Dinner with designer Damir Doma

FF

What would you like to drink?
DD

Sparkling water and a glass of wine.
FF

I’ll have red wine.
DD

I’ll have a glass of the house white wine.
FF

Shall we speak in English or Italian?
DD

English. I’m just good-looking, not so smart.
Laughter
DD

It’s impossible for me to answer interview questions in Italian.
FF

So, how did you find this place?
DD

A friend of mine brought me here. I love this place, I come here once a week.
FF

I didn’t know that there were any original Sicilian places in Milan. This is something new to me.
DD

It feels like a family business, like they’re cooking their mother’s recipes. It doesn’t look like they went to any cooking schools: they’re very original, very traditional. FF I would have expected a more minimal place such as a Japanese restaurant from you…
DD

Don’t forget I’m Croatian! I like anything traditional.
FF

Traditional and family oriented?
DD

Yeah, and even folkloristic. I like folklore.
FF

I didn’t know you were Croatian, how long did you live there? 
DD

Never, really. I was just a kid when my parents moved to Germany, so I remember going back for summer holidays, when we stayed at my Granny’s for a couple of months.
FF

So, where did you grow up in Germany?
DD

I grew up in the south, very close to Salzburg and a lake called Königssee, about 40 km from Salzburg. I went to high school there and I left in 2004. You know, time flies!
FF

But where do you belong? Do feel German or Croatian?
DD

Croatian. I’ve had a German passport for four years now, because I was traveling a lot for the brand and it was easier, but I feel Croatian. Also, I don’t go back to Germany that often anymore because my mother lives in Croatia on an island called Krk and I spend the holidays there… actually, that’s not entirely true. I went to Hamburg last weekend… but, you know, for me Hamburg isn’t Germany!
Laughter
FF

The south of Germany is very conservative, isn’t it?
DD

Yes, it is. Like Italy.
FF

Like Italy, yes.
Giggling
DD

Bavaria isn’t that conservative, while the whole of Italy is. That’s the funny part, Catholicism isn’t even really the essence of Christianity. Up north which is protestant, people are much more liberal, just the fact that priests can have families and women can preach, too.
A toast to Sicily, and appetizers are brought to the table.
FF

Buon appetito! Anyway, you’re right.
DD

So, what’s the most liberal part of Italy?
FF

The most liberal part? Milan is definitely the most liberal city I’ve ever visited or lived in.
DD

One of the Italian cities that I love very much, and which I think is a little overlooked but very elegant, is Trieste. I always thought it was quite liberal there.
FF

Perhaps cities on the sea are more liberal than others.
DD

That was my impression when I went to Hamburg for the very first time: it didn’t feel like Germany, it felt like a trip to Edinburgh, and it’s such a great city. You should think about visiting: there are more bridges than in Amsterdam, the architecture recalls London with town houses and palaces, a new philharmonic has just been opened and it is just fantastic.
FF

I’ve never been.
DD

If you grow up in the south of Germany, you always go to Croatia or Greece or Italy, you never go north, you go where the weather is sunnier. When I was a kid, my family and I travelled by car, we didn’t fly. I remember that during those trips my sister, who’s three years younger than me, and I used to play in the back seats of the car. Those were fun moments. There was no air conditioning!

When I was a kid, my family and I travelled by car, we didn’t fly. I remember that during those trips my sister, who’s three years younger than me, and I used to play in the back seats of the car. Those were fun moments.

Pointing at the tomato, olives and capers salad.
DD

Do you call this salad ‘Sicilian’?
FF

Oh, yes. Well, we call this kind of salad ‘Sicilian’ because it’s a typical dish served in the summer.
DD

I think this is the best tuna carpaccio I’ve ever had. It’s better than any Japanese food.
While eating
FF

Did you study in Germany?
DD

Yes, first I attended the fashion school in Munich and then in Berlin, and when I finished in 2003, I moved to Antwerp. Literally the day after I graduated, I just got in my car, found an apartment and started working. It was an important time for me because it was the first time that I was really far away from my friends and family. You know, Munich is only an hour away from where I grew up, and Berlin, I don’t know, Berlin is like a party island.
FF

I don’t think Berlin is representative of Germany.
DD

Today even less so because it’s full of Americans, English people and so many Italians! They seem to love it. But you’re right: Germans have a sort of conflicted relationship with Berlin, and as the former mayor of the city once said: Berlin is poor but sexy, – and German people hated him more than ever.
FF

What came after Berlin?
DD

When I moved to Antwerp I started to work for a designer, Dirk Schoenberger, the current art director for adidas. I think that the two years and a half I spent in Antwerp were the most valuable, not just for me as a designer but also in terms of personal experience. When you are a student, you don’t know much about working in this business, and in Antwerp there were people who were idols to me, I had high expectations of them, but at the end of the day they’re still human beings. So, you start to realize that the image you have of the brand and the people who work for it isn’t necessarily realistic – the reality of a fashion brand is always different from the image it creates. After three months in Antwerp, in October, they suddenly shut down the company. It was such a dramatic experience for me.
FF

What did you do in the company?
DD

I started as an intern, designing. I was actually very lucky: just few weeks before the company was closed down, I had met Raf Simons in Paris, so I texted him and a week later I started working at Raf’s with Dirk.
We order our main courses: Peter’s Fish filet and frittatine.
FF

How was that?
DD

I worked for him for one season. In the meanwhile, Dirk started up his business in Antwerp again and I went back there as an assistant designer. I discovered that they each had a very personal approach to work and to the creative process. It’s a personal thing, especially when you have your own brand.
FF

