“Today we are more afraid of mental illnesses than traditional ones”

Shuffle and give again. This well-known play on words calmly can define the moment What Benito Fernández is going through these days, one of the most famous designers in Argentina: the “favorite” of (our) Máxima from Holland, the one who worked on TV, the one who did thousands of fashion shows and the one who traveled the world wearing his fashion. He himself claims to have been reborn.

A few days ago, in the midst of a complicated economic situation and looking for a change of direction with his brand, his body let him know that he couldn’t take it anymore.

He was hospitalized for a month and now he is here, again, “reset”, as he himself says, sitting in an armchair in his store, in Lafinur almost Las Heras, wearing a very cool jacket from Flor Bari and some neon sneakers from his own capsule.

“I had a big problem with stress, anguish and depression. I threw away what I could with all that, until I couldn’t take it anymore. One day I fainted and fell. Well, that was the moment of total break,” says Benito, or “Beni” as everyone calls him in the fashion world.

“I was at Otamendi for a few days and then my psychiatrist recommended that I be admitted in April (a mental health clinic, where Chano de So BionicFor example). And there I started again: without using a cell phone, without handling money, without seeing people. I woke up every day without anxiety, I played ping pong, or trick. This is how I cleared my head. We even put together a divine group with many of the kids who are interned there. I was afraid it would be a hostile situation, but it turned out to be just the opposite. I remain in contact with many of them. The truth is that I came without desire; everything was difficult for me. Being inside led me to make a very big change, I enjoyed my grandson Fermín again, who is the love of my life and what matters most to me. “I enjoyed my friends and my work again.”

-And you also returned to your roots in your brand, now you dedicate yourself to haute couture and even do your show.

-Yes, I went back to doing what I did when I started 37 years ago: brides and 15-year-old dresses, as well as haute couture models. I also continue with my perfumes, the glasses, the sneakers that I make with Topper and I have a real estate project that I called Residencias Benito. Also, at the end of September I do my haute couture show in Argentina Fashion Week. I’m very excited. Héctor Vidal Rivas gives us the space, Ale García will do the styling, Diego Impagliazzo will do the hairstyles, Luli de laVega will do the makeup. I have a great team. It has been a long time since I did a haute couture show, it will be something very small. The truth is that I’m not up for something mega, at least for now.

-Aren’t you afraid of speeding up again?

-No, no, not at all. If I’m tired, I don’t come to the office now. I’m watching some Turkish soap operas on TV that are the best, I’m already on episode 60. Before, although I was depressed, I came to the office all day, I demanded that I be here. Not anymore. I want to go little by little. The ready-to-wear was what unbalanced me: the financial part of advancing payments, not selling, the pandemic… All of that together unbalanced the company. I would have needed someone, not only for the investment, but to see how this line develops in the market. I like everything else; It’s calmer. I do the design and nothing more. I don’t put in the money nor do I worry about seeing if the fabrics are good or bad. Before it was a delirium. It was bad with the last governments and after the pandemic, everything was very hard.

-With how prejudiced we Argentines are towards people who are admitted to a mental health clinic, I thought I was going to miss out on orders for quinceanera or wedding dresses. And it was the other way around! I went through several pivotal moments in my career: in 2001 I collapsed; I made a dress for Natalia Lobo for Martín Fierro that was a scandal and I transformed all that, I reverse and grow. That’s what’s happening to me now.

-Did the media coverage of your case bother you?

-It’s something logical. Obviously, some things that are said hurt you, but the press in general behaved very well. It even seemed important to me – she would tell you – to put the issue of mental illnesses on the table. Let it be known that being medicated to be well does not have to be frowned upon. After the pandemic, something strange remained: those who do not have stress have a panic attack, depression or anguish. There were mental consequences that scare us. Today we are more afraid of mental illnesses than the more traditional ones, those that we already know have a cure.

-How did your inner circle react?

-The containment network was important at this time. Not only with me, but with my children, that was what mattered most to me. They mattered to me. Analía Maiorana, Valeria Mazza, Sole Solaro, Diego Impagliazzo, Fabián Medina Flores and Charly Ronco, they supported me like my friends, they called my children. That was decisive for him to improve. I left a tremendous blessing to Marina and Lucas (her children). I couldn’t fire people I’ve worked with all my life, and they two took charge. Now I am more organized and enjoyable. I make decisions. Before I was paralyzed and distressed. Today I am light in every way, from friendships to material things. I want to be lighter in everything from now on.

-And how did your colleagues react? You are very loved in the fashion environment.

