Gendefluid fashion Chema Díaz exclusive interview

artPLAY FASHION DESIGNERS…LET’S START PLAYING….

Chema Díaz is a London-based Spanish-national whose energetic, inclusive, and community-driven brand has lit up London’s queer scene. With a healthy dose of neon and diamantes, his creative work is concerned with pop culture, fashion, and erotica. By re-appropriating traditionally queer-phobic cultures, Díaz is in the midst of developing a brand with sustainability and community at its heart.

Here is an interview Chema Diaz gave to artPLAY. interview by Kay Altamira www.instagram.com/kayaltamira and text by Anna www.instagram.com/annakmid

artPLAY: As a stylist, DJ and creative director, what was transitioning into Fashion Design like for Chema Díaz?

Díaz: I have been designing clothes since I was around 4 years old. I started designing my own costumes for Carnival when I was a kid and my mom was helping me making them. As I grew older I kept commissioning pieces that I was designing to tailors, or customizing my own. I had a couple of online t-shirt stores when I was in high school to make extra money… and a couple of years ago, after working in the fashion industry and making my bosses rich, I decided to use my own knowledge and resources to try and make my own dream happen.

artPLAY: In your infamous collection ‘2007’, you pay homage to pop culture, referencing Britney Spears, Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan as the ‘Holy Trinity’. What was the creative process involved in this decision?

Díaz: 2007 is a very personal collection. That was a decisive year in my life, in the construction of the current me, and a coming of age. I was bullied in high school, and seeing Britney Spears’s rebellious act of shaving her head gave me the inspiration and strength to liberate myself and be whoever I really wanted to be. As I kept growing I could see how my personal life had a lot in common with those of the ‘Holy Trinity’. So the creative process was taking my own experiences, trauma, fears, and knowledge, and transforming that into conceptual pop-art pieces of clothing. I re-explored the way I was dressing in 2007 and threw that into the creative process mix as well.

artPLAY: ‘Fuck me I’m an immigrant’ is becoming a signature slogan in Chema Díaz branding, across all your designs. What’s the story behind it, and what is it like to be an immigrant in London right now?

Díaz: It’s a twist on those ‘FUCK ME I’M FAMOUS’ t-shirts that were popular in the noughties, but adapted to my personal experience as an immigrant in Brexit England. I play with the double meaning of ‘fuck’, and highlight the hypersexualization of immigrants in this country. Many people want us out of their country… but they keep wanting us in their beds.

“Many people want us out of their country… but they keep wanting us in their beds”

artPLAY: Congratulations on BANDIDO, your first runway show! In this you managed to successfully merge ancient Spanish traditions with queer culture. Could you tell us more about your inspiration and influences?

Díaz: Thank you so much! It was natural to me to go back to my roots for my first fashion show. Being a Spanish immigrant in London I could never imagine I would be able to throw a fashion show of my own, so I wanted to take you all back to where I am from. The main purpose was to take elements traditionally linked to far-right movements, like the Spanish flag, or even flamenco or bullfighting, and re-appropriate them and give them a new meaning through my queer perspective. The show was inspired by the Spain that interests me: icons like Ocaña, a queer performance artist who died when his clothes caught in fire, Manuela Trasobares or Cristina La Veneno: visible trans women who fought for our rights in my country and became really accepted personalities.

artPLAY: The materials and embellishments you use across the BANDIDO collection are often considered referential to BDSM, fetish culture and rave attire in general. Do you consider yourself as mainly an alternative designer? What are the plans for Chema Díaz in the fashion future?

Díaz: I don’t consider BDSM or fetish or rave as alternative. That’s my reality. Florals or wool suits are alternative fashion for me. I don’t personally know anyone who wears that to be honest. I am lucky and thankful for all the friends I’ve met in London who find liberation through clothing, and I want to design for them.

In the future, I just want to be economically sustainable enough to keep running my brand, and ideally employ and pay a decent wage to all my highly talented friends, and create a nice queer positive work environment for them.

artPLAY: You have been very vocal about the importance of sustainability. What would be an important strategy for designers nowadays to encourage consumers to reject fast-fashion and turn towards boutique design?

Díaz: I think it’s time to slow down in everything related to consumption. We’re gonna all blow up if we keep up with this pace. All my garments are made to order and hand-finished by me in London. We need to realize that there are real people behind our clothes: they don’t grow in hangers in the stockroom of your nearest Zara.

I want to touch every single garment before it gets sent, and I write a personal thank you note to every single one of my customers. It’s the least I can do: I wish I could meet them, but this is the only interaction I can have with them.

I don’t produce any waste, or have any deadstock or overstock, because only the clothes that are sold are being produced. This also makes the garments more exclusive: there are less chances the other people in the club are wearing the same top you’re wearing.

“We need to realize that there are real people behind our clothes: they don’t grow in hangers in the stockroom of your nearest Zara.”

artPLAY: Lastly, what makes you go ‘artPLAY’?

Díaz: My new song with GFOTY! It’s called ‘COOL’ and it appears on the EP ‘If You Think I’m A Bitch You Should Meet GFOTY’. I have wanted to record music for a long long time and I am so happy GFOTY and Count Baldor gave me this chance to be on the EP. I rap in Spanish in the song, and it is basically about that exact moment when you realise the guy you thought was so cool, was, well, basically not COOL at all. Available now in all your music platforms worldwide, go give us some streams! Here is the link to the EP: https://open.spotify.com/album/1jBfad5vw1d3TZma1vM75Q