L'OFFICIEL Exclusive: How Richie Hawtin aka Plastikman Found 'Perfect Harmony' with Prada
Immediately after Richie Hawtin sent the demo for his song "Spektre" to Raf Simons he knew it was no longer his. It was just after Christmas of this past year, and the British-Canadian musician, who lives between Lisbon and Berlin, was finishing an upcoming album under his minimalist electro moniker, Plastikman, and the track was to be its lead single. But just as the Hawtin predicted, Simons instantly fell in love with the piece and requested it be incorporated into the music for their on-going collaboration. The designer loved it so much, in fact, that it became the climax for Prada's film-esque fashion show for its men's Fall/Winter 2021 collection, which debuted in January. On the now-viral digital runway, Prada models stoically paced through a Rem Koolhaas-rendered mausoleum colored in Prada hues and textures that begged to be pet and prodded. Suddenly, the severe boys seemed to lose all sense of control, thrashing their bodies in chaotic dance to Hawtin's piercing music. It was what the musician describes today as "perfect harmony"—between that of himself, Koolhaas, Simons, and Miuccia Prada, who share the unprecedented titles of co-creative director of the Italian fashion house. A trilogy of sorts that began with the dual designers' debut collaboration last September, in which Plastikman used artificial intelligence technology to create sonic voices, and continues to the most recent women's show in February. Here, Hawtin speaks to L'OFFICIEL about the post-COVID-19 experience of a fashion show, the emotion of marrying visuals to sound, and his historic collaboration with Prada.
JOSHUA GLASS: How did the spark between you, Prada, and Raf Simons first begin?
RICHIE HAWTON: I've known Raf for many, many years. We met around 1993 or '94 at probably 7 or 8 or 9 in the morning after one of my very long gigs in Belgium. Then when he was at Dior we did a little work together and discovered we had some mutual friends. We stayed in touch. Fast forward to this summer—the end of August—when I got a phone call two weeks before Prada's Spring/Summer women's show [the first co-designed show between Simons and Miuccia Prada.] Had it not been COVID-19, I don't know what I would have said. Of course I was thrilled at the offer, but I had become a touring machine before the coronavirus. (That is one of the silver linings of this whole thing: I had to stop touring and spend time in the studio and rekindle my music making ability.) But when the call did come, I wasn't touring. I told him I would think about it that night and give him a call the next morning. Of course, I didn't have to think about it at all. The next day, I said absolutely, and went straight to the studio to imagine how I was going to do it.
JG: You've been collaborating with the brand for three seasons now—Prada women's Spring/Summer 2021 and men's and women's Fall/Winter 2021. When you first began did you know it was going to become a triology of sorts? And have you worked on each piece with that in mind?
RH: There was no time to think about anything when he called me about the first show. And by the time it was completed, we were just happy we got it done! We were working to the very, very last second. It was while working on the second show that we all really felt like they were connected; that it was going to fold out like a triology. But you never know. I had no expectations of what was or is coming in the future, but I am so proud of what we've done. Each of them separate and together has never been done in the worlds of music or fashion.
JG: Prada has the unique situation of having two creative directors. How does that affect you in terms of direction and feedback?
RH: We are all really learning as we're going. My main contact is Raf; he is the conduit of Mrs. Prada's comments and ideas. At the start of our collaboration I gave him a huge selection of my music, and he played his favorites for Miuccia, who helped narrow it down. There was always this feeling of the extreme minimalism and monotone drone that Raf loves to feel and see and the classic structure that I think comes from Mrs. Prada—both in aesthetics and in the music. You could feel that there were two heads in the room. They were never looking in opposite directions, though. It was, rather, two heads on the same shoulders with two different brains but somehow still connected.
JG: Most sound designers repurpose existing music for an 8-10 minute live runway event. In the case of these three taped shows, you composed songs as well as added in unreleased material from your reptoritre. What was that experience like?
RH: While my music has been used in the past in other fashion shows—for Raf himself as well as Ann Demeulemeester—I found this actually really exciting because I knew the music would have it's own place. It wasn't going to be in some weird cavernous room. It was a controlled environment, and the music would be able to sit there and support the clothes. The process as a whole was different from anything else I've taken on. It was a challenge. It was inspiring. It was frustrating. It was exhitilatoring. It was a nightmare. It was everything at once! For my live shows in my own work, there's always an aesthetic connection between the music and the visuals. So when you get this cohesive, symbiotic relationship between sight and sound like we have done at Prada, incredible things can happen. I understood the power of it, and when they said they wanted me to create something that was part of the collection I was so excited. I could feel that this was something new for all of us.
JG: It sounds like the audio composition was a mix of pre and post design. Especially in the case of the men's show, which featured new music alongside a song originally intended for Plastikman, "Spektre."
RH: It was really right down the line. The majority of the music was finished before each of the runways were filmed—let's say 80 percent, the framework. But I left each in a way that I could move things around and cut and paste because I knew there would be some changes. Instead of analogue—which I normally use because I hate overproduced music—I did each on the computer. Fashion is all about that moment. Whether it's on the runway or in this case online, if an idea hits a designer before the very second the collection is debuted, they need to do it. And that reminds me of making music. There's a spirit. If you can grab that spirit and show it to people then you have something sublime.
JG: Rather than "live" shows that stream straight from camera to the Internet, the last three collections have been choreographed and produced like mini-movies, and will live online for presumably the forever future, a stark contrast to the real-life events in the past that would disappear after 10 minutes to a very select crowd of invitees.
RH: It's another reason why the idea resonated with me. It had value for me as an artist. It had depth. It was like creating a movie, bringing different aesthetics—audio, video, and architecture together to create a beautiful image. As we go to 4K or 8k or 20K, people are going to look back and it won't be about the resolution of what was captured, but rather the quality and depth of the cohesion of the ideas and the shared aesthetic. I would say the entire thing has been years in the making. Prada has always been on my radar. Even for me as a non-fashion guy the mid-90s, her silhouettes always resonated with me. Though I can surely say I was not on Mrs. Prada's radar, although I did meet her a few years ago when I played a party for the brand in NYC. Raf has been on my radar. It was all kind of leading to this point. It was like osmosis; we were just drawn to each other.
