Spotlight

ARCHIVE.pdf, in collaboration with photographer Angela Ricciardi, presents our exclusive backstage coverage of Ann Demeulemeester’s Spring/Summer 2025 show.

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Behind the scenes at Ann Demeulemeester S/S '25

Since the brand’s purchase by Claudio Antonioli in 2020, the house has been working to reconnect to its archive and the work of its founder. Appointed in 2023, creative director Stefano Gallici has begun to build his own vision for Ann Demeulemeester, balancing his reverence for its founder and his desire to bring the brand into the future. Community and music have been central to Gallici’s vision, as he has brought together a creative community of artists, designers, and musicians around the house. 
	That love of music was on full display for Spring 2025, with guitarist Marco Fusinato opening the show with a distorted, droning performance. The collection which followed showed Gallici weaving between archival homages and contemporary aesthetics. Reissued pieces included: an off-shoulder mohair sweater, originally from Fall 2005; embroidered lace pieces, originally from Spring 2007; and a sharpened, severe rework of the strapped pirate boots from Spring 2003. 

Amelia Walker, womenswear designer for the brand and former Carol Christian Poell assistant, talked us through the design process for the collection. Stefano sought to balance rigid tailoring with something soft and draped, leading to the juxtaposition of strong-shouldered jackets with bias-cut draped pieces. Dresses had modular strap systems that allow the wearer to alter the height of the neckline and length of the hem – “It’s really supposed to look like it’s falling off the body.” That same bias draping was present on another skirt, with a leg slit that emulated that same sense of “falling off” while in motion. The challenge for the collection was to find the right mix of disheveled “morning after” messiness and chic elegance. Complex layering by stylist Elodie David aided this, and led to the creation of some of the distressed jersey pieces. The pieces were distressed just before the show by her and Gallici, creating holes that reveal the layers of fabrics underneath. This balance of sophistication and chaos recalled the rockstar sensibilities Stefano so lovingly seeks to capture with his clothes.  

The most modernized looks included signature Demeulemeester Victorian blouses paired with massive baggy denim – Walker says these denim pieces have been a big commercial success for the brand, and that the team appreciates customers stepping on the hems and tearing them up through wear. These looks, however contemporary, were rooted back in the brand’s history through makeup done by Belgian legend Inge Grognard, the omnipresent Antwerp makeup artist whose touch is felt in the work of countless Royal Academy graduates. 

Included in our coverage are photographs shot by Angela Ricciardi that depict both backstage and the runway show itself, and a behind-the-scenes short film. 


Angela Ricciardi

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Ann Demulemeester S/S 2025 Backstage

Chris Ziebert

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Day’s images leave both photography and fashion with a legacy which cannot be overlooked. 

Corinne Day: The Anti-Fashion Photographer

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Interview

When most people think of avant garde fashion, they think of fashion for a singular purpose or occasion; [Jordan Arthur Smith’s namesake label](https://jordanarthursmith.com/) challenges this assumption by creating garments that exist as multiple garments simultaneously, with no finality. Much like the signature curves in his designs, Smith has followed a non-traditional path on the way to founding his eponymous label. 

While most designers begin their career under a well established designer, or work at a major fashion house, Smith took a leap of faith and started his own label, despite the barriers he faced due to isolation from a major fashion market. Since 2020, Smith has worked tirelessly on collection after collection out of his apartment in the Midwest, hand-crafting garments that are closer to works of art. Smith and his label’s offerings are a product of his non-traditional background, and experimental approach to design. Growing up in a small town on the coast of California, Smith considered becoming a fashion designer in high school. After graduating, he went to a local community college and lived at home. During this period, he worked as a sailmaker, learning technical skills that later helped him as a designer. He then attended Kent State University’s fashion design program, up until the Covid-19 pandemic began and hindered in-person learning. Seeing the ensuing shutdowns as an opportunity, Jordan and his wife decided to start the label with some savings out of their apartment.


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Jordan’s work in Kent State University  

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Smith's formative adolescence in coastal California engendered a fascination with the natural world. From water motifs to the use of natural dyeing techniques, his designs reflect this fascination. Smith’s design process is quite self referential, resulting in works that are unlike anything else from his contemporaries. Smith and his in-house team make every piece by hand, outsourcing only a few pieces and components. Jordans unconventional work reflects his keen attention to detail and non-traditional background, and these qualities help him stand apart from his contemporaries. Smith took the time to be interviewed by ARCHIVE.pdf. In the interview we discussed Smith’s background, his eponymous label’s origins, his inspirations, and how his ideas come to life.

