Fast Confession - Jiří Kalfař: After Pavlína Pořízková he has Further Aces up his Sleeve!

Is your name more known in the Czech Republic now?

I do not know, I cannot be a judge of that. I am not doing it for fame, I am happy that I do what I do.

After all, you have a studio in the centre of Prague, so you must have noticed it as regards your Czech clientèle?

I do not have many Czech clients. Nothing has changed about that. So perhaps I am still not known here.

And is it therefore worthwhile to have a studio in the heart of Prague?

Yes, I live here, I enjoy the comfort, life, family, my dog. When you work far away, it is not quite so bad. Someone travels Brno - Prague or Prague - Bratislava almost on a daily basis, and when I need to go to London, Milan or Paris, the airport is twenty minutes away, an hour to an hour and a half journey, twenty minutes by Uber and I am on the spot. It is three hours, in essence, from door to door, so that I can do a round trip.

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And how often do you do that?

Often. Now I have been here for two days, I am going away for four, then I´ll be back for three days. Then I am going for a weekend to London, then I am back and then I must stay for a week in London and prepare the fashion show.

How is it that you are still not going to participate in the Czech Fashion Week, which is approaching now?

I say 'never say never', but currently I am not there. I have confirmed London, strategically it is better for me; most of my clients are from the English-speaking world, whether Britain or America, since I have already started there. And I maintain that there is always a need of having at least three seasons for you to break through somewhere and to be paid some attention.

And how many years have you been present there?

This is my third season. (laughter)

But you have never even been there to see what the Czech Fashion Week looks like.

Well, that´s the problem, because fashion weeks mostly overlap; I am preparing my own show and I cannot spare the time. In the majority of cases I need to be in London already, to do the casting, fitting, tests of hair and make-up. Or it is a case that I had been working throughout the summer and then I want to take a week´s holiday, or leave for a few days, at least for the weekend, to recharge. Last season I was doing Paris, Milan and Budapest, so that was five weeks, that you are away and the only thing you are doing is that you dress, unpack, pack, carry about, travel, cast the models, trying to sell it.

And does it sell?

It sells all right. I can't complain.

So that means that you have different things for every day of the fashion week?

No, the same. I am always trying to focus each fashion week on something else. For example, the Prague one is mainly about fashion shows. When you go to London, there are also designer showrooms, this means that the buyers can go in and make a specific offer on the one piece of clothing. A fashion week is not just about fashion shows, it is a thing into which ordinary people don´t have much insight; it should ultimately be, in its own way, business, too.

In what spirit will this year's fashion show be?

You mean the inspiration? Perhaps the seventies most of all. But my problem is that I am never able to stay with one thing for a long time, I have such a diverse mix of things on my mind, and I always compose them into one whole. So here I have begun with the seventies, then I went through the Club 54 up to David Bowie, rock'n'roll and then to the disco era. All over the world there was a feeling of some change in the air, the political situation was changing in America as well as Europe, while we still had hard communism. So, it is all mixed up.

That plays into my hand, a different kind of question. What do you say to all the events that took place here in connection with the fiftieth anniversary of the Soviet occupation?

I think that history should not be forgotten, certainly, it should not be repeated and certainly not in this way. I personally do not consider Mr Babiš as an honest politician.

Do you vote?

I vote regularly. I think that it does not make sense to proclaim something and make interviews on some topics and then not go to the elections. Not to vote would be counter-productive.

Let us back to fashion. In the Czech Republic there are a lot of designers. Do you know each other, do you perhaps swap ideas?

Design ideas certainly not, I think that everyone has such an individual manuscript, everyone has their inspiration, that would be impossible. It´s possible that my generation of designers know each other a little better than I know them because I did not go to school, I did not grow up with them and because I don´t do the Prague Fashion Week, so I do not have the opportunity to see them. I know them personally, I know about them, and, of course, I follow their work.

Whom do you like from the Czech designers?

I have always respected quality before quantity, so here I would probably name Katka Geislerová, who does extremely good-quality work, and Denisa Nová, although she has a totally different style than me, but she has kept up her standards ever since I remember. I was a newcomer then.

You work with female as well as male models. With whom do you like working the best? You have mentioned Pavlína Pořízková.

I think that Pavlína is a completely isolated case. Literally a queen of modelling. Without knowing each other, I wrote to her, explaining my entire situation, I showed her the collection, presented my idea of the fashion show ... She wanted to support some Czech designer for a long time and she liked my work, which is of course giant honour. In addition, the collection was called Return of the Queen, and I could not imagine anyone else there. Indeed, she literally reigned the era of world modelling.

She came to London, closed my show and because of that we became friends. We clicked as people. I think that if someone like Pavlína Pořízková appreciates your work, travels across half the world to come back to the catwalk after almost twenty years when she didn´t do shows, it is great gratification. But I esteem Pavlína in particular as a great personality.

