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10 Questions: The Authors of The Stephen Sprouse Book |
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Written by Sean Krebs |
Thursday, 19 February 2009
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While I was sitting on the red wall-to-wall shag carpet in the family room of my childhood home in New Hampshire watching Stephen Sprouse on “Andy Warhol’s Fifteen Minutes” on MTV back in the 80’s, it seems that Mauricio and Roger Padilha were doing exactly the same thing out on Long Island. You probably recognize the name Stephen Sprouse from his collaboration with Marc Jacobs for a series of graffiti-covered bags for Louis Vuitton (in 2001) or maybe his limited edition collection for Target called “Americaland” (in 2002).
The Stephen Sprouse story started long before that. After a stint designing for the legendary Halston in the early 70’s, Stephen began his solo career – he went on to make a name for himself by blending downtown punk with uptown chic, creating his own, completely unique, aesthetic. An aesthetic he shared with close friend and collaborator Debbie Harry (the iconic lead singer from Blondie).
For The Stephen Sprouse Book (published by Rizzoli), Mauricio and Roger Padilha were given exclusive access to Stephen’s archives by the late designer’s family. The 256 page book is overflowing with wonderful images and photographs (many of which have never been published before) and includes insightful interviews from members of Stephen’s inner circle including Kate Moss, Iggy Pop and Anna Sui.
When Mauricio and Roger aren’t off writing books, they’re busy running MAO Public Relations out of a loft in Soho. Fortunately for all of us, they found the time in their hectic schedules to answer my following 10 questions.
1. What made you decide to write The Stephen Sprouse Book?
Roger: “Mauricio and I have always been huge fans of Stephen’s work. Growing up, we were really obsessed with Andy Warhol, Debbie Harry, the punk music scene, and the New York downtown art scene - we had pretty precocious tastes being that I was just 12 and Mauricio was 15!! When we first saw Stephen’s work on TV, it was a combination of everything we loved and made fashion (which up to that point seemed uptight and frumpy) cool.”
2. The two of you have the largest private collection of Stephen Sprouse designs in the world-- over 1,000 pieces. How did you start collecting them?
Mauricio: “We would steal our parent’s credit cards and sneak in to NYC from Long Island and go to Bloomingdale’s (and Stephen’s own store which opened in 1988) and buy stuff for us to wear. We were pretty bad kids. We really started collecting, though, when Stephen’s company went out of business in 1989. There were all these amazing gowns and women’s clothes selling for pennies and, although we couldn’t wear them, we just couldn’t leave them behind. We’ve been collecting his work ever since.”
3. Where do you keep them all?
Roger: “Everything is now cataloged and laid flat in special boxes in acid free paper. We treat it like artwork, which we feel it is.”
4. Do you ever wear any of the pieces yourselves?
Roger: “I wear his stuff all the time but never the bright-colorful stuff. I wear the black stuff and people always come up to me and ask, ‘Is that Rick Owens?’ or ‘Is that Dior?’ and I always answer, ‘No, it’s Stephen Sprouse and it’s 25 years old!’”
5. Did you guys ever actually meet Stephen in person?
Mauricio: “No, we made a point to never meet him. He had heard about our collection and as we started working in the fashion industry, we started to have mutual friends, so at some point he actually was asking people to meet us. Once we were at a party for stylists Kurt & Bart and Stephen was there and a mutual friend came up to us and said that Stephen really wanted to meet us. We said ‘we’ll be right over’ and then bolted for the door! We have both met enough of our idols and been disappointed which then leads you to dislike their work. We didn’t want that to happen with Stephen.”
6. Who was the most interesting person to interview for the book?
Roger: “We were able to talk to so many incredible people for this book. Stephen had really great and interesting friends. It would be impossible to choose. Legendary editor Polly Mellen is always fun to talk to - she is so smart, insightful and has the most extraordinary stories. Iggy Pop was hilarious and it is always a joy to hear Debbie Harry’s voice on the other end of a telephone.”
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7. Could you tell me a little about Stephen's relationship with Debbie Harry?
Mauricio: “They were neighbors and friends before either got famous. Stephen started dressing her really early on and really helped create her image. She still wears Sprouse (and looks amazing in it) to this day!”
8. What made Stephen's work so special?
Roger: “Stephen wasn’t bound by commercialism. He really did what he wanted to do. His clothing is futuristic but completely wearable. It manages to look chic and cool—which is hard to do as those two words rarely manage to exist together.”
9. I am a huge fan of Tama Janowitz and her book Slaves of New York (I would even venture to say that it had a major influence on my moving to the city over 14 years ago) - did you know her before you asked her to write the book's foreward?
Roger: “For us too! I first read her book because I had read that she was friends with Stephen somewhere but by the end of that book I had become a fan of her work. She is hilarious and we had amazing talks - she was always so helpful and thoughtful and really encouraged us whenever I’d call to complain about the difficulties we were having with the book.”
10. Any immediate plans for your next book - or books?
Mauricio: “We loved doing this and are already working on the next one. We can’t say yet what it is but promise you that it will blow you away as much as The Stephen Sprouse Book has.”
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