed my be myself. So for some reason, I decided out of the blue, without any kind of preparation, I said, I'm going to go to America. I had a sketchbook of ideas that I wanted to design. You know, I had some ideas, but I was not really totally prepared. So I'm going to go to America and maybe I'm opening a store on Madison Avenue. Why not? you know so i went on a tourist visa to to to to new york and i walked the streets of madison up and down you know it was the you know early 80s everybody at that time already you had you know all the stores with all the first or disappeared at this point in the early 80s in new york city you know you you already had a lot of anti-fur movements you know posters about you know i want to be naked and wearing fur and all these things so it was not like too good but anyway I realized very quickly that a store on Madison was not going to happen because you had to have $300,000, $400,000 in those days to spend. It was already like kind of a million dollars that I didn't have. Neither of my parents were going to invest in this kid coming to New York after just a few months having worked with my dad. And I went on and on and on. And I realized, and I said, okay, I'm going to go to Bergdorf Goodman, you know, the store. I happened to be connected because some public relation in Paris that I knew said, why don't you go and see Don Mello, who at the time was running Bergdorf Goodman. I showed my sketch and she very nicely, politely said to me, you know, thank you, but, you know, maybe go to the second floor. There is a third department. It's Fendi. Talk to the gentleman there and maybe, you know, so I went downstairs and the gentleman very nicely said, yes, but thank you, but goodbye. So I was literally two, three days before I had to go back to Paris. I go to this restaurant, which was in the third district in New York, which in those days was so colorful. A lot of little Jewish restaurants and corner streets and so on. And there was one called Traders. And it was like a saloon, Billy. You know, you go in, you know, the doors would open like this. You go in and the women were passing by, you know, with, you know, sandwich, pastrami sandwiches and gefilte fish and whatever. And I'm sitting there with a broker of my father who was buying the skins. And I said, Alvin, I'm going back. I can't find anything. And the man introduced me. He said, you know, let me talk. A gentleman passed by in front of the door, in front of us, and said, you know, meet Gilles and so on. And the man said to me, maybe you should go back up. There is a place called Elizabeth Harden on Fifth Avenue. And there's a gentleman there. His name is Jerry Solovay. And if you go, you'll see on the second floor, they sell fashion. But the mannequins are a little bit like this. You know, they're not too, you know, it's not really doing so well. Maybe, maybe you never know. You go and talk to them. I'll go short. I went up there. I met Jerry Solovay. I saw this incredible second floor parlor room on Fifth Avenue. You know, I was like, I was shaking. And believe it or not, we connected. He took me to meet Joe Ronchetti, the president of Elizabeth Thalden in those days, a day later. And on a shake hand, I swear, on a shake hand, without contract, 20% on sales. He said to me, you can have a little room on the second floor in the parlor room. And we have 13 locations all over America. If you like, you could travel and do your thing. And I became, you know, the Frenchman with his strong cases, meeting the who's who of America. That's made me start with going back to the beginning, how I got to... Because we skipped over this one thing. Sorry. It's a very interesting story. Sorry. So talk about why did you decide to go to Guatemala somewhere in this? It's a little before this, but it's generally the same time period. Tell that story. Guatemala was a different story. You know, I mean, I wanted to discover America. I wanted to go to Guatemala. Guatemala was purely because I wanted to go. The first trip I went in America, I went all the way to California. I remember I thought I was going to go to California, take Route 60 down the coast, get to and go to Mexico. I speak Spanish and I thought, Gilles, are you going to let's go to Mexico? It's going to be fun. I was still traveling buses, youth hostels, whatever. And when I passed by Tijuana and I went back to Mexico, I got really scared. I thought, oh, this is not really for me. The city was very crowded. Everything was not my thing. And I said, you know, maybe I should continue. It's not too far. I'm going to go to the next frontier, which is Guatemala. And I went literally out of the blue. I remember I crossed the frontier by foot. I mean, to tell you how not prepared I had. I had just a little knapsack with my toothbrush, no camera, nothing, no drugs. You know, I was really completely in a mood of discovering something that I've never experienced in Europe. I don't even understand to date how my parents let me do that. It was insane because it was not a time of telephone, cell phones or anything. And the moment I stepped in Guatemala in those days, for some reason, I felt totally at ease. The people were beautiful. They were dressed in those multicolored pyjama outfits, their bags, their banana bags in multicolored. I loved it. And we went into buses that had another engine in the bus. And we would go in the jungle. And I had these people sitting on my knees with the chickens. But it was such an extraordinary