Jordan Arthur Smith, Prelude Editorial December 2022 


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**Tell me about yourself and your journey as a designer.**

I got really into fashion in middle school and high school. I focused on researching designers, diving into the worlds they created and the history of the brands, and buying a few pieces that I really liked. After highschool I really wanted to go to fashion school but felt like it would make more sense financially to attend a local community college first. I studied fashion and photography, and graduated with a degree in both, and this college experience allowed me to explore new mediums of art such as ceramics, and quickly pick up industry experience in fabrics and construction. I've kind of always had the same vision and aesthetic that I've wanted to execute for the brand. I went into sailmaking and that taught me a lot of the technical side of things. It started with nonclothes and a lot of sewing and just technical skills. Things such as learning how to pattern make and learning how to sew. From there I went to Kent State for a little bit, and then I started my brand during the pandemic. We kind of started out of our apartment out of nothing. We didn't have anything, and …I just had this itch and this desire of, ‘this needs to happen.’ I felt that I had a unique enough voice in the space and enough passion to make things happen. I had no idea at the time if anything was going to work out. I had $3,000 left in our bank account because I worked a little bit over the summer and I just said ‘I'm just not going to school. I have to have this stuff ready and I'll have a collection out, and I'll have no money, but I can just find a job somewhere else or go back to school if need be.’ 

I just started it with nothing. Now we're here, and over time, we've just been knocking at the door– asking for us to be let into the industry, or give us recognition. I think I've also been fighting for that [industry recognition] because of where we're based. The pandemic was a little tricky because everything was online. But that was fine for me because it gave me a little bit of an advantage, because the location didn't really matter [during Covid]. Everyone was on an even playing field. And now, because of the location I'm in, the work has to speak for itself. So it's been a bit isolating, starting the brand. But I think that's been a good thing because in isolation, I've been able to focus on what we stand for and just the designs. And that's what is going to cause my brand to survive, or die.


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**Tell me more about your technical background. **

I think that it's done a lot for my designs because I'm able to start things in a very different manner than most designers do. Especially with our sculptural works, starting with something that is not made for the human form, which is similar to what I was doing with sail making, and then translating that onto the body. As far as a fashion background goes, I do think that I got enough of a glimpse of that from constant self-exploration, also through fashion university and the pattern-making background, specifically in relation to clothes. It's not necessarily a nautical approach, but a lot of my designs are connected with water in one way or another. 

As far as the visuals there's always some water element. I'm sure my team kind of hates me for it, where every collection I'm like, "You have to do something with water." Whether it's shooting it in the water, or incorporating some water into it. It's always a starting point for me, and it's also very relaxing to me. I feel really at peace by the water and most of the realizations that I've had in my best moments have come near the water, whether it be an ocean or a lake. I think that that's a lot of the DNA and background in our garments.

Jordan Arthur Smith, Plexus Knit Collection 

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**Tell me more about your affinity for water.**

It is a much deeper question. I think water has always been the most comforting thing for me. A lot of the designs that I work with are [about] adding comfort and protection to people. That comes from a more personal aspect of my life. Water has always been comforting and protective. The garments represent that in my life as well, in a more physical form, whether it's design elements that are very literal or something we call the ‘estuary motif.’This was inspired by the estuaries of my childhood and how those looked. We have a lot of other organic seam work and elements in our mind that remind me of water. If you look at our garments, they're constructed in a very non-traditional way. There are not really any straight seams anywhere. If there's a straight seam or a dart, I'll turn it into a curved seam, which makes things very complex and difficult to construct. When it comes to curved seams, to get those things to lay flat, the pattern work has to be perfect, and you have to rework things several times.

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[The] things that inspire my work are mistakes and the process. As a designer, I'm not very literally inspired by many things. I don't reference much history or literal references; it works from a point of experimentation and process. And so, one of the elements that informed the curved seam work, and the ‘post-human’ work I've been working on, is a mistake made during grading for our first collection. When you grade all the sizes, it's difficult with the curved panels. One of our panels had a bubble in it, and I thought, ‘this is terrible because I have orders due.’ It was a very stressful moment in my life. Early on, I was caught up on this. From there it shifted into thinking this mistake could actually be something cool, because there was some element I liked about it– if I incorporate this in a way that looks intentional and pushes the design forward, that informs the post-human sculptural work we do, where I'm actively making sculptures to create the shape of the garment I want and then translating that back to the human form. This goes back to the water elements and the protection elements of something that is protecting the body and shielding it.

