I would like to be anonymous. Invisible, if there was the possibility. But his work puts him in the center of the scene, prevents him from the desired anonymity and forces him to deal with his shyness.
Pablo Ramírez He is an undisputed reference of Argentine fashion. He has been working in the country for thirty years and twenty -five with his Ramírez label. His collections are a symbol of elegance, sophistication and austerity.
In full personal and professional maturity, the designer and cartoonist is expanding his creative background. In short, he debuts as theater director with “The Living Voice”, at the Cervantes Theater.
He is always accompanied by his husband and partner Gonzalo Barbadillo, with whom he shares love, family and work.
News: If I had to tell who it is, what characteristics do they define it, what would I say?
Pablo Ramírez: They define me the search for beauty, the search for harmony, synthesis, austerity. They also define rigor and humor. I can’t think much more, how difficult.
News: How is your humor? What fun?
Ramírez: It seems to me that humor is the maximum expression of intelligence. Being able to laugh, find the return to the thing and be able to laugh at that. If I think what makes me laugh I associate it with Niní Marshall. That kind of humor that has to do with observation too. A very acute look that results in laughter.
News: Is it one of the people who see the glass half full or half empty?
Ramírez: I think until the fifty I always saw the glass half empty and now I started to see half full, it seems to me. I have this idea of myself as a melancholic person. But that did not prevent me or paralyzed to continue doing. Despite having that look I was always resisting. Although the glass was not full, resist and continue doing. Today I feel a little less tortured about that and I am learning to enjoy a little more or see the glass a little fuller.
News: At another time, you defined a tortuous soul, with a dramatic way, almost lorquiana to see life.
Ramírez: Yes, but from the fifty and past the pandemic began to realize that it was already, that it was already enough tortuosity. The drama and tragedy are part of me, but, on the other hand, I feel super grateful for how my life was developed and what I am doing with my life to be as I am today. It doesn’t make much sense to continue torturing me. The same, in everyday I am not rolled or complicated. Maybe that becomes more evidenced in work. For example, I had a lot of bad in my parades for that tortuous thing of the demand. And in the latter that I did recently, far from thinking that it was perfect and that it came out as I wanted, I feel that I did not suffer so much.
News: How is this moment?
Ramírez: Thirty years ago I work in Argentina and the situation was never stable or foreseeable, neither pleasant nor comfortable. One learns to surf, to balance or stand. It is an exercise that over time is getting used. It is still difficult or never ceases to be a challenge, but somehow you are more tanned.
News: This year he turns twenty -five years old with his label. What generates this anniversary?
Ramírez: It seems to me a lie. I still can’t believe they are twenty -five years old. It costs me a lot to dimension it. In fact, the Medifé Foundation will publish a book about my work. It’s a lot of time, work, things I did. It is resistance, permanence, continue doing, working.
News: How did the brand evolve?
Ramírez: There is an axis that is maintained, it has to do with elegance, fantasy, desire, be able to dream. That is what it is always. Part of the evolution has to do with the knowledge, learning and maturation that I achieved in these years. For example, for this latest collection I resumed molding of twenty -five years ago. The idea was the same, but I updated it based on the knowledge I have today about the body, the figure, the silhouette.
News: What implies being elegant today?
Ramírez: There are no formulas or keys. It is a job that has to do with knowledge, with your eyes, with recognizing you, with questioning, with wondering. And for me, fundamentally, it has to do with the truth. The truly elegant is the true, what is real, what one can sustain and defend. Do not pretend to be what you are.
News: Who are your customers?
Ramírez: People who are in the search and who know that what they will find are tools for its construction. People of all ages, most women, but I also have men.
News: What look at your own image?
Ramírez: It is the most difficult. What I have most to work is not to be so rushed with myself. I feel that I could loosen the rigor in other things, but with me I am always giving myself. I have the desire to be anonymous or invisible, but then I have to face reality. I am neither anonymous nor I am invisible, I have an image and I have to introduce myself to the world. If it is for my idealization, I feel that I am never up to the image ideal that I have.
News: Over the years he changed his appearance. Are you friends today with your body?
Ramírez: Yes, I stay in weight, because I achieved a balance. It has to do with care and food, without going crazy, and physical activity. Finally, after fifty years, I managed to connect the body with physical activity. I do pilates and training in a gym. It has to do with appropriating the body rather than with the image. I am not all the time looking in the mirror, I’m already big for that.
News: They recently paid him in his town, Navarro.
Ramírez: Yes, they had already named me illustrious citizen. Then I had another recognition right there that the Ministry of Culture of the Province of Buenos Aires gave me. This time the mayor made me very important recognition, naming me winner of our people. They were like 150 people in the cinema of Navarro and I projected the documentary I had prepared for the Legislature of Buenos Aires. Then there was a reception and I met my school classmates, my kindergarten teacher, teachers, neighbors, friends, my family. I left the town when I finished high school and came to the city of Buenos Aires to study design at the UBA.
News: And you feel a winner?
Ramírez: I don’t know if the word is winner. I feel lucky and very grateful for everything.
News: How does success measure? What does it mean for you?
Ramírez: For me, success is other things. It is giving me a hug with Gonzalo before sleeping or celebrating my mother his 75 years with a chocolate for her friends. Feel that I have a family with my brothers, my nephews and my mother and a family that I could build with Gonzalo and Valentín, his son. That I have friends, that I have a job, that I can give work, that my work is very diverse. I haute couture, I have a line of jeans that is sold through the online store, a store in Recoleta, where I sell pret-á- Porter. I make costumes for Fito Páez, for an opera and make the uniforms for a perfume or for a restaurant, seen to actresses. I never set goals or set out to reach such a place. But twenty -five years passed and I’m still working.
News: How is this family that formed with Gonzalo and Valentín?
Ramírez: Gonzalo has been my friend for more than thirty years. He married, he had his son, we are still friends and at one point he started working with me. Then he separated and after a while we started out. Today we are partners and couple and we have been working together in Ramírez twenty -five years ago. Last year, after twenty -two, we got married. Valentín lived with the mother and with us until in 2010 she went to live in the United States and he stayed with us. He studied cinema and now lives there, but we talked every night. The link remains intact.
News: How is it a couple and partners at the same time?
Ramírez: It is unbearable, but we are accustomed. We get along, the truth, we complement each other well. At times it seems that we are totally opposite, but then we agree on everything. Gonzalo is in the store and I, in the Atelier, but we are both aware of all the songs and handle them together.
News: And now debuts as theater director.
Ramírez: I never proposed it, but now I realize that I have a head, an eye of director because I am always thinking about the whole of the scene, of the story. Alejandra Radano always told me that I have to direct. María Merlino also told me. At one point, Maria told me about a project she had, a work written by Fabián Díaz and Andrea Ganina, and proposed to me. I accepted and, finally, she took the book to Gonzalo Demaría. He loved himself and scheduled for the Golden Hall of the Cervantes Theater. He is a unipersonal named “La Live Voz”, starring Maria. I am in charge of the costumes, the scenery and the direction. We premiered on August 21.