experience. And I was lucky. the reason I stayed there longer than expected was because I discovered on the lake of Atitlan, in a volcanic, there's a volcanic, Atitlan volcanic area, and there's a lake. And when I went, you know, it's a beautiful area. And I met this chief of a tribe there and, you know, right on the beach. And we became friends and he took me to all those little villages. And, you know, the fact that I was not coming with cameras. I was not coming with kind of a, you know, I was not like a tourist. I was more, I wanted to blend. I think I was searching for, you know, something and I found it there. And it was, I loved it. I felt there was no more judgment. I was not the son of a furrier. I was not, you know, I was just an in-person dealing with beautiful, loving, extraordinary people. But my trip had to get cut short because I was, you know, mosquitoes love me. And they, I mean, my feet were like completely destroyed by mosquito bites. And, you know, in the jungle, it gets very, the humidity and so on, you cannot really, it was getting infected. So I had to go back. And on my return, may I tell you a quick story? On my return, I want you to tell the whole arc of the story. On my return, I go back and I make a mistake. So I had to fly back to Guatemala City right away. I mean, my feet were impossible. And I so I had to take a flight back and back to Paris. And on my return, I made a mistake or somehow I had to stop in Boston and I've never been to Boston. In fact, I've never been to Boston since. So to tell you, so I'm telling you a story that I remember from then. So I arrived at the I arrived at the airport in Boston and it was nighttime. So I said, what do I do? I said, oh, I should go to see Cambridge University. Since I might fly the next flight to Paris with the following day at night, I had one day to kill. So I said it was 2 a.m. So I said, how do I go? Because Cambridge University reminded me of my university, you know, because I went to a business school, which was also kind of a tough school to get in. Very similar campus, whatever. So I I remember I took a train over the city. I arrived there and I fell asleep in the garden on the grass at 4 or 5 a.m. in 5 a.m. You know, I didn't know where I was. and anyway, I was sitting in Guatemala, literally curly hair up to my, you know, long curly hair. I had a banana bag from Guatemala. So I look and I was very dark and I'm sleeping on the grass, you know, somewhere there. And there's a gentleman, an old man with a beard and a pipe push me, you know, he says, Hey, where are you coming? Where are you coming from? And, you know, I look up and I said, well, I tell my story. And the man happened to be an old teacher of Harvard who, you know, kind of became friendly with me and said to me, well, how long have you been traveling? And I said, I've been traveling for the past three months. You know, have you read a paper recently? I said, no, in fact, you know, I've been a little bit out of everything for the past three months. Anyway, he took me to the library. He showed me the first Gutenberg book printed. it was insane and you know I spent the day with this gentleman he gave me this whole tour of Harvard and I went back to Paris it was great beautiful story so you're in New York you have this deal with Elizabeth Arden yes you're strictly focused on making furs because that's your yes and no because you know the whole principle of my whole principle was at those days you know you had furriers You know, the fur years, it's like you go to a store in those days and you had like fur coats. That was not my thing. Me, I wanted to show the artistry of making fur with fabric and transforming, really making more fashion out of it. I was not searching just to do a fur coat. So my store was, you know, there was a lot of cashmere. There was a lot of fabric mix, you know, capes and so on. So when you came to my store at Elizabeth Arden, you felt like you were in a fashion salon, even though primary list was fur. But, you know, there was a lot of other things. that matched together and you know so yeah when i started at elizabeth arden that's how i presented myself and um yeah uh what was your impression of new york at that time this is this is late 80s yes yeah early 80s mid 80s new york was extraordinary i mean it was fun it was incredibly you know for me it was such a extraordinary experience you know the uptown downtown mix i was living, you know, I was in one hand, I would be making a coat for Brooke Astor. At the same time, I would be having dinner with Keith Haring downtown. I mean, something totally surreal. You were friends with Keith Haring and also you hung out in Warhol's circle. Yes, yes. I mean, without knowing really where I was, I mean, that was beyond my education. You know, I think in those days, I was this little Jewish kid coming from Paris, you know, sheltered by my parents, even though I went to Guatemala. But, you know, when I remember, I always remember going to the factory and having lunch with Andy Warhol, who was, and those days I wanted to be in the interview magazine and so on. And I remember my whole experience with him, I didn't understand a single word, you know, because he was mumbling the way he was talking and I couldn't understand anything. I think I left. I didn't know what happened, but I was watching around. It was fabulous. I saw how he was printing his work and it was, you know, but... I remember you telling me once the Keith Haring offered you something