On this summer morning, the sun pierces the heavy curtains of Pierre-Louis Mascia’s studio – his Toulouse refuge, a cocoon with a padded atmosphere, as if protected from the tumult outside. It is in this building of the XVIIIe century located in the heart of the Carmelite quarter, built on the remains of the Gallo-Roman ramparts, which he comes to draw inspiration from every day. With a view of the Jardin des Plantes, the apartment blurs the issue, closer to the cabinet of curiosities than to the sewing workshop. “I find a lot of trinkets, there are some pretty, at least pretty, it’s motley like me”, Pierre-Louis Mascia advances, dressed in “PLM”, as he says: multicolored floral shirt, enhanced with a geometric tie in flashy pink tone and overalls in blue work style folded over the hips.
In her hushed den, the esthete piles up finds, according to her moods. “Hunting is like fishing, sometimes you have good catches, in all cases you have to persevere”, Is he having fun in front of his latest acquisition: a 19th century Indian wedding chest?e century. “I shop without hierarchy, it is not the price that guides me but the object”, continues the one who presents, with the same attention to detail, both an Aubusson tapestry from the XVIIe century than the face of a tyrannosaurus in fake which sits proudly on a coffee table.
Inspiration through books
The decor sets the tone for his creations: hybrids, abundant, covered with incongruous details. Here, a Chinese hair clip in marquetry of feathers, there plaster sculptures. On a silver platter is an old whistle, “ that of my father, a former football referee ”. “To do fashion well, I think you shouldn’t think about it all the time, in any case, it is never the starting point of my collections: I prefer to refer to art, to dance, at the theater… For me, fashion is also how we dream of everyday life ”, underlines the designer, born in Aveyron in 1968.
It is here in this workshop, that his capsule collection designed from the archives of the Palais Galliera was photographed. “It was obvious to stage the clothes where they had been imagined”, he specifies. An entire room of the studio-apartment is devoted to its library. Often inspiration comes from books.
At the moment, Pierre-Louis Mascia is working on Japanese culture, navigating between books on kabuki (a form of traditional Japanese theater), karakuri (mechanical dolls made in Japan from the XVIIe in the XIXe century) and Bushido (moral code of the samurai). On his desk rests an old edition of the book Chinese Tales or The Marvelous Adventures of Mandarin Fum-Hoam, not too long ago, she too.
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