Some people call Patrick Mohr the poor man's Bernhard Willhelm, while others simply call him that weird designer guy who puts on Deutschland's craziest shows. His debut show at last summer's Berlin Fashion Week featured homeless guys, and the most recent saw bald headed, topless men and women. The German press pretty much covered the whole range of opinions on him--from raving about his easygoing and actually wearable designs, to ranting about his lazy shock tactics and unhealthy looking models. We decided to stop by his studio to find out if he's all hype, or if the weirdness has purpose.Vice: Hi Patrick, what's up with taking the androgyny to such an extreme place with the bald and bearded women? Patrick Mohr: I perceive males and females as a unity, even though we're not 100% alike. That's why I'm into creating fashion that disguises the female anatomy. It was also about opening a new chapter, about having people walk out of this show, completely shocked and confused.Why do you have to shock people, shouldn't it just be about showing the clothes? I create fashion with a deeper meaning. It's not just about presenting T-shirts. I want people to discuss my shows. To realize how close men and women are. I want to create something new, something from the heart.Do you really think fashion can change things? I think it can, I'm on the path now.So what did you want to change when you showed your collection with the bodybuilders? It was basically about showing how similar the female bodybuilders are to the male ones, they're almost identical.What about the snails on your desk? Oh, my roommates over there? Snails are hermaphrodites. So they're both men and women, too.
OK, but the most controversial thing still seems to be the show with homeless people as models. What was that all about? That's where it started: The male and female homeless people were so alike that you couldn't really tell the difference, plus you had to ask yourself whether the guys you were seeing were really homeless or not.Ah, now I see it come together. Where does that gender-erasing obsession of yours come from? My own life. Until five years ago I didn't know what I was. Everything I do is deeply connected to my heart. You know, I used to walk into H&M and grab stuff from the women's collection. I used to ask myself, "why shouldn't I go there? Why shouldn't I use women's perfumes? Why shouldn't I use the lady's room?" If I have to use the bathroom, I go to the one I want to go to, not the one a sign directs me to. Yet at the end of the day, I'm in the fashion business and I can make a living from it.You're more commercial than someone like Bernhard Willhelm then? I design extravagant fashion pieces, but also commercial things, so it works out well. My dad is 62 and wears my jeans, but I can dress a teenager in those jeans too. Some designers will only do crazy things and think it's against their dignity to compromise, but it's a tough business, and if you don't get that, you don't stand a chance. Look at Bernhard, he's doing crazy, amazing things, but his target group is extremely limited. That wouldn't be enough for me. I want the whole country wearing my jeans!So, when people compare you to Bernhard Willhelm, you think that's daft then? Maybe it's just because we're Germans and both crazy and all that. He's successful in Paris, but just go out on the street and no one is going to know who he is.I read that you started out as a model. How did you get into that? I always wanted to do that, people told me to forget it and no agency in Munich would hire me. So I went to Milan for Fashion Week again and again. Modeling gave me a chance to look behind the scenes and then I was like, I don't want this shit job any more, I want to be a designer.You used to look completely different too, right? Yeah, I used to have long blond hair, and a real baby face. Not how I look now. My parents were really against me modeling.Why? We used to go to Munich from my little hometown of Rosenheim sometimes and my personal highlight was grabbing the cataloge of Sport Scheck, a local sports department store. I'd study the models for days on end, and wanted to become one some day.Then somewhere along the way you really got into the ugly and obscure, huh? If you look at the fashion universe it's all about glamor, beauty, and bling. That's bullshit. Anyone can do fashion. Fuck it and be who you are.So fashion week is a bit of a headache for you? I went to this Vogue party, which was pretty sad. You know, I get up in the morning, wearing these clothes I'm wearing now and then go to a Vogue party in the same things. I don't give a fuck about who's standing next to me. Spending another three hours in front of a mirror in the evening before hitting the Vogue party, that's bullshit.I like that attitude. So how did you manage to get into fashion without becoming all corrupted? I signed up for Esmod, and really had to convince my parents because it's quite expensive. I had a very rough time there, and almost got kicked out during my second year for being so independent. When I did my graduate collection people laughed at me, everybody was against me, and then guess what? I won a prize and they were like WTF?And then everything went super fast from there? I showed my collection at Apartment Store in Berlin, and Modabot interviewed me, which somehow kick started everything. Then I moved to Copenhagen, to work for Henrik Vibskov, where things really took off.After Vibskov you started showing at Berlin Fashion Week, right? I really wanted too, and even though some people thought it was out of my league, I knew I believed in myself and could do it.So what's the number one thing to expect from you in the future? My stuff will never be easy to take in. However, I think this latest collection made people realize I'm not only an agitator, but also a designer who's actually making clothes, and a businessman rather than this flamboyant fashion guy.How do you link business with propagating homeless chic though? Italian Vogue had a homeless chic cover last summer and I think Marc Jacobs did something similar ages ago. I'm pretty sure I was just part of rejuvenating the homeless trend last summer, it's also called bum chic.Some people might think only an asshole would use homeless people in their show, what do you say to that? No one forced them to do it. If they didn't like it they could leave. They were all happy afterward and I wasn't doing it for the headlines. The show really came from the bottom of my heart.But the homeless guys and the models were dressed differently? The models just had better bodies for showing jeans. That's why the homeless people wore the special items and the models the more commercial stuff.
One more question: How long does it take to give a model chick a bald head and a beard?
You'd normally need an hour per model, minimum. Some girls had hair all the way down to their butts, which they all had to put up with pins. Except for two girls complaining about the pain when they removed their latex caps afterward, the whole thing was pretty relaxed.Thanks, Patrick!INTERVIEW BY BARBARA DABROWSKA
PHOTOS BY STEVE RYAN
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You'd normally need an hour per model, minimum. Some girls had hair all the way down to their butts, which they all had to put up with pins. Except for two girls complaining about the pain when they removed their latex caps afterward, the whole thing was pretty relaxed.Thanks, Patrick!INTERVIEW BY BARBARA DABROWSKA
PHOTOS BY STEVE RYAN
