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<h1 class="full">The Spanish designer speaks about his style of construction that walks the line between romanticism and realism, his tactile experiments, and aspirations in fashion beyond all notions of ‘leaving a legacy’ to Rujuta Vaidya in an interview for dirty.</h1>

<h1 class="full">The famous Arturo Obegero, the one that Stylenot.com put their money on, is sitting in a crisp white button down, on a sensible couch, against a sensible wall, in very sensible wireframe glasses on a Teams call. Without his rings, he could be pitching for a Series B funding of his start-up. I pass on the observation which cracks him up. In a world of dreamers, Obegero values practicality. His aspirations are backed by plans. What seems effortless on the outside is in fact fleshed out to the T, much like his style of construction. Dirty investigates into the St. Martin’s graduate’s artistry which values tactile experiments over airy concepts.</h1>

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<h1 class="left">Rujuta: Tell me a little bit about your creative process. What were some of your early experiments when you started discovering that you have a talent?</h1>

<h1 class="left">Arturo: I don't normally draw a lot and when I do it's very technical. I need to understand the pattern, the silhouette… I also work a lot with collage, it helps to see the full vision in a more graphic way. In terms of research, it could be anything, from an haute couture reference, my favourite dance performance, to a chair that I love, to just music. I make playlists with every collection to get into the right mood. The more open you keep it, the richer it is at the end. And yet, sometimes my process is really simple–I have an idea immediately and go for that one. Overall I try to keep it as minimal as possible, so it's really easy to understand.</h1>

<h1 class="left">Back in my hometown in Spain, when you walk along the beach you find sea glass that the ocean brings back from all the pollution, almost like precious stones. So I found that really poetic. When I was a kid, I used to collect them because to me they were like little diamonds coming from the oceans. I tried to make a top out of them with glue and silicone over organza, but it looked like a big mess. However, we brought that idea back for our SS22 “Euphoria” collection, and we made a Paco Rabanne-inspired top with all the crystals in a dégradé effect. Many friends and kids from my hometown helped me find all the sea glass, so it was a truly beautiful moment.</h1>

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<h1 class="left">Rujuta: You grew up in Spain and you're settled in Paris. Do you feel the difference in how creativity is perceived in one country over another?</h1>

<h1 class="left">Arturo: One of the main reasons I'm here in France is because I'm ambitious, and at some point, I want to be the creative director of a fashion house. You have to be where the action happens. Something that France has, is that fashion is so intrinsically connected with the culture here. The support that I'm getting here in Paris, I don't think about getting anywhere else.</h1>

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<h1 class="centre">Rujuta: You post a lot of McQueen videos on Instagram. He always said, “For me, what I do is an artistic expression which is channelled through me. Fashion is just the medium.” Is that how you feel?</h1>

<h1 class="centre">Arturo: I don't know if clothes are the only way, because I think I still have to try so many things in life. I would love to create my own play one day, direct a movie or get into photography or dance. To me, fashion is really connected to music, the body, and dance. You cannot have one without the other. Growing up, for so many of us in our generation, McQueen was a huge inspiration for me, and his legacy is still today.</h1>

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<h1 class="centre">Rujuta: One of the other videos that you post a lot is the thin man from Charlie's Angels…</h1>

<h1 class="centre">Arturo: Our autumn/winter 2023 collection was called ‘Homme Fatale’. It was a play on the archetype of the femme fatale that was so popular in the 40s and the 50s film noir cinema. We took inspiration from several movie characters to create our own “Homme Fatal”. We also referenced this Charlie’s Angels scene where the “Thin Man” is wearing this pinstripe suit, with a sword-cane, sleek gelled hair, Prodigy playing in the background. Heaven. He is so creepy and weirdly hot, he was one of our main references.</h1>

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<h1 class="centre">Rujuta: What's on your mind right now?</h1>

<h1 class="centre">Arturo: I'm still building the mood board for spring summer and right now, but I have a lot of surfers on it. My hometown, Tapia de Casariego, is one of the places where surfing was first practiced in the whole of Europe. So I'm digging that for the moment but let's see!</h1>

<h1 class="centre">Rujuta: You mentioned a little bit earlier about how you don't know if you want to always put out a collection. Do you feel like the current kind of generation of designers is able to decide that for themselves?</h1>

<h1 class="centre">Arturo: Azzedine Alaïa only released collections when he felt he was ready. People waited for it and he always delivered. And I think that was sort of missing right now. We are so used to consuming–whether it's information or clothing, food, or everything. We don't know what's good anymore, we get tired of seeing things, there’s too much of everything and we just don’t have time to analyse them. I feel like because of the system, you have to really continue to show. I only do two collections a year and for a young designer, even that is a lot. I don't come from a rich family, I don't have the contacts. Every little bit of money I make goes into the making of the next one. We have to all learn how to wait again. We are in a situation where everything is just so about being viral. Obviously, it's great to have attention, we all love attention, creatives need attention to survive, but ultimately it's becoming a bit ridiculous sometimes.</h1>

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<h1 class="right">Rujuta: From being a design student to one of the most sought-after names in the industry, what was the turning point in your career?</h1>