of his and you turned him down. Yeah, I mean... Yeah, I'm turning it down. I didn't know because, you know, there was a lot of people around him, around this crowd. There was a lot of people taking advantage of his work. Always. I always had a friend, you know. There was a lot of drugs, even though I was not into drugs, but, you know, a lot of cocaine, a lot of... In those days, it was, you know, people where the nightlife and the art world was mixed with the uptown world And it was interesting for that reason. At the same time, a lot of parasites around these artists. And, you know, I had my thing. I was doing fashion. I was developing something I loved. And I love to mingle with them. But, you know, I never really fully understood in those days the value of taking a piece of Keith Haring's work and so on, you know. Did you chart your success now that you're immersed in this world? Like, did you feel you were successful right away? Did it take a while to find a clientele? Like, walk me through that a little bit. Yeah, it was a slow success, a slow growth. But it's it's Elizabeth Arden was such an extraordinary experience for me because imagine the who's who of America was going to Elizabeth Arden for their hair done. You know, there was a hair salon in every, you know, the people were it was a beauty place. You know, you would go on the red door, the red door on Fifth Avenue, and the women were like pampered. So basically, you know, from the Marshall family, I mean, the names, you know, you gave me the list of all the celebrities. But, you know, a lot of people were not celebrities, but very well-known people in the world of politics and so on who were, you know, going to Elizabeth Harden. So I had very quickly instant recognition and success because I would travel to all these stores, you know, from Rodeo Drive to the best locations, you know, bring my trunk cases with my little cashmere trim coats and all that thing. And I was starting to dress really the who's who of America. So basically, it's the growth went slowly, but enough to allow myself after a few years to open my finally my store on Madison Avenue. So, you know, even though, and I have to say it's a record because if you think of it, I've been, I was, I think I stayed about 10 years at Elizabeth Arden and there was really difficult years where fur was really, really hard when, you know, nobody wanted to be associated with this idea of fur. I was in a cosmetic company who had so much more to lose than me and they kept me all along because I was successful. I was really doing well for them. Yeah. So it shows you that there was a very good partnership. Yeah. I think because you know fur is still a hot topic It still being debated in American culture and you no longer are involved in fur So I think people would need to know that because why we talking so casually about it It not callous because I know one of the first discussions you and I ever had that had any depth about fashion was I wanted to understand you working in fur. And that was sort of the end of it. But I wanted you to talk a little bit about how you end up transitioning into dressmaking Because the story, as I remember it was, PETA kept attacking your storefront. And so you made a couple dresses just to put in the window to keep people from attacking your store. Yeah, it was. Yeah. I mean, the story is that when I opened Madison Avenue, my first boutique, finally, you know, even though I have to say, you know, having windows on Fifth Avenue at Elizabeth Island was quite something, you know. But when I opened my first boutique, yes, everybody said, you're crazy. They're going to break your windows. You're not going to last more than a week. So, yeah, the first thing I did, there was a little coffee shop next to my store called Viande. It's still there, a little tiny place. I took a studio, 200 square feet, little studio above, put two machines, and I started to make little dresses. So I said at nighttime, instead of leaving the first, which you're going to break the windows, I'll put a coat and a dress to match, a little matching thing, and see what happens. And then the next day, being in the 60s on Madison Avenue, around there, there were ladies passing by and seeing my dresses and started to come in. So I said, wow, this is really amazing. I can really do – this is really working. And it created the attention of a lot of people, inclusive Bergdorf Goodman, who when they saw that I was moving on Madison Avenue and I was doing these fur trim pieces, cashmere coats with – they came to me as well and that's how i started even to open my own store at bergdorf um because it eventually intersects into how we know each other yeah um how did you fall in love with my wife's mother jenny oh gee uh but how did you guys meet because you know as the story goes my my mother-in-law uh is is a bit of a taiwanese princess yeah who you know born in taiwan but yeah end up living in in los angeles how did you and jenny me because i i actually don't know that story you don't okay well do you want to tell that story yeah i mean this yeah there was a there was a club in new york called oba on the ups uptown like an uptown club you know and uh a friend of mine you know took me there one night and we were dancing and so on i i saw this beautiful beautiful woman that was there, you know, beautiful little Chinese doll. She was gorgeous. And yeah, very simply, you know, we, I connected and for a while we, you know, we, we, we dated, but you