TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/011689/01168900.075

Text File | 1992-09-23 | 5.2 KB | 102 lines

                                                                                LIVING, Page 68

A Look on the Wild Side


Two young designers liven up a groggy fashion scene


    The spellings are challenging, the pronunciation a little
tricky, but it might be best to get used to these two names
right now. They appear on the labels of some of the most
intrepid clothes around, and they belong to two of the
sprightliest newcomers anywhere on the fashion map.

    The fresh and refreshingly feckless designs of Sybilla, 25,
of Madrid, and Dirk Bikkembergs, 29, of Antwerp, have mostly
their brio in common. There is no serious risk that anyone
would ever get their labels switched. Bikkembergs works out of
a small, somewhat dilapidated studio, where he turns out a line
of men's clothing that alternates between the sober gray
severity of sweatsuit-style knitwear and the giddy excesses of
retro-hippie sports clothes. Sybilla, who designs in a "dream
house" atelier in Spain's sunny capital, makes mischievous,
inventively styled fashions for women that work from no fixed
stylistic compass.

    Sybilla's fancies include ball gowns with little metal fish
falling from the folds; ear-shaped buttons securing, with just a
hint of discretion, a sexy blouse; a shawl with fabric flowers
sprouting from the shoulders. Sure, some of this is stuff you
wear on a dare. But be warned: high spirits can be contagious,
even at these prices (around $850 for a slinky silk Sybilla with
a woven metallic shawl; $1,000 for a suede, fringed Bikkembergs
jacket). Moreover, it may still be something of a challenge for
fashion fans in the U.S. to find things by Sybilla or
Bikkembergs. The places to look at the moment are at stores like
Torie Steele in Los Angeles, Barney's in New York City or Alan
Bilzerian in Boston.

    Bilzerian's staff has solved a minor Bikkembergs dilemma --
how to get his moniker to move trippingly off the American
tongue -- by referring to the designer as "the Dirker," as if he
were some arcane medieval instrument used for storming castles.
A native of Germany, Bikkembergs grew up in a strict,
financially comfortable household. During his teenage years, he
moved to Antwerp and became one of the leading designers in the
city's gutsy fashion circle. Bikkembergs has some pretty strong
ideas about his impact. "So far," he says, "I have made no
money at all. But in four years, the world will be at my feet."

    The world, once it gets a good look at Bikkembergs'
footwear, may go easy around his extremities. One of his more
conservative shoe collections was a madcap combination of
combat boots and vintage Olympic running shoes, a sort of
rough-trade revision of Chariots of Fire. Laces looped into mad
interstices, toes were rounded off into inverted parentheses and
functional elements of the shoe -- like the tongue -- threatened
to become design elements all on their own.

    This is not quite as frivolous, or as impractical, as it may
sound. At least one Dirker design (a soft leather, multicolored
running shoe for street wear) has been widely copied. Such
intimations that Bikkembergs may be on a popular wavelength
encourage his sweeping fantasies of success but do not dilute
his often self-mocking sense of humor. One recent inspiration
was to reverse the usual order of dressing and put underwear on
over the trousers. The look may not catch on at Paine Webber,
but Bikkembergs is hardly the first young upstart to show off
his talent by flouting convention.

    In Bikkembergs' current designs, however, convention is also
playing a fast game of footsie with pragmatism. There are
indications that the Dirker may be working toward an
accommodation with the mainstream. He has recently struck a
deal with the established Italian manufacturer GIBO, which
handles such successful lines as Jean-Paul Gaultier and Sybilla.
Where the Dirker comes down heavy on prankishness, Sybilla tends
to the winsome and the ingenious. Her clothes are mostly hand
finished and full of little surprises, like tucks that form
boxes or a hem that looks to have been pushed up for a hasty
jump across a puddle.

    Born Sybilla Sorondo in New York City, she worked for a year
in Paris at Yves Saint Laurent as a seamstress, getting down her
technique but drawing inspiration from the streets of Spain,
where she grew up. She showed her first collection in Madrid in
1983, a "100% idealistic period, when I only did dresses for
people who came to me." By 1984, however, she was selling her
designs to other shops, and in three years she was producing
more than her Spanish manufacturer could handle. She switched
to GIBO, and although she admits, "I'm always terrified of
losing control," she continues to see her designs as small
fragments of communication, serendipity on a clothes hanger.

    "You make someone happy through a dress," she says. "You see
what happens to a woman -- how they put it on, and insecurities,
disappointments, complexes disappear. I think about women's
complexes -- having breasts, not having breasts -- and I try to
make something for the body. I try to make a waist for women who
don't have one." She will, however, be wasting no time, so best
snap up that Sybilla now. She promises to retire in five years.