Speaking of creative approach, what’s yours?
DD

I think I still consider myself an Antwerp designer. The word ‘avant-garde’ has almost disappeared from fashion design, because everything is fashion nowadays. I still consider myself an avant-garde designer, but my approach is very, very personal. I start the season with words and emotions, not with concepts. My starting point is definitely to link with emotions and from there we develop our collection: from words we develop imagery, from imagery we develop ideas and concepts, but words first. After the words come photography, art.
FF

Your fashion is considered minimal and conceptual but I can see there’s more beyond those labels.
DD

I mean, it’s definitely minimal! I don’t like decorations that affect my clothes. I believe that everything that isn’t needed should be removed.
FF

But I see something ‘dirty’ in your minimalism – if I may say so. Roughness, maybe.
DD

Because the weakness of minimalism is that it can be cold and inhuman. So, I want to make it more human. At the end of the day, the clothes we wear are our second skin and we have to care about them and I’m not talking purely about aesthetics but also the quality of the garments. People often don’t care that much.

The weakness of minimalism is that it can be cold and inhuman. So, I want to make it more human. At the end of the day, the clothes we wear are our second skin and we have to care about them and I’m not talking purely about aesthetics but also the quality of the garments.

FF

I couldn’t agree more with you: nowadays, clothes are something you wear because the brand tells you so. Where’s the authenticity?
DD

I think that the real problem is globalization along with social media, the way we communicate today: everything is the same, we’re killing cultures. Moreover, there’s a common aesthetic feeling that is quite horrible; the moment you take away diversity you kill it. At the same time, this is the chance for a brand like mine to express very specific points of view. Finding a higher reason to do so means surviving.
FF

I strongly believe that this is a moment when brands, and even magazines, should start telling stories.
DD

Here’s what happens to me when I go shopping to spend some money and be happy: I spend none and get more frustrated. Firstly, I don’t need anything, secondly, there isn’t anything that inspires me. In the last 10 years, fashion has become the centre of everything and everything rotates around it. We are too excited about it. Here in Milan, I experienced Design Week and I decided to join it with a project. Also, it’s going to be in spring! We all come here in the winter for fashion... Design Week is more accessible and the fashion world would never allow this, the big designers behave like stars – and I mean that negatively.
FF

Of course, you know the old story of journalists at Fashion Week acting as though they’re saving the world... Luckily design is the opposite.
DD

Maybe design will be the next fashion. I really think so, because I am realising more and more how much we all want to be very individual, you know? Everyone is a bit bored of clothing, so more and more people are starting to obstruct us, taking an interest in design and furniture and the problem, in the end, is money. That’s why fashion is what it is, because it’s like the second business in the world after food and the high fashion that we always talk about, the one you and I deal with, is at the very top of that market.
FF

Can you tell me about your project for the Salone or is it super secret?
DD

It’s a project with Sang Bleu magazine. I mean, Sang Bleu isn’t just a magazine. It developed from a magazine to Maxime’s tattoo studio. Maxime and I have been friends for a long time. He also developed our logo, we’ve known each other since the beginning of my career and we’ve been working together since then. He wants to bring out the new issue of the magazine – a very personal issue – with friends, colleagues and people he met along the way who have contributed to it. And we are developing a capsule collection. I often find a connection with Maxime in the way I create my clothes and the way he tattoos. I consider myself a sculptor, I don’t draw. I take the material and volume into deep consideration. For me drawing is just a note to myself, I like working with my hands. Sometimes I read comments saying that what I do is so easy, like ‘it’s just a jacket’ but it’s more about how we get to the point. For me, the most interesting thing is the process, not the final product. We start from the fibre design, the fabric, then we move to the volumes and this is really complicated, not having ten pockets, if you know what I mean. When I look at these minimal clothes, I see a lot. It’s all a matter of perspective.
He pours some wine.

Sometimes I read comments saying that what I do is so easy, like ‘it’s just a jacket’ but it’s more about how we get to the point. For me, the most interesting thing is the process, not the final product.

FF

What’s the real reason you came to Milan?
DD

At the end of the day, these things are always for very pragmatic reasons. It’s not like “Milan is better than Paris”. Now almost eight years have passed since we first produced here in Italy. We also developed a collection here and before I moved, that is two years ago, I was traveling between Paris and Milan every week, with my studio director, assistants. It was really intense and it was also really expensive. And the fact is that you can’t have total control, not even if you come every week. As I was saying before, my work is similar to that of a sculptor and I cannot work from Paris.
FF

Where do you produce your clothes?
DD

We have an atelier in Brescia and one in Turin for now, so my daily work schedule changes a lot. In the early days of the brand, we used to have an in-house atelier which was run by my mother so I would always have her beside me and I had the opportunity to go into the atelier and change things. Then we changed our partner for a bigger one, closed our atelier and industrialized the collection. That’s where I sort of lost the initial feeling and that’s the real reason why we are here. We needed to be closer to the making of the clothes and we also realized that having a strong personality and a precise point of view really affects the connection with the garments.
FF

Building connections is so important.
While eating a very delicious Peter’s Fish filet.
FF

God, this fish! It’s like being at one of the best trattorias in Palermo. I’d like to meet the guys in the kitchen.
DD

Yeah, I’d like to take a picture with them.
FF

Sure let’s do it!
Damir takes a picture with the restaurant owners, Francesco a.k.a. ‘Ciccio’ and Giovanni Ottimofiore.
FF

What are you going to do for your next show?
DD

We’ve always looked for precise specifics in every place. Here in Milan we’ve found a beautiful place owned by the city. We just need to be brave.
We order a dessert, cassatine, and have one last drink, a prickly pear liqueur.