know, there was nothing very serious. And one day I had a problem with my back and I had to have surgery of my lower back. And I, you know, I didn't want to see anybody. I went to the hospital. I said the night before, I don't want to see anybody, you know, you don't want to be bothered and so on. and this woman out of the blue came i remember like a chinese delivery she delivered to me at 8 p.m at night before you know food from the most delicious place in new york city and i thought to myself this is really something someone amazing she went through all these efforts even to do that and i got in front and i married her so back to fashion um obviously i get to see it behind the scenes a bit and I hear about it every day, which is a different thing. But talk a little bit about the date, because I think coming in from the outside, not knowing much about fashion. I mean, I intersected with fashion houses through being famous in the 90s, but it was always kind of a show up and somebody lets you look around a bit kind of thing or gives you a coat. But I think the most shocking thing for me coming in from the outside and basically marrying into a fashion dynasty is the day-to-day grind of the fashion business. So for people who don't know about the fashion business but are curious, talk a little bit about the day-to-day grind of what it is, like the seasonal calendar. I mean, fashion is, you know, it's… The word I would use is relentless. It seems to me from the outside, and I thought the music business was bad. The fashion business is very punishing. It's relentless. Yes, definitely. No, it's really, really hard. You know, you have to, you know, you have, you know, you normally have four collections a year to present, you know, spring, resort, fall, you know, I mean, you can't, it's always something bridal, you know, you know, you constantly do collections. you have to you know you have to recreate all the time something you know i mean i always felt very i think fashion is really hard because if you think of it if i was designing furniture and i'm successful at it you repeat that piece of furniture forever because it's a classic in fashion it doesn't work that way you know once a woman wears you know those dresses you need already to change to a new new style so is that the drive for innovation in it because i i don't really understand it even to this point is is it's always about what's the new thing what's the new thing for the for the crowd that's buying not in my world but in the world of in the most mass market world yes it is you have to constantly move on and bring some newness you know constantly so that you know it appeals for the store to buy the stores why would they buy something if they had it already before so you constantly have to be to recreate something in order to create attraction can you can you listen again for the those that wouldn't know it can you define a little bit about that kind of class of mostly women obviously but men too but the is it the i don't know what you call them the the wealthy couture class or the or the fashion groupies i don't know what you call that group of people but there's a group of people who drive the biggest fashion houses in the world to innovate in the couture end of the thing yes because it's about creating buzz and vibe and who's on the ascendancy. Can you talk about that? I'm not sure I fully understand. When you do runway, I mean, most of the companies create runways in order to, you know, to show newness in their collection, to bring some new styles. Today, you know, we're living in a world, obviously, you know, where everything is, you know, mediatically shown to the world quickly through social media and so on. And so they have, you know, there is a huge industry behind the showing of the collections to then to find, you know, to have the celebrities, you know, promote them so that the celebrities promoting them create desire for the people in them, you know, to follow social media. But I'm also talking about like, you know, the woman in Dallas who's married to a billionaire who will buy, you know, a hundred thousand dollar couture piece because she wants to be the only person in the world. yes i i don't i'm surprised yeah yeah i don't see that tell me if i'm wrong but i'm surprised that that that element of society also drives the fashion messaging as well maybe it's not as public as the celebrity i don't think that's public as uh as uh you know the celebrities but i'm saying behind the scenes but behind the scenes yeah it's a huge okay that's what i'm yeah yeah yeah for sure i mean you know this is the crowd that i'm following for example with house of gila you know So we, but this crowd is sometimes more low key than you think because, you know, they are, they, they, they, they, they follow the brands. They see, you know, the extravaganza of the brands, but at the end, you know, they want something bespoke, unique. They spend a lot of money, but, you know, the, the money they spend is also for, you know, this, they get something extraordinary, exclusive for them. That is, that has a lot of. But to the average American, and I grew up as an average American, you know, lower middle class. Yeah. These figures that you hear thrown around, somebody paid a few hundred thousand dollars for a dress. By the way, wear it one time. That's shocking to most people in the West. That's not to put it on you because that's the business that exists. It exists with or without you. But the value