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**Who is the post-human and what does the post-human look like to you?**

I think that informs a lot of the design. Maybe I'm a little focused on utopia, as opposed to the world going into something not so great. It's weird– I think it's a bit of escapism in my design. A lot right now is focused on irony and dystopia as opposed to looking forward to the future. Our brand is focused on a future that doesn't exist right now and what that could look like; whether it be the sustainable elements of our garments or just garments that have multiple ways to wear them, that's one of our big focuses. I want to make clothes for the future where someone might wear something one way now. But with time, trends shift, and [the wearer’s] ability to experiment grows. They can wear something a little more crazy and feel more comfortable. I like to think about design as a challenge: that's where we start most of our designs. One of the keys of our brand is that our garments can be worn in multiple different ways. With that challenge, it informs the shapes of the garments and the components that go into them, whether it be details, pockets, fabric type, or construction in general; it's condensing a wardrobe down to something where, if I was going to take a flight, I could pack one shirt and a pair of pants and be fine for a week, see the same people, and wear those things in different ways without them noticing. The clothes can be different colors and silhouettes daily. This turtleneck is one piece that can be worn in 20 to 30 different ways.

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It's been cool to see our customers send me pictures of new ways to wear the turtleneck. Like, I never thought it could be worn that way. It allows people to experience the clothes, experiment, and create newness in their lives. These moments take me back to when I started in fashion, that feeling of newness and creation. I'm experimenting with the garments for the design, but I also want to pass that on to our customers, allowing them to experiment with the outfits, wearing a turtleneck in 15 different ways. For most people, a fashion journey starts with basic things that feel uncomfortable. A simple turtleneck could be easy for someone to pull off because it looks like a normal turtleneck,but can be worn as a dress, a halfway dress, or on one arm as a tank top with one longer sleeve. It allows people to choose how daring they want to be each day and ease into that.

**How do you interpret time? Both in relation to self and in relation to your label's clothes?**

It's funny that you bring that up, because that's also one of my main key pillars of the brand, focusing on time and the passage of time. I use that in many different ways: the way I look at our collection is a continuation of building a world, not necessarily switching to something completely different. Each garment [that] I've made experiments with a basic Western wardrobe of menswear, making those pieces unique, and building off of that while referencing old work. There's the passage of time going backwards, referencing mistakes I've made, or ideas we haven't fully brought to life; our post-human work is a good example of that. Even now, I haven't fully realized that idea. Focusing on materials is a huge thing [in the process]. That's one reason why I focus on the natural undyed color of things: it's a passage of time because when people wear it, it will get dirty and show the markings. Another focus is on hardware. Many of our garments have hand-painted elements for the hardware, so as people wear them, the paint will come off, revealing the brass underneath.

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I try to design things so far in the future that they almost become timeless. I reference objects that I view that way, whether it be the pyramids or nature in general, because nature is very timeless. A frog has been around for a long time and isn't going anywhere. It isn't going to necessarily morph into something and isn't going to pass with trends. Another thing I focus on, as far as the visuals and our brand in general, is things that aren't set in a specific period. I reference enough from the past and push enough to the future, with a tiny sprinkle of the present, to create something timeless. 

I don't want our clothes to be seen in the present, future, or past. I'm particular about the visuals. I avoid buildings, cars, street signs, or anything that would date a photo, like that would show if it was from 2019, 2020, or now, based on the technology or other details. I focus on things that could be put in a time capsule and sent back to ancient times or the future, and people could wear them that way as well. I don't want to date things with a timestamp. Focusing on materials that age with time is important. For our first collection, I worked with only natural dyes—indigo, an algae dye paste with acorns, tea, iron, and walnut hulls.And so, those things fade over time. As the wearer uses them, they'll naturally fade, similar to jeans and raw denim. I am drawn to garments and objects in my life that will intentionally age and become personal. Incorporating nature or natural elements into the clothes so they develop a personal relationship between the wearer and nature.


