She lived several lives in one, created brands, let them go, founded others and let them go, but she was always true to herself. Jessica Trosman, founding designer of Argentine fashion, was never carried away by convenience but by desire. Like her when she kicked the clothing board and she decided to jump headfirst into the sculpture, without a net and without prejudice. She today she enjoys her first solo show on Gachi Prieto Gallery and far from denying his past, he adds it to this new beginning. Chronicle of a trip with stopovers in joint work, time, the ups and downs of fashion, the humor of art and another twist with Trosman Churba.
News: Although you had been working on textile sculptures for a long time, how did the idea for Temporada, your first solo show, come about?
Jessica Trosman: About a year ago, Gachi Prieto called me to do a show and I didn’t have much thought about the concept, so I started working. You saw that one comes from the world of fashion and at first you want to banish all that and it doesn’t come out (laughs). So every time I thought about the show, I went back to the idea of a season, of a fashion show, and then I wondered why not do it that way and be as genuine as possible.
News: In fashion, a season has a lot of work behind it, runs, adrenaline and also uncertainty about the result. Is there something to that?
Trosmann: Yes, because I approached the concept with all the good and all the bad. When you do fashion, you hate the seasons, but now that I am somehow out of that circuit, I wanted to honor them. I feel that these new sculptural bodies that appear in my life become what the people I dressed used to be. I wanted to explore new, more risky forms where there is no armhole or drawstring, the comfortable or the uncomfortable, but beyond all that, the human body persecutes me. This is the best way I found to talk about my journey from clothing design to another stop on this path, which I still don’t know very well what it is. All creatives from any discipline have different stops in life to explore new and different challenges.
News: You mentioned comfort, is it okay to be uncomfortable?
Trosmann: Totally, it’s good to get out of comfort and I threw the flip-flop (laughs), I dropped everything.
News: And what caused the flip flop?
Trosmann: I felt the need to dismantle what was done to transform it into something new. There came a time when there was a lot of infrastructure, a lot of people and I needed to work more alone, find another rhythm. Because fashion is charming but at the same time it does not value the work and time behind a design. At one point, that system where it is designed, produced, consumed and discarded is a bit perverse. I wanted to do something that would last longer.
News: Is the art world freer than the fashion world?
Trosmann: For me if. Not having to deal with factors that imply the do’s and don’ts of a collection, with the commercial grid, with so many prejudices… The art world is more liberating, especially because I was able to meet myself. Today the fashion industry requires ventures that are not personal, many people are needed behind a brand, you need those commercial conglomerates. They are the only ones who have enough money to support marketing and good production.
News: Bored with fashion or your system?
Trosmann: I think I’ve already turned around in fashion. It does not mean that I will not do something again, surely at some point I will come back with something new when I feel like it and truly feel it. But I’m not here to have a lot of people in my charge at this time of life, I want to be lighter.
News: Some loads are not seen but they are. Were you afraid that there would be prejudice in the art world because you came from clothing design?
Trosmann: Of course. I asked myself and I understood that I had to do it. I am someone who has always worked hard on technique and in this case too, I don’t know if I’m an artist, I don’t like putting labels on myself. I’m not very aware of what they will say, I deepen the technique and resources a lot, in the Chinese horoscope I am a fire horse, so I put a claw in it and do not look to the side. I feel that I got together with a lot of people who have no prejudices, I work with Emiliano Miliyo who is a great artist and gives me a lot of support, for this show we worked with Diego Bianchi who comes from Graphic Design and has a different look. I am a big fan of many artists, I always flirted with that world. I have always been fascinated by art and I admire people who dedicate hours to a work.
News: Did you need to separate yourself from fashion to be able to return at some point? Because sometimes fashion can be suffocating like a bad love relationship.
Trosmann: That’s just what happened to me. There were also very fast fashion moments that are valid, but the dedication that one puts into design is undervalued, that’s why I also left, I could no longer dedicate what I wanted to my work. I thought: “This is a business, but as long as it makes you happy, if there is no happiness, move on, make yourself uncomfortable”. When I got out of there I started to rediscover my archive and that did me a lot of good because I started to understand some things.
News: What were those things?
Trosmann: When you’re in fashion you run all day and that characteristic identifies me a lot, so understanding that and putting on the handbrake was not a minor thing. I needed a little introspection. I have a lot of textile heritage in my way of production, it’s hard for me to sit still but today I can be in front of a work and think about it calmly, if I don’t want to go back to it for 15 days I don’t do it, nobody is touching my back to hurry me up. They are other times.
News: That your work recovers the textile was deliberate?
Trosmann: When I threw away my flip-flop in 2019 I thought that I was not going to do something far from my essence, I was not going to start painting in oils. I love and value that work very much, but it’s not my thing. So I started the workshop with Emiliano and he gave me the necessary support because what I wanted was to be able to inflate the garments and somehow have these new friends, monsters, humanoids that appear in the sculptures. The works are related to sensations that I have during the day. I don’t know if I was good at clothes or creating sculptures, but what I like is to continue making things. While this moment lasts, I don’t know how long it will be, I spent a lot of time in fashion, I want to go very deep. I take it as a bus stop, today I am in this one.
News: It occurs to me that if he were a bus driver he would be a very particular one because he is more interested in the route than getting to the terminal
Trosmann: (laughs) Exactly. I am interested in the path, putting together stable, small teams. Because now I feel like I’m crawling, starting every day. In the world of fashion I was on automatic. If one day I return I want to feel that this time served me to do something else.
News: In art there is criticism and in fashion, at least locally, there is not. Why do you think that happens?
Trosmann: In art, opinion is accepted, having a look at the work, a point of view. I think that the absence of criticism in fashion has to do with several factors, the Fashion Design career is only a couple of decades old, it seems to me that on the one hand there is no tradition and it is hard for people to cheer up. Then there is also the social issue, that of the events, the commercial where if you think there is the fear of losing the guideline. And it is not to speak ill of fashion, not at all, because I am very grateful for everything it gave me and what I was able to develop.
News: In this game of differences between art and fashion we can talk about humor. Is fashion taken too seriously here?
Trosmann: There is no game, it is not well seen to occur. When I went to Japan for the first time I flashed badly and I kept running with my camera to people who were walking down the street. Because both men and women are produced to be different and those outfits have an amazing sense of humor. Here playing with what you wear is frowned upon and even more so as a man, that is a ridiculous paradigm. And for a brand to afford the ludic is risky.
News: Can you live from art?
Trosmann: I think so, but I don’t have my roadmap as marked as the one I had in fashion, today I’m here and I like it, I mess with everything but there’s no issue of cash flow, of business, I think that’s the way . On October 22 we will do a show with Martín Churba that will be called Humana at the Usina del Arte and I am enjoying that round of Trosman Churba while I set up my own workshop, a meeting place for artists. What will come? No idea, but that feeling is good.
