October 27, 2017 |
Creative consultant to Dior Homme, Mauricio Nardi styles and casts the shows and campaigns. Van Assche’s closest confidante, he has been a silent constant in the designer’s life throughout his artistic directorship at the house and rarely makes appearances. “He’s the Margiela of stylists, I guess. He’s not into fashion for the lights, he’s into it because he wants to tell stories – dark stories,” Van Assche explains, smiling. A fan of the Belgian approach, as a fashion student Nardi would sneak into Van Assche’s shows and knew the work before he knew the man. “We ended up meeting many years ago and realised quite quickly that we had a similar sensibility and aesthetic,” the stylist says.
Raised in Switzerland to Italian parents, Nardi encompasses the best of both cultures, Van Assche says – “He has a certain Latin approach to things, but he definitely has a Swiss organisational side to him.” Growing up as a small-town boy, Nardi took advanced classical-dance lessons before throwing himself into the Swiss rave scene as a teenager. “I used to create my own world in my bedroom and fashion became my way out,” he says. In his early twenties, he studied fashion in Neuchâtel, then at Studio Berçot in
Paris, before interning at various houses. “What I enjoyed most was the storytelling. Being a stylist allows me to do that,” he explains.“He really has a global vision, as in how to tell the story in the best way – what is the character telling? What is the extreme version of it? – while I’m the one who goes into the detail of the actual clothes, piece by piece,” Van Assche says. Or, in the words of Roques: “Kris gives to the fittings a serious note, while Mauricio brings his casual touch.”
“[Kris and I] are very honest with each other,” says Nardi. “We do not always agree, but the honesty makes it interesting. That is also why the working relationship keeps going and becomes more creative. I am both happy and proud of the way things have grown and how rewarding the collaboration has become.” Indeed, you won’t find a closer collaborator in Van Assche’s cohort of creatives. As the designer says: “It gradually evolved into something that I now really consider a partnership, professionally. His is the taste I trust most, the judgment I trust most. He’s increasingly involved in the image of what I do and he’s the person I trust most in the world.”
Text by Anders Christian Madsen
Photographs by Ian Kenneth Birth
Taken from the latest issue of 10 Men, REBEL HEART, on newsstands now…