<h1 class="right">Arturo: One was when I got into the official Paris Fashion Week calendar–that was a big seal of approval. Then when I started selling at retailers like SSENSE. Because you can have your own online boutique but to work with a retailer is different, you exist for a bigger audience of consumers and for the industry. And then the third one and the biggest one was Harry Styles. When his stylist, Harry Lambert, mentioned our look would be in the video, I didn’t expect the whole video to feature our looks! I woke up to so many followers, DMs, phone calls…</h1>

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<h1 class="left">Rujuta: Kshitij (Kankaria) was telling me that you make a lot of clothes by hand…</h1>

<h1 class="left">Arturo: I mean, I love it, but I am trying not to do everything myself though. However, I still have to do plenty of it, obviously. I believe that in a collection, in order for it to be personal, your hands have to be involved in the process. Someone that I admire–Cristóbal Balenciaga, used to make looks in his atelier for the couture shows. This idea of the creative director just sitting on a chair and pointing at things is not for me. I can be researching in a book for hours or trying to find images, but many of my ideas come when I am pattern-cutting. Pattern cutting is a lot of work, but it's also a moment of escapism. You’re just present and focused on what you have in front of you, so it can be both tedious and inspiring.</h1>

<h1 class="left">Sometimes my wall is full of pieces of broken pattern paper with quick illustrations. I make random drawings of an idea that came to my head and then I start with the pattern. In order to be a good designer, you have to know how to make it, and you have to know how to explain it.</h1>

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<h1 class="right">Rujuta: Are there any elements of the industry or just fashion as a practice that you absolutely think you can't stand?</h1>

<h1 class="right">Arturo: I have a love/hate relationship with fashion, it can be the most inspiring and at the same time toxic industry. There are plenty of things I don’t enjoy: the nepotism, the extreme consumerism, and overproduction, the marketing being more important than the creation, the constant need to overshare and sell yourself. I’m not the best at event networking. This idea of ‘Oh I have to go to this place, to this party in order to sell myself’. I'm not shy, I can talk to everyone but the moment I know I have to be there to do that, it becomes so unnatural that I cannot. I'm also not a big fan of this ‘celebrity designer’ that we have to be right now. You have to be great at everything, and at the same time you have to be an insta star–nothing against that, it’s just not me, I’d rather let the quality work carry most of my message. However, I acknowledge it’s an important thing, so I try little by little. It's a learning process.</h1>

<h1 class="right">Rujuta: How do you try to push the envelope with what you do every single season, like you try to learn new things? You are trying to perfect something. What do you chase?</h1>

<h1 class="right">Arturo: Our SS23 “Song to the Siren” collection was the most different one we made to this day. We tried to be less rigorous, and less about tailoring, it was much more fluid and with so many colours, more feminine, and delicate. For autumn winter 2023, we tried to go as commercial as possible yet still keep our essence, and it was the collection that got us the best feedback. Season by season, we are trying to show the maturity and evolution of the brand and trying to build a realistic AO wardrobe, but also keeping an element of romanticism and fantasy. Minimal drama.</h1>

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<h1 class="centre">Rujuta: What gives you a sense of satisfaction?</h1>

<h1 class="centre">Arturo: When people send me DM’s to tell me how they feel about the collection, or when they just bought a piece and they send me a picture saying how much they love it and they feel fab. To me, it's an amazing moment. I had a big epiphany moment when we were shooting the video for our AW23 collection, I realised how lucky I was to have all my friends and all my team working together. We basically have no budget. All the models, beauty, and production team, everyone is just working together because we believe in the project and we love each other, and we always work hard but still have a lot of fun.</h1>

<h1 class="centre">Rujuta: Who do you design for?</h1>

<h1 class="centre">Arturo: Hmm, I don't like to define too specifically who I'm trying to dress, to me the relationship you have with clothing is so subjective, it’s about your own personal connection. However, I do have a lot of “muses”, plenty of musicians, dancers, my friends, family, and my own style too. I just want to create beautiful clothes, that are beautifully made, that make people feel great, give them poise, and empower them to go through life with confidence, because ultimately that’s the power of fashion.</h1>

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<h1 class="centre">Rujuta: What's next for you?</h1>

<h1 class="centre">Arturo: Keep building the brand and thinking of what we have to do in order to get to where I want. Hopefully move to a studio, slowly grow our clothing offering, our team, and stop being a “young designer” and become a real designer. Slow but steady.</h1>

<h1 class="centre">Rujuta: I remember having this conversation with Marine Serre and asking her if she would ever want to be like the head of a big fashion brand. And she said yes I would like to be the head of my own big fashion brand. Is working with a legacy house important to you?</h1>

<h1 class="centre">Arturo: I would love to become the CD of a big fashion house. If anyone is gonna read this, I'm down for the job! Even if it's stressful, being able to work with a CEO to plan a creative and business vision for a brand with incredible ateliers, teams and resources, sounds like a dream to me, and I love working with heritage and building and rebuilding with that. Plenty of times I find myself feeling restrained because I have great ideas that unfortunately I can’t afford. There are many maisons that I love. My dream when I was a kid was to become the first Spanish creative director at Balenciaga after Cristóbal himself.</h1>

<h1 class="centre">Rujuta: Is that how you'd like to be remembered?</h1>

<h1 class="centre">Arturo: I'm not really interested in being remembered or famous at all. I think the idea of leaving a “legacy” and “being remembered” can be toxic and unhealthy. I truly just want to create great collections and projects that people love and connect to.</h1>

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