now Martín Churba designs t-shirts

Martin Churba he puts on 10, the slang of the round would say to refer to the new plot that the renowned Argentine designer is starring in. And this time, the fusion is with football and Japanin a textile story that imagines a summit meeting between the best player in the world, Lionel Messi, with who knew how to be one of the fashionable popes of the 20th century, Issey Miyake.

Thus was born the line of t-shirts with typologies more in line with fashion than with sportswear, made from previous graphic records. Recently presented in the eastern country, where Churba also brought works of art and other collective work projects with designers and artists.

One of these focused on the sustainable repair made with Guillermo Cameron Mac Lean; another with Jessica Trosman, pointed to the new life that can be given to trash; and a third, with the Bondi group and Alejandro Sarmiento, has to do with street furniture. To which was added the development of the kimonos ponchos which he carried out with Carla Bonifacio.

Precisely, the latter is the one he designed last year and to which he is giving a re-reading by assembling the traditional garments of the two nations. Pieces that were already used for a performance performed by the Argentine dancer Daniel Proietto and the japanese Mirai Moriyama In uruguay. Also in October he will do the same with a costume for a play in Tokyo.

The truth is that, with each of these initiatives, the creator reaffirms the mutual correspondence that he has maintained since 20 years ago consecutive when his clothes began to be sold in Japan.

And something else – on the back – is that this new chapter coincides with the move of the store Plotting on Rodríguez Peña street, which from the Head Office became known as the after (in Paraná at 1100).

-You change the linear scenario of fashion and move to that of theater and dance, which has another movement, in addition to this new link with football, how do you experience it?

-I’m more interested the permanence of the cultural and less the ephemerality of fashion. The cultural builds one brick on top of another, without the need for this one to cover the previous one. On the other hand, in fashion it’s like a kind of block that has to be big enough to cover the previous one and so on, a megalomaniacal thing that I don’t know where it’s going. He fast fashion He not only took care of destroying the planet’s ecosystem, but also any idea of ​​cultural construction.

-Another scenario that also has permanence is that of football and the shirt is the garment that does not go out of style, it is used every season regardless of the variants. How did this idea come about?

-When I returned from Japan last year it was just the PASO. I came with new dreams and I met people with their brains taken by that utopian bridge of going from one policy to another, but which, at the same time, was absurd because it seemed that nothing could improve. It was all addicted. That way of living that we Argentines have had in recent years, as if we were in an internal, ideological war, full of pits and cracks. So, I made a kind of personal spell not to think from Argentina, I stayed five centimeters from the floor, without touching it, metaphorically. I considered what I could put together that would unite us in an idea of ​​culture, that the poncho and the kimono were in a relationship of reflections and dialogues. I called that “cultural bridge.” And it was not only between Japan and Argentina, but also between fashion and football, there was an unprecedented meeting. There was a question of being able to look through that iconic garment, such a symbol of the national sports culture. It was incredible to me. It’s strange because at most Yohji Yamamoto designed the new Japan shirt…

-And Emporio Armani did the one for Napoli

-But it is still a Football shirt. I wanted to go further and abandon those levels of technicalities. I took the poster I had brought from (Issey) Miyake from Japan and put on top the painting of Messi that my son Alexis had done. He caught Messi’s silhouette with his pants. I started to have a sense of déjà vu. There was something in that game that transported me to that idea of ​​relationships. Being able to think about football from fashion and being able to create a fashion product that can be a football fan. Something increasingly stronger is happening in the world with Argentina and soccer. I would love to design the National Team t-shirt.

-Until now what was done about fashion and football was more as a tribute, but not about how to transform a garment so dear to our feelings into a fashion typology.

-Of course, when I started creating textiles and got involved with laser cutting technology, I started playing like it was haute couture. At one point I saw that the fabrics were so beautiful that I started putting them on racks. That’s when I got the idea that it is also an oracle that one prays to and I created those altars that are paintings. That gives me the possibility of taking them to an art gallery. I showed up to do an exhibition next year together with the Argentine gallery Fubolitiswhich is the one that accompanies me.

-Where did the shirts you used come from?

-Instead of printing conventional fabrics, I used the high quality ones, but with football square papers, that’s why brands, distorted sponsors and shields appear. I reused supplies from old t-shirts. In some way I also propose that, that fashion revisit what has been done because it cannot continue doing it. I went to Japan with the video that tells all this and when I presented the work at one of the universities, they called me from another, on the outskirts of Tokyo, to work with the soccer team. That dialogue was enriching. carry the textile creativity to the academic field was also disruptive for me. I met people who are not fashion consumers but who went crazy wearing a t-shirt.

-What interested you about football as a cultural expression?

-It’s a pacifist universal language, even though sometimes the boys get a little angry. A space where humanity can find itself in a game. And that in a world like today’s, which is a drama in other aspects, leaves us in a place of value. Beyond the passion and anguish, when two teams play, one wins, the other loses and they don’t kill each other.

-In the videos where you present the projects, you talk about repair, collective work, the relationship between cultures. Do you think fashion can go that way or is it something very far away?

-I see it as a process. In Argentina, at one time, the authorial aspect was very important, on that path that we had been following, reversing what was happening in the northern hemisphere as if we wanted to be a little more European. That was a fight not only of the fashion industrybut also in music and other aspects.

-The idea of ​​decolonizing what is imposed still persists.

-Yes, that is why the author had prominence and a transcendent mission was that we authors could say beyond what a European said. Trosman Churba She was a pioneer in not following the trend of the seasons. Today the collective stands above the individual author, it speaks of building together. I took five projects to Japan because I worked collaboratively. Sharing has the benefit of diluting the ego. I look for consensus, construction, agreement. I couldn’t have done all this alone. A clothing brand is not enough for me to be creative. My idea is that it works in a cultural center or in disciplines beyond fashion such as sports or fine arts.

-At the same time, you moved Tramando to a new store, surely to adjust to this context and the new view that the brand is having.

-We are living in a very negative time for clothing. As an industry we are among the hardest hit. Even though Tramando was supposedly for an audience with high purchasing power, the reality is that my entire life was bought by lawyers, psychologists, architects, professional women who needed to build their own facade. It made sense for them to invest in Tramando. He had many working clients. If we count what it costs to pay the expenses and the prepayment, once again We value creators are being treated as mere producers of raw materials without any encouragement. In this market, more than innovating, we have to resist. We added the after party to the place because it’s what’s left after the party…

-But after It also has its charm.

-Of course. It’s like when we talk about the elderly, they are no longer the last. We say it with honor, pride, creativity and dreams, is what we have to do because we also don’t know what lies ahead for us. Whether it ends or actually what is coming now is a rebirth.