Stat-ment | Adeline Basely
Adeline Basely is the talented young French creator of hand-made garments behind the label Stat-ment. She runs a made to measure service at her own atelier, alongside a small, experimental capsule collection, creating garments that infuse the tradition of a tailoring service with the modernity of a distinctly unconventional vision of masculine elegance.
A search for quality
Having first decided to pursue menswear after becoming fascinated with Saville Row tailoring, Adeline’s interest in tradition and noble fabrics led her to study at ESMOD (l’Ecole Supérieure des Arts et techniques de la Mode), the oldest fashion school in the world. Yet after joining the industry and working with a successful brand that sells in Paris, she became aware of a deeper fundamental issue; the decline in the quality of garments.
“It’s a problem,” she says. “The question I’m always asking myself is how to keep this quality growing.” This drove her in search for answers. Disappointed with this issue of quality in the industry and witnessing the economic failures of fashion greats, including the bankruptcy of the house of Christian Lacroix, she realised there was another way – quite simply, to do everything herself.
“I have built my label with this objective, because I was really angry with this problem of quality. I want to make garments with construction that’s really special, to have something of very good quality. It’s possible if you’re not too big. At my size, I can choose and buy my fabrics in small shops. I can find a lot of rare and beautiful things at a good price, and it’s possible for me to live because of this. I want to find a way to keep this growing – growing in a certain measure to keep quality and to be able to live.”
As a testament to this objective Adeline insists on being involved in every step of the process, from sourcing fabrics, pattern making and sewing, to meeting customers for fittings and adjustments. “I think it’s really important, because you can forget your customer when you work in a large company.” As a completely independent designer, Adeline does not need to spend money, time or energy dealing with agents. She is free to focus all her energy on what’s valuable; creating excellent work for her customers.
Listen to the fabric
Experiencing Adeline’s garments one immediately notices the use of interesting fabrics; elegant canvassed jackets in traditional birds-eye weave wool, pants in raw broadcloth lined in soft cotton, or long sleeve tops in boiled wool. However, this focus on fabrics is not merely a means to an end of creating luxurious clothing; it underlies an ethical stance on clothing and fashion. Having gained valuable experience working with Dormeuil, one of the worlds finest luxury fabric suppliers, Adeline insists on personally sourcing and selects all of her fabrics.
“When I find the right fabric, I’ll know what I want to do,” she explains. “I like finding fabrics that are special, fabrics that talk to me in a certain way, and I try to find the best way to use this fabric.” Using the fabric itself as inspiration, the importance of the tactility of the garment and ultimately, the experience of the wearer, is never lost.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea to think with just a pen, to think of a garment using just lines on paper. We don’t know how the fabric will react. We have to think of about gravity, about fabric, about construction, and particularly the comfort. For example, if you take a very heavy fabric to make pants, the heaviness creates a dragging sensation of, well, losing your pants. On the contrary, if you take a very light fabric, you may have the sensation of not having clothes. You have to think about the wearer. Most of the time, men say that they like to have a very heavy coat. So, if I make a short coat, I prefer to use a heavy material. There are a lot of parameters, not just shape. I think shape is just a detail. Shape is really easy, you think of the body. It’s just one parameter to think about. Yes, fashion is not just a drawing.”
Such thoughts are reminiscent of the renowned Japanese designer Yohji Yamamoto, who once explained the difficulty of teaching his pattern makers to wait and listen to the fabric – no easy task given their job was, simply, to cut. Perhaps it is no coincidence that Adeline’s design teacher at ESMOD shared the same thoughts as Yamamoto. “I don’t know if she influenced me in a certain way,” Adeline laughs, “well not quite, but she said he once made an entire collection in the same fabric. And in a certain way, it was a performance to think of a whole collection all in cotton gabardine. Yes, it’s a kind of challenge. I think for me, it’s the best way to think and to work.”
The human touch
At this level of involvement, the human relationship between the maker and wearer is of utmost importance. In contrast to the industry of fast fashion where clothes are mere disposable commodities of mass industrial production, Adeline puts the human touch back into the creation process, evoking the time honored relationship between tailor and wearer. And as each of these sartorial relationships are unique, each made to measure piece is constructed with a unique pattern specifically for that person.
“I like to have this proximity with my customers. You will learn alot from your customers and it’s the only way to know what they want, what they need, what they feel in your clothes. With these indications you can grow in your designs and in yourself. I’ve learnt a lot of things speaking with them and I love this relationship with them. I always wanted to have an atelier to welcome my customers and to make fittings in a private, confidential way. To listen to them and discover what they want.”
Fabien Courtal, one of Adeline’s customers, has found this sartorial relationship very rewarding. “I do not speak much to Adeline when I come to find her with some new garment in mind,” he explains. “I just give her mere orientations concerning shape, colour and texture; then I let her work. Adeline knows enough about what I look like; she’s perfectly aware of my taste for anachronistic silhouettes, as she’s familiar with most of the pieces I already own. Thus all that’s left for me is to progressively discover, through the fabrics she chooses, the pattern she designs and the final result, how right she guesses my needs. This is certainly the most pleasant part in dealing with her: not to know what exactly to expect, and yet to be certain it will respond to the rest of your wardrobe and, beyond that, to your aesthetics. As some people have a talent to find the exact words you are searching for, Adeline succeeds in giving a concrete shape to your vague ideas of a garment, designing it out of what she perceives of your own personality.”
“Less is more”
Adeline’s distinctive vision of masculine elegance and experiences with her existing customers has led her to define her work in more concrete terms. Her experimental new capsule collection named ‘Postulate’ explores six archetypes that form the foundation of her menswear, namely; the Frock Coat, the Turning Pant, the Sarouel, the Breeches, the T, and finally the Tank.
Each of these postulates symbolises a unique component of her work and more importantly, such a structure allows for progression and the deepening of these same ideas over time. Seen in this way, this ready to wear capsule collection forms a symbiotic relationship with her made to measure service. Each postulate forms the basis from which a unique made to measure garment can be created for an individual, and a new experimental made to measure piece has the potential to bring to life a new postulate; each strengthening the other in an evolutionary melting pot.
Yet interestingly enough, fashion is not a word that inspires Adeline. “I don’t like this word, fashion,” she confides. “There are two things for me. There are clothes, and there is fashion. Fashion – it’s trends, money, industry, and companies. On the other side you have clothes – construction, fabrics, and people who want to know about clothes. How we make clothes, how we wear them, how we feel in them. It’s my way to see the clothing, the exchange between my customers and I.”
Despite this, Adeline still remains pragmatic and refreshingly down to earth. “I don’t want to be rich, I just want to be able to live normally,” she smiles. “I’m so happy in my work, I don’t need to have so much money to be happy. Really, it’s a pleasure and my happiness to do this work. So I have to find a good way to work, to be able to do both – to keep quality and to be able to live comfortably.”
Visit stat-ment.fr
Interviewed by Brian Chung.
Photos courtesy of Matias Indjic & Adeline Basely.