The designer who said no to Lady Gaga

SMH

IN THE KNOW:Antonio Berardi has been in the fashion game since the mid nineties, having graduated from the renowned Central Saint Martins which launched him, along with Alexander McQueen, Hussein Chalayan and Marc Jacobs, as one of the decade's new breed of designers.

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He designed the heel-less black latex fetish boots worn by Victoria Beckham but Antonio Berardi refuses to associate his name with celebrities just for the sake of publicity.

That's why the Milan-based designer declined an offer to collaborate with the headline-grabbing performer Lady Gaga.

"I was approached to design a clothing range with Lady Gaga but I knocked it back because I wasn't interested in someone whose music is meaningless," says Berardi, whose celebrity clientele also include Megan Fox, Amber Rose, Eva Mendes and Gwyneth Paltrow.

"Her music is meaningless now so what impact will it have in 20 years?" he said during a recent visit to Australia.

Berardi's approach to celebrity mirrors his own slow and considered design aesthetic.

At 41 he has been in the fashion game since the mid nineties, having graduated from the renowned Central Saint Martins which launched him, along with Alexander McQueen, Hussein Chalayan and Marc Jacobs, as one of the decade's new breed of designers.

Sicilian-born, he inherited a love of fine tailoring and undergarments from "my very strict mother" who influenced him to create dresses and jackets with near architectural accuracy.

"I always start with the underpinnings, it's something I grew up with. I had a very fierce Sicilian mother and three sisters and ... we were taught that underneath was just as important as the outside."

He believes psychologically "you feel good about what's underneath and so I'm playing ... with underwear and for Spring/Summer 2010 we did underwear really as outerwear."

Berardi's superbly cut garments have attracted the likes of Beckham and Paltrow, causing a chain-reaction of opportunities for the designer.

Having the former Spice Girl step out in his gravity-defying boots led to an avalanche of high profile red carpet moments.

The Berardi buzz has since converted into a major Milan fashion house signing him on as its creative director.

He admits the compliments and attention are welcome, but remains circumspect about his latest fifteen seconds of fame.

"Its kinda odd because I've always been doing what I do but I said to someone recently 'it's like a prawn cocktail, one minute it's kind of in vogue and the next minute its not' and its something you've always known and then suddenly its palatable again," he says.

"I guess we have a fast turn-around of designers as well in fashion and there is someone new every season and so sometimes you do have to go on the back-burner and give someone else the opportunity... but I guess after so many year it's nice to be still considered."

Despite his intensive schedule Berardi made time to visit Australia as the guest of honour for the inaugural Peroni Young Designer Awards, held in conjunction with Harpers BAZAAR at the Museum of Contemporary Art on December 4.

Berardi proved a gracious presence, reassuring rather than lecturing the young designers in competition.

A veteran of now two recessions, one in the early nineties and the recent economic crisis, Berardi is wise to the fickle side of design.

"It's the same in any industry whether it's music, film and literature, there are fashions of the time," he says. "Things come in and things go out and in all creative industries it's exactly the same."

His advice on the night to the winner Andrew Aloisio, a Hunters Hill based industrial designer was simple: "As long as you have a vision and continue to take that vision forward eventually it will come to fruition at some point and maybe it will fade away for a while, but it will come back."

The fashion comeback of 2010 is the return to the catwalk of underwear as outwear. For Berardi, the attention to detail on the female form has being an integral part of his designs' DNA.

Suddenly the rest of the fashion world is experimenting with stripping away the outer layers to reveal underwear and suggest nudity by adopting flesh tone shades.

"It's more about the inner self, it's more about the person," reflects Berardi.

"It's fundamental because from the moment you put on an undergarment that sets the tone for your day. If you are going to wear a fabulous dress you have to make sure that your underwear is just as fabulous."

He also views the nude trend as a palate cleanser to wipe the fashion plate clean ready for the beginning of a new decade of style.

"I think the feminine side is coming through and I think it is almost to put things into perspective and its 360 degrees of womanhood if you want," he says.

"It is that idea that everything has a beginning and you can dress that up, or you can dress that down, but at the end of the day the fundamentals are how you view yourself and so from the moment you consider your underpinnings... the idea is deep down there is that part of us we know is totally ours and we do it for ourselves rather than someone else."

- AAP