of what they buy, there's a lot of work put behind. It's really one of a kind. You know, there's a whole atelier. I can attest to that. The amount of hours that goes into a spoke. There is value to it. It's not a hype compared to many other things in fashion that I could call more of a hype. Sure. You know, because, you know, the markup between something that is made cheaply and sold, you know, highly priced. If you go into one of these fashion houses and you buy with the logo. That is correct. You're buying basically a $100 parka. That is correct. That somebody's charging. Yeah. 50 times markup. because all the money that they are spending in advertising and promoting fashion shows and designers. Well, also, you're buying the vibe. Correct. Correct. So you build Jay Mandel up to the point where it's a multi-multi-million dollar company. You have, at some point, a billionaire investor come in. What was the biggest sort of period of time for Jay Mandel when you were running it? I mean, up to, you know, during the time, you know, up to, I remember, you know, when we do a couture show in 2016, where your wife, my daughter, you know, came to Paris with me and we started, it was a lot of fun. I mean, there was really heights. I loved it. You know, it was a very extraordinary experience for me because, you know, I like to do everything. So for me, at J. Mandel, it was, you know, from the windows. I love doing windows. So, you know, doing the windows on 5th Avenue on Madison Avenue was really my joy. For a while in Paris, we had a store and I would do the windows as well. And, you know, I got the best compliment because I always remember Albas. Albas was a designer of Lanvin. And he always made the most fabulous windows for Boursa Tonnerre in Paris. And one day I'm walking and this man walked and we met. You know, he knew me. I knew him. And he came to me and said, Gilles, I love your windows. And it's like from a master saying that to me, you know, made me really happy because I really I enjoy this experience. I enjoy the window making. I enjoy when you're in the store, you know, meeting the customers, listening to their, you know, it's there's something about it. So when when I did this for a long time and I really enjoyed it and it was fun, but it became also more and more becoming, you know, something less personal as you grow. You make more products. You can't control all the product. And I like to control what I do. I like to put – I have this imprint in me of this artisanie, of this love of the product, respect of the product, which is really what I learned from my father and my grandfather. And I wanted to go back to that. And I think there was a point after 2016 and then when COVID came in – There was also the economic – Yeah, there was an economic situation. that, you know, lowered, you know, became also more difficult. Yeah. But I would say most of it was, you know, this desire to move on, really to do something that I really love and go back to the roots of something that I enjoy. And, you know, in addition to what is such a family, you know, experience, that, you know, having my daughter joining me and was, you know, such a, it's extraordinary. You know, it's nothing more extraordinary than that. Okay, so speaking of your daughter. Uh-oh. So around 2012, I show up in your life. Yes, I remember that. So let's talk about that a bit. Well, it was... I'll put you on the spot a bit. Yeah, you do. I mean, I'll be very honest, you know. Please. When somebody said, Smashing Pumpkin, I say, what? I had no idea, you know. To be fair, when somebody told me Jay Mandel, I didn't know what the hell they were talking about. We're even on that score. I always remember my daughter took me to a little tea house downtown. And she wanted to talk to me. And she said to me, Dad, I don't think I'm staying in that school, the Art Institute. I met somebody. And I think he lives in this place. And she tells me about this mansion on the lake, kind of freaky. What the hell is that? you know, this Adler, you know, David Adler's house and all these details, you know, very dark, you know, it's like, you know, okay. Then she started to describe you a little bit more, you know, and, you know, I said, look, I mean, I didn't know who you were. So it was like, I said, how old is he? Oh, he's kind of a bit older. So I said, Chloe, why don't you, why don't you just don't go crazy, you know, come back to New York. We spend all the time, But she was so decided she really wanted to stay in Chicago. So I knew that I had very little chances to convince her. And I always remember, you know, I went back home and say, what the hell? What is my daughter doing? I cannot believe it. You know, I started to look in the Internet who you were. And that became even worse. You know, I saw some of the women you dated prior to my daughter. And I said, what the hell is going on here? I cannot just believe it. You know, it was like a world, I mean, a completely different world, as you can imagine. Yeah. So I said, what is Chloe finding so attractive about this man? I mean, you know, he is. I asked myself the same question. You know, I know if you remember, we had a call together. Oh, I remember. Oh, that call was so incredible. You are the perfect person to talk to when you have these kind of issues, because whatever you said to me, I didn't understand. So it's another Andy Warhol moment for me. You spoke to me so well, so eloquently. You persuaded me. I was saying yes to everything you were