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**How has the design process been different for the last collection?**

With the last collection, we had different outcomes in mind because we focused on a specific dye process. It came from the more practical standpoint of which designs will look best with that dye process, and we let that process sing. With the Erode collection, we deconstructed the pieces into several panels. Some of the jackets had over 50 pattern pieces or more to make one jacket. With that, the seam work became a distraction to the dyeing process and it was too busy for me. So we stripped things down and made them more minimal to incorporate the dye process and printing process we used, [and] let the garments and the process stand out. 

We printed clothes on top of clothes. One example is the sweaters with an estuary motif, or as we call it, the ‘plexus,’ similar to a poncho; The sheer element was printed on the base layers, which informed the design. This collection's design comes from our focus on the print process and incorporating pieces that worked with that.I always have to outdo myself each time, making something crazier than last time. Whether it's a piece that can transform into more ways to wear it or a statement piece, we always aim to create something extraordinary for the next collection.

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Isabelle

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Discussing his life, his journey, and his thoughts on fashion.

Enter the Style Zeitgeist: An Interview with Eugene Rabkin

An exclusive interview with one of Japan's most obscure designers.

From The Runway To The Roadway: Interview with Shinichiro Arakawa

We at ARCHIVE.pdf were lucky enough to be offered a peek into the world of Isaac Sellam’s creation during Paris Fashion Week. 

Isaac Sellam: S/S24 Showroom and Brand Overview

An exclusive interview with Ken Rao of Professor. E. 

Question and Answer: Professor. E, Ken Rao, and His Team on Their Creations

Jordan’s unconventional works flow and stand apart from his contemporaries.

Sailing, Nature, and Aging: A Conversation with Jordan Arthur Smith

Arina Renasci

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Jordan Arthur Smith

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Nash Hill

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Tokyo-based magazine Sabukaru invited us to their Paris Showroom to view the work of several designers moving fashion forward on their own terms.

PFW Sabukaru Showroom: The Next Generation

How the British designer is building a new language of masculinity.

Why Menswear Needs Craig Green

Miguel Adrover’s abrupt career illustrates the promise and pitfalls that follow authenticity in fashion.

The Illumination of Miguel Adrover

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[Alan Bilzerian](https://www.alanbilzerian.com/) has been a staple in the Massachusetts fashion community for over 5 decades, and continues to make an impact in the fashion industry globally. After getting his Bachelor’s of Science in Finance from Nichols College, Bilzerian found his love for fashion through a post-grad Europe trip. He shifted focus professionally and soon opened Body Shop in 1967 in Worcester, Massachusetts with his wife Bê.

*“We started in 1967, and over the years I grew out of being one in a group of people in a routine. My idea was to get out of this system of retail and explore my own way of looking for new ideas. I traveled Europe and saw a chance to separate myself from the rest of the pack. We started to make a few things and buy them and it turned into something very successful. The attraction of what people really wanted kept making me go back. It was feeding into my satisfaction with what I had started... It was initially selling Issey Miyake in the 70s in Worcester, Massachusetts.” - Alan Bilzerian*

Body Shop was a fresh and new perspective towards fashion in the ‘60s and ‘70s, stocked with printed corduroy trousers, bellbottomed Landlubber jeans and velvet Western shirts. It allowed Bilzerian to expand his imagination for fashion retail, breaking barriers and pioneering new directions in fashion. 

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After 13 years in Worcester, Bilzerian and Bê decided to shift the business to the heart of Boston, as they relocated to Newbury Street in 1980 and renamed the storefront Alan Bilzerian. With a keen eye for emerging designers and brands, Alan Bilzerian was one of the first shops to showcase the works of Walter Albini, Yohji Yamamoto, Issey Miyake, Giorgio Armani, Katherine Hamnett, Rick Owens, Alexander McQueen and Rei Kawakubo's Comme des Garçons. Alan and Bê worked extensively to introduce Japan’s “Big 3” to the Western world, and developed deep personal relationships with Issey Miyake, Rei Kawakubo, and Yohji Yamamoto. This helped the designers access a new audience on the other side of the world, as collectors and enthusiasts devoted their attention to the brands that Bilzerian showcased. 

Alan and Bê also kept a close eye on European fashion, as they purchased Alexander McQueen’s premiere collection and John Galliano’s graduate pieces for their store in Boston. They were also strong supporters of Martin Margiela’s initial collections, bringing the Belgium designers’ genius perspectives to Boston and beyond. 