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And do you have someone else like her whom you would like?

Yes, I will use them, but everything has its own time. (smile)

Are there some agreements?

Well, we have some cooperation in the pipeline, but one doesn´t tell in advance. Some are Czech, some are not. I am in long-term cooperation with Alina Baiková, she is Ukrainian, and she has also become my friend.

And what about male models? What kind do you like, which ones would you prefer?

I mostly waste my budget on female ones. The question is not with whom I would like to work, it is always a question of budget and what you must adhere to. There are a few that I like. For example, Simon Nessman, Filip Hrivňák, Marlon, but currently I am not considering cooperation with any of them, so perhaps not.

How do you work with materials? Is it difficult to follow trends of how to obtain the materials so that animals do not suffer?

Not everything that I am using is artificial. I use a lot of natural materials. It is about half-and-half, but I do not use anything that would make animals suffer. I am trying to find new materials which would be long-lasting and recycle. It is not about what is trendy. I think that the trend is to be green and use materials which have not been obtained through suffering of animals. Information is available absolutely everywhere, literally at your fingertips, so it is not really difficult, it is not a case that I would have to go to the city library and spend days searching in encyclopaedias. It is just about not being lazy and find the information you need.

An example here is what everyone has learned to do with food, googling where did it come from and what are the ingredients, asking about quality, or going directly to the farmers´ market. The same thing may be done with everything else. In the past three years I have not bought anything that would contain palm oil, I refuse to eat it. I have a car for example, but it is an electric hybrid, moreover I am vegetarian, and when I have eggs or milk, I know that it is organic.

Do you know of other designers who are trying to do the same thing?

I do not know about Czech ones, but if someone is a pioneer it is certainly Stella McCartney. She is an absolute pioneer; you will find absolutely nothing that would hurt an animal, there is no wool either. She is also a vegan, and she has her own materials, which she creates so that they are not only humane toward animals, but they are also sustainable.

What is your vision, or in which direction do you want to go, what else do you want to do?

I am a terribly ambitious person, so when I say something out loud, it always sounds so terribly ambitious and unattainable and then people laugh at it. Around four years back, when I was a complete newcomer, I replied to a question in a magazine interview 'where I would like to be in five years’ time´, that I would like to be at the London fashion week, and it was printed in Vogue and in LÓfficiel. And I managed it within two years. In that interview they called me an idyllic dreamer. It did not insult me, I do what I do, ethically. I think that chances are completely everywhere, and it is about whether you see them and are pro-active. If you get stuck in one place, you don´t have a chance.

Is it a greatly competitive place? It seems to me that you do not want to harm anyone, doing your own stuff, but envy is envy. Are there some backstabbers, have you come across something like that?

Perhaps so, I know that someone somewhere pushed forth for me not to appear in a given publication, and to this day nothing has been published there. It certainly is not worth it to be offended, think about it or somehow resolve it. For me it is waste of time. I have learned that when someone shuts the door in your face it is not worth your while to try to push your way in. Once a door closes somewhere, another opens somewhere else. I think that it does not make sense to envy. If I at that time began to do Czech fashion week, perhaps I now wouldn´t be in London. The fact that they did not want me at that time meant that I had to find other platforms, so I spent the energy elsewhere. First Kiev, now London.

Have you ever refused to make an item of clothing for a client, because it was something you did not agree with?

No, but I don´t very often make things to order. I am not one to whom you can come and say: “I would like an evening gown and make this for me”. Of course, I will do contracted things, but I will do it on the basis that I am a designer, you are after all coming because I have a certain style, or I will do something else. You will say that you want a wedding dresses, I will design five or six on paper, and that we will arrive at some compromise of what I like and what you like.

But to make something that is totally not your style, that would not do?

No, but I always say that right at the beginning.

How long does it take to produce an evening dress?

Well, such that takes two days are made quickly if you have the fabric. But there are such for which we order the fabric to be made. Then there are such that are decorated by stitching on crystals by hand, and those take five to six weeks.

And how much does that cost?

Truthfully? I do not know. There is one dress for the next collection, but they are not yet quoted.

You have said that you celebrated your thirtieth birthday, what was it like? What kind of presents did you get?

Gifts are personal, I don´t want to say much, so that it wouldn´t look like I am boasting about it. You know, I have never much celebrated my birthdays, because it is in August and all my friends are always away. I have learned not to celebrate it or just make a barbeque in the garden. But now my buddies and my partner made a celebration for me, and I knew absolutely nothing about it. There were people that I have not seen for a terribly long time. Family, a giant flamingo on the river, tents, a DJ, it was thematically in the style of Coachella, so that everyone was dressed in that style. It was fine. Literally magic.

Jirka, thank you very much for the interview, I wish you good luck and I hope that once you will appear also at the Czech fashion week, because this event loses out a lot without you.