-Everyone responded supporting me. When I got my cell phone back, I couldn’t cope with responding to love messages, from Fabián Zitta to Verónica de la Canal, many called me. I think I had more than 400 WhatsApp and Instagram messages, not to mention. Suddenly there were 1,000 messages. Even today I still answer an immense number of messages.

Far from being scandalized or canceling orders at the news about Benito that dominated all the media, his clients fully supported him. “The affection of the people is incredible. No one asked me for the deposit she left for a dress that I couldn’t make back. Besides, I didn’t want to disappoint them by telling you that I left the clinic once a week to try”recalls the designer, who acknowledges that, after being hospitalized, he realized that nothing was as serious as it seemed in his head.

“The quilombo happened more in my head than in my reality,” he explains. “I stopped seeing my friends. “I locked myself in the house in the dark, I didn’t take a bath for three days, it was crazy,” she says with anguish.

-Don’t go to the other extreme either (laughter).

-The same thing always happens to me: when I fall, I get ejected. I founded in 2001 and in 2003 I was great. They criticized me for Natalia’s (Lobo) dress and within a month I dressed everyone.

-How do you sustain making fashion in a country like this, where you always have to fight it, live with new rules all the time, and much more?

-Everything is very unstable. And I hold a lot of responsibility on the governments that have not done anything to support design as they do in Mexico or Brazil. As if they didn’t know that it is one of the industries that more employment generated! Note that I also have my faults, for how I handled the numbers, but it is not something very easy.

-To think that in France the government supported Saint Laurent when it was founded because of its great cultural contribution to the world.

-Clear. Well, it happened to me that the first time I went to Colombia Moda with Oscar de la Renta I was surprised to see the president of that country, Andrés Pastrana, sitting in the front row. He went to support the local industry. Here, if he goes, they lynch him in the media. It makes me angry that this industry is not taken seriously. And that has to do with prejudice, the same thing happens with mental illnesses, with bodies, with everything. There is no doubt that we are better as Argentines, but there is still a long way to go. We move forward. And that, for me, women are the ones who set the agenda for the last 15 years. The woman evolved a lot.

Benito Fernández says that more than proposing objectives, he feels that in his life and career, things “are happening by themselves.” “I don’t look for it, everything comes when it has to come. Like what happened with Máxima Zorreguieta. I just had to dress her when it was her turn to be queen of the Netherlands. She made her more than 30 dresses (one of them is exhibited in the Hague Museum along with her iconic costumes). Her first stage was for her as a princess. I remember that for her first tour of Latin America, I made approximately 8 to 10 dresses for her.. Those were not seen as much, because at that time it was not network time. Later, closer in time, the last dresses I made for her went more viral,” she explains while stating that she would like to dress the Dutch queen again soon with Argentine blood.

Máxima from Holland is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to international clients and friends. “I dressed Priscila Presley, I became friends with Patricia Field (costume designer for the series Sex & the City) and I am close to my beloved Agatha Ruiz de la Prada,” he says happily. In Argentina there is no celebrity who has not worn a Benito Model at some point.

The designer still remembers that in all these decades he participated in a TV reality show, had a boutique in Barcelona, ​​and acted with Guillermo Francella and Araceli González. “And now,” he announces, laughing, “I’m about to start with a streaming that I am going to share with Belén Francese.”

-Listening to you now, encouraged, the truth is that it is difficult to think about the terrible moments that you lived until so recently…

-Luckily I always come out well in life from those bad moments that I have had to live through. I have a great power of resilience. When I said that I was dyslexic and that I wet myself in bed until I was 14, many parents wrote to me on Instagram to support me. And also to ask me for advice, because the same thing happened to them with their children. I always say with everything that you don’t have to worry: you have to take care of yourself. When you worry, you put more of your problem on a boy, it puts more pressure on him. When you get busy it’s much more relaxed. You have to know how to navigate it. I insist: there is no need to have any prejudice with anything.

-So now: how would you like to end 2024?

-I want to take a nice trip, since I haven’t traveled in a long time. For example, going to the beach for a few days with my grandson, to enjoy.

-Also, close the projects I have in hand, such as my real estate venture. I not only opened it here in Buenos Aires, but also in Tandil. I will put my mark on the decoration of each of the places. All this came out now, luckily, after resetting myself. They even offered me to do a ready-to-wear project. Incredible: I got the call I was waiting for for 20 years just now. The ideal is to have an investor and that I only take care of designing. And enjoy. At 62 years old, don’t I deserve it?