Alan and Bê have devoted their lives to curating tasteful and timeless fashion collections to their clients and community. However, they are not focused on the commercialization of clothing. Their goal from the beginning was to showcase creativity through fashion and build a genuine community. 57 years later, their goal has not changed.

The ARCHIVE.pdf team was given the opportunity to interview Alan and Bê on a crisp Boston Saturday morning while capturing some of the most iconic and never-seen-before moments in the two’s journey in fashion. We are very excited to showcase this interview and let Alan and Bê tell their amazing stories. It’s time to give them their flowers.

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**Hello, Alan. Hi, Bê.**

**Bê:** Nice to meet you. 

**Nice to meet you again. It's been a while, so you wouldn't remember me. How have you been?**

**Alan:** I'm not bad. I'm hanging in there, for an old man. 

**It's a matter of perspective, isn't it? Well, tell me a brief history of the store. How did you two meet?**

**Bê:** We met in Paris. And then... [some] years go by. We met again because I was in Italy working for Fibucci, which I'm sure you don't know but he was like one of the big new upcoming stores in Milan. And he asked me to redesign his shop in Milan. So, I came with my friend, we came to the States. We were going around and I wanted to make his store into a diner, an American diner. So, that's when I met Alan again. 

**You think that it was meant to be, that you two both had interest in fashion?**

**Alan:** In fact, yeah. I was looking for velvet jeans in the late ‘60s – ‘68, ‘69 – and I was in a showroom in Paris and I asked the guy I was working with, ‘Do you know anybody that carries [an] unusual small production that I can bring back that's exciting?’ So, he gave me an address on the back of a match book and I got in a taxi. I'm in the taxi, I'm going, ‘Oh shit, I'm going to get screwed on this one.’ And he takes me to this residential area in Paris. 

In the back of the house that I was dropped off at was an incredibly beautiful small factory. I went in the factory, opened the door and they were making these incredible dresses in suede, very, very Native American but much more sophisticated. 

I wanted to redo everything and the woman said, ‘Can you wait a minute? I'll call the designer.’ I'm there for about 40 minutes and in comes the designer. I said, ‘I want to do this, I want to do that, I want to change this.’ At the end of the conversation with the woman who owned the factory, she said to me, ‘Are you going back to Paris?’

And I said yes. And she said, ‘I'll give you a lift.’ So, we got in her mini-moke and we drove into Paris together– we were both with other people [at the time]. But when we drove up to her house, there were three people standing in front of her apartment that were very close friends of mine. When we drove up, they were going, ‘Hey Bilzerian, what are you doing?’

**Bê:** At that time I had a band of musicians from New York staying in my place in Paris. So that's why those friends that he knew from New York were staying with me, and they were surprised to see him, and he was surprised to see the band. 

Hat selection inside Alan Bilzerian includes TAKAHIROMIYASHITATheSoloist.

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Avant garde clothing displayed inside the Alan Bilzerian store. 

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Carol Christian Poell: Disparate black gloves, drip rubbered gloves, fingerless gloves. 

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Coats and outerwear hanging on racks inside the Alan Bilzerian store. 

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Japanese and avant garde designer items displayed inside the Alan Bilzerian store. 

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**That's an amazing story. So you had the store set up before you even went on that trip to Paris? You've been going to Paris for a while.**

**Alan:** Yes. I've been going for quite a few years. I started in 1967, going to London. Well, that's when we first opened, in 1967, and a year and a half after we opened I said, ‘There's not enough here for me.’ So I started to travel to Europe by myself and I did England, France, and Italy, and I started to do Fair Isle sweaters. I don't know if you know Fair Isle sweaters– very, very beautiful. They're very valuable now because nobody does it anymore. And I was collecting all kinds of unusual clothing from the ‘30s. I brought things to Margaret Howell and Jean Howell to remake, because they had the capacity to do that. But I kept on going back every time I had a season to change. And when we started, [it was] in a tiny little shop. It was $115 a month [to] rent– I can't forget these figures. 

And it just progressed and progressed, and it absorbed my way of working. And I got to know Europe better than any of the [other] companies. 

**Bê:** That was good for you. Back in those days, the American generation was not traveling to Europe that much. It was an unknown territory, for you to go on vacation with your parents, but you don't go for work to research. 