saying because it was like I had no arguments about nothing I mean I cracked up but anyway yes I freaked out for a while I was kind of worried but you turn out to be an incredible person I love you too yeah I don't know but back to that conversation since we're talking about it openly well your concern at the time was that your daughter would not fulfill her dreams. Correct. And the thing I remember telling you on that phone call, and we didn't really know each other much at that point, was just I don't want somebody who's just going to sit at home. I want somebody who I can be proud of and successful. Yes. But, you know, in those days, you know, I mean, looking back and knowing who you were at that time, or at least from what I could read. I was a mess. That's what I'm saying. You know, it was hard for me to, I mean, You could say whatever you were saying. I think the thing we could say, and I would say it in any, if somebody was interviewing me, I would say it the same as I'm saying it to you, is your daughter, my wife, is such an extraordinary person. She's changed both of our lives. And I think that's really, it's a testament more to her than to me. Yes, definitely. Definitely. So that's where I'm blessed, you know. Yeah, I'm blessed too. And you're my father-in-law, so I got you in the deal too, which was awesome. Thank you. So let's back to business here. Well, she's in business now with me, so back to business. We got to go back a little bit because it gets into the fur issue as well. I think she told me 20... Maison Attia started, you and Chloe, with an investor, a friend of yours, Cadie Maison Rouge. You guys started Maison Attia, which was a faux fur brand. And I loved it because I thought what a cool way to continue the great tradition of the Mendels in the fur but avoid of course the And i remember us having a conversation and maybe it a good time to bring it up um it not to convince people of why fur should still be in the fashion business because you've gotten out of fur right so that's not it's not an ethical issue for you at this point but i remember you talking very eloquently about uh i guess i asked you a question which is what's the most positive way to look at fur and fashion if there is still a place for fur and fashion is that something you want to speak on or are you at a point now where you think it's that ship is sailed in essence is there an ethical place for fur in fashion i guess that's the most challenging question i would ask you yeah it's a really a challenging question because, you know, it's been, you know, I mean, you know, you cannot, it's a subject that can go, it can be endless. My response is, I don't know what to say because in one hand, you know, talking about sustainability and all this, you know, obviously there's a lot of hypocrisy about talking about faux fur that is made of chemicals and all that stuff when you think about fur, which is auto-creatable, you know, you know, it's a small industry. It's a tiny industry. You know, it's not really, you know, but animal cruelty is an issue. And, you know, there's nothing I can fight about that. And I have to say, you know, in some ways, you know, everybody, it's understandable that there could be issues on that. But, you know, it's a small thing. It's a small business. It was never, you know, I don't know. To me, it's, you know, I was a diamond cutter and the diamond became radioactive. And today I am not cutting diamonds anymore. That's where I stand. And honestly, I had bigger vision because I felt like, you know, I had such a desire to be in fashion and fashion is not just fur by itself. Fur to me is a beautiful product. I mean, it's extraordinary, you know. And if it's treated with respect, understanding, and, you know, there's no reason why it should have been totally, you know, destroyed and had to disappear. You know, there's room for it. But you've accepted it as sort of a kind of... I accepted the fact that we can also live without if that's where the world is going. Yeah, it seems to be that's where the world is going. I'm confused where the world is going, but that's a different subject. That's a different subject. Maybe that's for a different interview. Yes. So Maison Atia lasted about five years or so, but part of the challenge was you guys were actually getting traction. Yes. doing quite well and then the pandemic correct kind of wiped that business out yes yes so the silver lining in that is that you and chloe decided to start what is now house of gil yes so tell people what house of gil is because i'm part of that because i'm part of the family and yes i mean house of gil is a beautiful new story you know that i we started i mean it really started with this idea. First of all, when you were getting married with Chloe, we had to do this beautiful gown, obviously, for Chloe. It was a start. I said to Chloe, and we discussed it, and we said, why don't we take this first step, this first stone? We're going to initiate a couture house. I always dreamed to have a couture house. I always dreamed to have, to bring back the artisanat, a special in New York City, which is something unique, you know, and finding the right ingredients. It's kind of funny that they don't really exist like they used to, right? No, because it's a trade that many people, you know, they're getting older. There are people who really know how to sew and the pattern makers at certain levels, you know, come from those houses of, you know, European houses are very scarce in New York, in America. But, you know, I was, so Chloe and I, we felt that it would be such a great idea, you know, to go back to the roots of the house. But it was really inspired by her wedding dress. Yes. The wedding dress was really the beginning. You know, I thought, you know, what a great way to show to the world that we're back on track with beautiful gowns. And, you know, obviously your wedding was beautiful. Chloe looked amazing. And, you know, it started like that. I mean, I did a dress for the med ball. And then Chloe and I, we said, okay, maybe let's set up a little place in New York and let's be more serious and try to create a couture place where women could come and meet the designer, meet his daughter who also is fully participant with the design and experience what couture can be in America. And I think so far it's been an extraordinary experience. It's a nice thing because when I try to explain what you and Chloe are doing, anybody I sort of say, hey, go to this Instagram page or check out these pictures. Everybody has the same reaction, which is just like, wow. It's almost like they didn't know that that level of craftsmanship was available. Yeah. I mean, if you have seen today, we did a show. Today, we presented a bridal collection in our little studio. But the reaction of everybody was the same. same thing all the time like how can we this is happening in this studio those flowers those lace detail yeah you know it's all those hands those we call petite mind for people for people that wouldn't understand uh and just give me an average but on a bespoke gown where somebody comes in and orders from you and chloe a specific gown mostly bridal uh but but also some celebrities have come and ask for custom for metball and things like this uh so on a bespoke piece uh what would be the normal amount of hours that would go into a bespoke piece can you give an estimate well it takes it's kind of mind-boggling it takes uh for one dress it takes about two to three months minimum to to to make it by stages because that's a whole experience you know what's beautiful with chloe is that you know we basically we we give we give the customer you know that that extraordinary experience where she comes in and we she we take her measurements and then it's so it's it's it progress into you know we discuss her desires or views or you know her inspirations and so on and we and you know we give her really a journey through this experience which is fabulous yeah Chloe on that is really good in giving that expectations and give the woman, the client, going beyond her expectations in what we create. When we were all in Paris together recently, we went to see that show about the House of Worth, which was like the original bespoke couture house in Paris run by an English guy. I guess going back to the 1850s, but mostly they were making garments for the royals. Yes, correct. So basically what you offer, and this also goes into your family's tradition of fur, you're offering basically the level of… Of couture and refinement and artisan. But that used to only be available to people in the royal class, which is crazy. Correct. Yeah, it's a trade that is, you know, I try to revive some few, you know, these are things that when you… You don't have to be experienced in fashion to feel what's, you know, the electricity, the magic of the place when you come to us. Yeah. Because you see it. You know, beauty is beauty. You know, there's nothing. You kind of change that. Okay. Last round. Uh-oh. I wrote out these questions because I thought these are sort of interesting because I want your sort of take. And you can go as long or short on them as you like. Okay. What's the future of fashion? Wow. That's a deep question. I'm troubled because it's not an easy answer to give you. The world today is changing so quickly that it's really hard to give you an answer because fast fashion doesn't seem to go too well these days. There's a lot of issues about it. I hope that the future this way I would look at it I hope that the future and I think it's going into more you know sustainability and more quality oriented more less volume less trash less all these things so I hope you know the future I don't see a very bright future okay okay if elegance in class is one side of the equation what's the opposite side of the equation is it like what you said is a trash fashion is it disposable yeah it's yeah disposable fashion i mean you know fashion that you know last pieces that you buy and that you know there's so much waste you know because people buy things you know i mean now it's everything is so easily accessible You can buy things by mail everywhere. So it's very wasteful. So I think that hopefully people will more and more appreciate quality and try to buy less, but products that are better made. We face similar dynamics in business in different ways. It's difficult. How do you compete as a house, the house of Gilles? How do you compete against these massive multinational corporations? I think you don't compete. You're so unique that you are what you are in the time where you compete, meaning, you know, I'm not looking to be the size. I don't mean dollar to dollar. Okay. Well, you can't. You can't compete with those big houses. You have to not even think about competing because you can't. You know, the power they have, you know, in social media and in mediatically is so high, so big. The millions they spend on every, you know, it's impossible. But you have your own voice and