And Alan has a very big bug about trying to find things. He loved to go hunting. That's his passion. He still loves to go hunting for interesting things, new things. That's why he still became known as having new things, different things, things that you would not expect. When we met in Milan after we were together, I introduced Alan to Prada. He had a store in Worcester, and he was the first one to have Prada in the US. People don't even know who the hell he was. 

**Alan:** Prada was selling me keychains.

**Yeah, I thought they started as a luggage outfit. **

**Bê:** Prada was working in her father's shop in the Galleria Passarella, and she was making jewelry for the store. That was her first passion, way back then. 

**Because they go by families. A lot of those historical families, especially in Western Europe, were multi-generational. So they would inherit the father’s [business]. **

**Bê:** Yeah, you pass them down. Some of them continue successfully, and some are not capable [of continuing]: It's stuck with the parents because the new generation doesn't know how to carry on. 

**Right, right. It's not unusual because Hermes has been, I don't know, maybe three centuries… So is that the same case for you? Riviere told me that you started the shop.**

**Alan:** No, In 1967 I opened a shop called Body Shop, and that's where it started, with $115– tiny little shop. 

**And your father was in real estate? **

**Alan:** Yeah, my dad was in real estate and I was very bored with what he was doing and I wanted to do something completely off the floor. Five years later we moved to a little bit larger store and it was called Moon. When we moved here, we put it under my name. 

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**What was the reasoning behind putting it under your name? You think it had more prestige doing it that way?**

**Bê:** It was me who instigated that. We were driving looking for a location, and we found a location and Alan said, ‘Should we keep calling the store Moon or should we find a new name?’ 

**Alan:** At that time it started to be too much related to the moonies. 

**Oh, right, Reverend Moon. **

**Alan:** Yeah, exactly. And it was sort of… uncomfortable. 

**Bê:** That's when I told Alan, I said, ‘I don't like any of those names that don't represent anything. Use your name.’ And he said, ‘are you sure? You know, my name is pretty strong. It's very ethnic.’ I said, ‘Who cares? I know that a name is good if you become successful. If you're not successful, the name is not good and it doesn't matter.’ 

**Al:** That's true, that's very motivating. But how did you come about starting the store in Worcester instead of Boston? Or Boston was an evolution of the store in Worcester? 

**Alan:** The Boston store was an evolution of Worcester. It drove me absolutely nuts to have people coming into the store and saying, ‘I had to come from Philadelphia; I had to come from Maine; I had to come from Vermont…’ Every day. Everybody said, ‘What are you doing here?’ And it actually worked on me: I got a beating every day. Plus, there were so many things emerging, where I missed out on a lot that we should have had. 

**Bê:** The city has a limitation. 

**Alan:** Yeah, you're talking about a city of 250,000 compared to a real city. They don't even have an airport. They have an airport on a thimble, a needle head. I mean, people brought their own planes to come and shop in our store. But I thought in my mind that the city would grow in the speed that I was growing. But it never really came about. 

**So as a consumer it was sort of like a treasure hunt, but as a business person it was very limiting. **

**Alan:** Well, yeah, it was. I would be so excited to bring these things to the shop and then it went… it was just an emotional flatness. I was exhausted by the excitement of what I was trying to drive through the customer… They didn't really care. I can't blame them. I mean, they're not doing what I'm doing. And so I just said this is not working for my psychic exposure. 

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Bê and Alan Bilzerian stand outside their namesake store, which has run out of Boston since 1980. 

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**You had the establishment in Boston for how long now? **

**Alan:** We opened in 1980. So from 1980 to 2024, it's been an incredible ride. 

**Bê:** And it was really a perfect storm. It's all because we moved in ‘80 to Newbury Street. The real estate people told us, ‘You are crazy, you should move here. There's nothing happening.’

**Alan:** Yeah. This is the worst block. 

**Bê:** And I said, ‘I'm going to stay here.’ It's better to be in a place that is a little bit exclusive than instead being in the crowd there.

But that year, I was invited by the president of Issey Miyiake to come to Japan to go to the hot spring. It was a perfect situation– I really wanted to go to Japan because I felt like something [was] going on there. Because at that time we had the Walkman coming from Japan, we had all the high tech DVDs, and everything was in black... I really wanted to know what was going on, so I went to Tokyo. 

[Alan] opened the store, he was busy. [When] I arrived in Japan, a friend of mine called me at the hotel. He said, ‘There's a dinner party. I want you to come.’ I just landed after 15 hours. He said, ‘Just take a shower and come.’ So I went to dinner, and he introduced me to Rei Kawakubo from Comme Des Garçons. 