it's, I mean, I can, you see we are really successful at it. So it means there is a place for uniqueness. Why make the same argument in music? Yeah. You know what I mean? Yes. And I also make it with my wrestling company. There is a place for quality always. Always. Right. When people are coming to you, I mean, obviously, they're coming to you, say, for a gown. But what are they really looking for? Are they looking for a personalized experience? Are they looking to be, are they want to have something that they feel special and ownership of? Like what's the most common thing that you see that people are really looking for at the foundation? I mean, I think they're really looking for, first of all, for good advices. They want to feel, you know, they're looking for, I mean, when they come to us, obviously, you know, they come through, they meet the designer who has, you know, a past of making very beautiful but also very feminine and a certain aesthetic. So when they come to us, they're looking for maybe a vision of themselves they haven't thought about. And I think that's what we can bring. We bring, you know, we bring something more unexpected to them because they just to look at, you know, you can go to a store or you can have a stylist propose to use 65 different shapes of clothing and so on. And when you meet really the designer who makes those clothes and he has his vision to, you know, base on your inspiration, your ideas, the fun part is really to give them, you know, a different vision of what of themselves. Wouldn't you want to have this? I mean, I would die for someone to do that for me. I'd love to come someplace. They could say, Gilles, you know, enough of this look. Why don't we propose you? And that's what we do. And I think it's… Maybe that's what I need to do. I need to give you my version of your look. Please do. We could do that. You know, we could flip one night. Oh, my God. I'd be so scared. It'd be like trying to cook for a master chef. No, no, no. No, but it's fun to do that. You know, it's really, it's extraordinary because people come to us and they have this expected, they get excited. They see the transformation. Yeah. And, you know, now with the iPad, you know, you could, you know, I draw on an iPad and I have this stupid program. Basically, I do all fashion. I've seen it where you can literally show somebody what it will look like. Basically, I make a picture of you and I start to dress you while you're there. And it's so much fun. Okay. One last question and then one little story that I want to tell. Okay. Do you have a vision? Because my wife is your business partner. we talk a lot about what house Agile would become and I don't say it in some self-serving commercial way I say it in the sense of like as entrepreneurs the vision of what you hope a business can become you know where you're putting your passion and you're putting in those extra hours and you're dealing with the bull that anybody in business deals with what for you is the vision for house Agile in terms of growth, like past what you're doing. And what you're doing is amazing. But as you and I know, that's not a sustainable path past a certain point. Because you're always fighting the headwinds of change, trend. Yes. I mean, you know, it's a core, it's a base. You know, if you look at all those big houses, those famous houses, you know, they always keep couture somewhere. So couture is the base. It's like basically it kind of creates some legitimacy of the house. you know chanel you know has that's couture they also acquire all this little atelier in paris where they were make where they were do the feather work where they do so you know couture is like what by what makes to my point of view is create the legitimacy of the house i see and then from there you know you leave the ready to wear so i think that couture for us is really makes us so unique in our own ways that ultimately we can either find later on more collaborations more we can find other ways to expand because we have this prestigious image about us, whether perfume, whether it's, it's unique. I love that. It's unique. I went in on the perfume division. So last story, and I say it to hopefully make you laugh. You were working on something custom for me. And as you guys do, you're tugging and you're, you and Chloe are arguing about the buttons. and I'm sitting there and I'm like, I want to be anywhere else on the planet than having you guys tug on me and argue about the buttons. And I started grousing as only a husband can about do I have to sit here and listen to you guys talk about the buttons? And my wife, your daughter, turned to me and said, we care just as much about the buttons as you care about the way your songs sound in the studio. Why do you sit in the studio all day and fuss over a guitar sound? And for the first time in my now 13 year relationship with your daughter, I understood. Yes. That is just as important to you as those guitar tones are to me. Yes. And in reverse, and I say this in fellowship, I don't know why I care so much about the damn guitar sound. Because you could argue after about an hour, any sound after that's pretty good. Yes. But why do I have to do it for three hours? What is that little thing, that little advantage, that little thing that says, this is my signature? So I feel like I understand. It's exactly that. Maybe you brought us a little closer together. No, 100%. Did you have fun? Yes, of course I did. Good to see you, Bini. I love you. I love you.