**Alan:** They hadn't come to Europe yet. 

**Bê:** This is before they debuted. And she invited me to her showroom the next couple of days to go and look at her clothes, her collection. 

I went there and I was out of my mind. I wanted everything. And she said, ‘Just tell me what you want, and we’ll ship it to you.’ At the end, I said, ‘You should go to Paris and do the show. Your collection's incredible.’ And she said, ‘Will you give me some names? Who to invite to my show? If I do the show in Paris, who should I invite?’ I said, ‘I'll send you a list of stores in the US that you should invite, and the press that I know in Paris.’ The rest of the week, I went with Mr. Tada from Issey Miyake to the hot spring. 

Then, I came back to Tokyo and I was with the director of Isetan, which was the big department store. He showed me the store and I saw in the corner [on a] stand, I looked at the thing and, my God, these trousers are so unusual, they're really nice. I asked everybody around me, ‘Do you know this company?’ The ticket only said waist, nothing else.

Nobody knew. I finally got an address. The taxi drove me there, and it was on the outskirts of Tokyo. I went into that shop and there was an older lady who received me and she was very rough. She said only two, three words of English. ‘Sit down and wait.’ And then a little bit after, the director came in. He took me to the showroom, it was a warehouse kind of place. I saw all those things and I went crazy. I said, ‘This is the best thing that could happen to me. This is unbelievable. You guys have to be showing this, nobody knows you exist.’ And he said, ‘Just put everything you like in a box and we ship it to you.’

Then he said, ‘Will you sit here? The designer wants to meet you.’ The designer shows up. It was Yohji [Yamamoto].

And we sat down and talked about fashion; about everything. And then the director said, ‘Bê, can you stay an extra day? Because of Japanese law, we have to have documentation.’ 

**Alan:** It's very complicated. Because at that time there were quotas on each particular fabric. So anyway, you had a file for a license to ship to America. 

**Bê:** So anyway, I said, ‘I fly tomorrow, but I'm going to see. I have to tell my husband I'm not going to be home tomorrow.’ And he put out the phone and said, ‘Call your husband.’

I called [Alan] and said, ‘I found this incredible collection, it's going to be better than when we found Armani years ago. It's so new, It's so different. I have to stay.’ 

Alan said, ‘I don't care what the hell you do. They just stole my Porsche.’ Click. [Laughs] And Yohji started laughing, and he said, ‘I like your husband. I want to meet him.‘

**Did you find the Porsche?**

**Alan:** Well, what happened was half an hour after I went to the front of the building, then to the back, [I said] I know I parked it here. Two minutes later, the phone rings. It's the police: they said they're coming down to arrest me. They said, ‘Your car was in a hit and run.’ 

**Bê:** So anyway, Yohji and Mr. Hayashi organized to ship everything. And I came home with all those boxes, and I'm telling you, we opened the box and it was like a fire was happening. Customers were coming in, going crazy. That's when we were at number 12. 

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**I thought you were in this spot?**

**Alan:** No no, we were at number 12 because we moved in 1980. We were open for only four years and then I bought this building. So we had to wait till the leases ran out and then redo the building, and then move the store from 12 to 34. 

**Bê:** So that's when Yohji and Rei started showing in Paris. 

**Alan:** It was perfect timing, it was absolutely perfect timing. 

**Bê:** The Yohji collection was all black, Rei was all black. And the first show they did, Women's Wear Daily, had the front page with the big name, ‘Sarunaya,’ bag lady because they had a sweater. So nobody was ready to accept this invasion of fashion from Japan. 

**And it was very racially charged too because the title was ‘Hiroshima Chic.’ It was a very famous title for them. **

**Alan:** Well they didn't want to give them a vehicle. [John] Fairchild hated the way they had all of a sudden emerged. And [Yohji and Rei] never spent any money on advertising. So they didn't want to actually give them any position. 

**Bê:** Fairchild resisted because Rei and Yohji went to Paris, and Paris embraced them. The French recognized that before New York, and the explosion happened there. [In America], they said, ‘Oh no, we're not into that; the bag lady, the clothes are not clothes, they are trash.’ 

But the consumer here didn't care about the price. They were into it. I mean, it was insane. And that vehicle made us even stronger. We were the first store in Boston [to carry them]. People, even from New York, were coming here. 

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**The stereotype nationwide is that Boston is a very conservative city, and I would assume back then it was a different atmosphere compared to that. **

**Alan:** No, no. It was very, very conservative. It was just that there were pinpoints of timing. People were reading about it, they were waiting for this to happen. They didn't know where it was going to be, who had it, who was going to be the first. We just happened to have the perfect timing of having the emotion to say, you know, I have a feeling something is happening in Japan. 

Before that, when we met Mr. Tada, who was the president of Issey, I went to the first show in Paris of Issey. It was in the basement of La Coupole, a huge restaurant. It was like 8:30 in the morning, I was dragging my ass to the show. I saw the show and I'm going, are you kidding me? I was so inspired and after the show I went backstage and I said I want this from my store in Worcester. It was in Worcester we started Issey. 

**Rest in peace, it is too bad he passed away. **

**Alan:** Yeah, yeah, great friend. He gave this dinner in Paris and he only invited one store out of all the people that were there, everybody else was press. 

**Bê:** It was his birthday. 

**Alan:** It was kind of like, the way I started as a hippie with long hair, and looking for the most unusual, and found Issey. We had Issey in 1968, 1969, in Worcester, with Prada, [and] Armani Black Label. 

**Bê:** But then here in 1980, with Rei and Yohji, it made us even more hungry to go hunting. I mean, we've been lucky, but it was very interesting to find an unknown designer that has something to say, that maybe we suspect it, but we don't know what it is.

At that time in Boston– maybe it's a coincidence and it's just a perfect situation– it was a lot of professional people, architects and people in the art field or design field, who were really interested to find us, and what we discovered gave them inspiration, and gave them energy, even in their field. 

**Alan:** You know, it was very interesting. Constantly people from Harvard, constantly people from MIT. It's still the meeting road. Architecture and design and fashion are still crossing us all the time. When I want to be inspired, I buy a new architectural book to see who is putting something in Brazil, who's making something anywhere in the world. It can't be just Italian or Japanese. 

Alan Bilzerian walks the runway at Yohji Yamamoto Spring / Summer 1994. 

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Alan Bilzerian attends Maison Martin Margiela's debut show, Spring 1989 at the Cafe De La Gare in Paris.

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**Do you think the ‘70s and ‘80s were the “golden age of Boston cutting edge fashion”?**

**Alan:** The ‘80s for us were so fantastic. We felt that we had something that nobody could really duplicate, and it was so far out compared to what everybody was wearing. Nobody wanted to make the attempt to go towards that. They didn't know what was coming. They didn't know the feeling that was emerging…. It just kept on getting bigger. Kept on getting stronger. 

**I was curious about how folks that were older than I was, how they happened to adapt in the environment on Newbury Street; how Alan Bilzerian, and maybe a couple of other shops, fostered this environment of fashion around the ‘80s. **

**Alan:** It was two completely different pictures. We had a completely different symbol of who we were at that time, because we really instigated that entire image of the Japanese. Between Rei, Issey, and Yohji, which were the three pioneers coming to Europe and showing [that] they were the depth in Japanese fashion, we didn't deviate from that. We were committed. 

**Bê:** We got so involved with Yohji that he wanted to meet Alan, and the relationship developed into a friendship and then he asked us, ‘Can you help me? I want to open a store in London. Can you do it? Can you help me?’

So we ran around looking for the perfect place for Yohji. We put down the idea on paper of what we wanted, he said, ‘You can do whatever you want.’ I said ‘Can you tell me, do you want the store to black? You want it white?’

He said, ‘I don’t know, you do it.’ [Laughs] So we opened London and New York at the same time.

**Alan:** We became very close friends. Many times he stayed in our house, when Bê wasn't feeling well. After a show, he got on a plane and went back to Tokyo and called me up and he said, ‘I'm going to be in Boston next week.’

**Bê:** He came just overnight to see me because I was very sick. 

**Alan:** Rei and him came here when they were together. They came and spent the weekend with us. That was a long time ago. 

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Isaac Sellam black passager bag on display at Alan Bilzerian. 

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Rick Owens black leather shearling-lined biker jacket on display inside Alan Bilzerian. 

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Hats displayed on top of a shelf inside the Alan Bilzerian store. 

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Detail shot of custom Alan Bilzerian hangers. 

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Letting Alan and Bê tell their amazing stories. It’s time to give them their flowers.