Artsi Ifrach, the Moroccan designer doing fashion the way he wants
On Taking Out The Industry Out Of Fashion
On July 26 last year, I posted my first story here, so it is exactly one year I have been writing Le Journal Curioso. And yesterday something something special happened. I became a Substack Featured Publication thanks to who featured a part of my interview with Silvia Schirinzi, Fashion Director of the Italian independent magazine Rivista Studio about fashion criticism.
I am so very proud my writing is starting to reach more people, and above all, I am very proud to be part of those writers - , , , , , I am thinking of you, along with many others - who are proving that fashion is culture, too. Thank you!
Lastly, I want to welcome and thank all the readers who chose to become Curious Minds by subscribing to Le Journal Curioso after reading Substack Reads.
Today’s story is the first ever I wrote for Naïfs Magazine. And I still can’t believe I was given this opportunity. Interviewing isn’t easy. I am realising more and more it is a skill to make people you don’t know, not only open up about their work but also their vision and personal life. It is even more difficult when you do it via Zoom amid the pandemic. But this conversation I had with fashion designer, photographer, and art director Artsi Ifrach was one-of-a-kind. It was my first array into fashion in Africa through the eyes of a designer who lives and works in Morocco, a North African country many often forget belongs to the African continent. The Maghreb - the region comprising Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Mauritania, and Lybia - is often considered a world apart from the rest of the continent. So, it was a refresher to find someone who thought otherwise and whose work reflects the diversity of Africa.
From Marrakech with love, Moroccan designer Artsi Ifrach is shaping the fashion world he has always dreamt of. Soft-spoken, but determined, it is with a bold modesty that he opens up about his path and his vision for his distinctive label MAISON ARTC. Entirely self-taught, the designer, art director, and photographer uses his multiple talents to shake up the business of fashion, with love, from Marrakech, Africa. And we love to see the freedom with which he is building his legacy for himself and the designers hailing from that continent he so dearly holds in his heart.
In his former life, Artsi Ifrach was a ballet dancer in his native Jerusalem. His career spanned twenty years, but when asked about this part of his life, the Moroccan ballet dancer turned-designer answered briefly, “It was a very long time ago.” Yet when describing MAISON ARTC - the fashion brand he founded five years ago - he reveals, “I can say I am not working because I am enjoying every minute of it. I don’t work my work, I am dancing it.” There is a softness and poetry in how Artsi Ifrach expresses himself that contrasts with his path to becoming the designer he is today. “Creativity is a source of survival for me. I didn’t have an easy life as a child,” he reveals. Imagination allowed a young Ifrach to escape a reality he didn’t want to see, show, or vocalize. And that struggle is still the fuel of creativity.
The self-taught designer didn’t have a linear path in the fashion industry. His dance to finding his voice took him fifteen years - a time during which he built quite an international career. From Jerusalem and Tel Aviv to Amsterdam and then Paris, people recognized his talent for designing and styling. From this period, though, he recalls, “In the first ten years, I was kept in a dream that every designer on this planet has is to make fashion, be a creative director, in a fashion house, dress famous people, and be very rich.” Artsi Ifrach’s depiction reminds a well-oiled dysfunctional and relentless fashion industry that demands designers to create more and consumers always to buy more. And that was a life he didn’t want.
Fed up by the industry’s culture, production and consumption cycle, after three years in the French fashion capital, he left for Marrakech in 2011. When he talks about the Red City, again, there is poetry in his words. “If Marrakech loves you, she will let you stay, but if she doesn’t, she will make sure that you leave.” Ifrach is a Marrakshi whose love for his city is stimulating his creativity. Similarly to a muse. “What’s interesting about Marrakesh and Morocco in general? I am very grateful it is not a fashionable place because it’s allowing me to be free. I don’t need to follow the fashion industry’s codes to be a good designer here.”
Finally, the frantic dance has become slower. The movements are now spontaneous, free of the fashion industry’s shackles. “The industry will make you believe that if you’re not commercial, you’re not valuable […] there is the fashion industry, and there is fashion. It’s not the same. I am not in the fashion industry; I am just doing fashion. I took the industry out of the equation of what I am doing.” And MAISON ARTC is the embodiment of that statement. There is no logo, not even stitches à la Margiela on MAISON ARTC’s almost regal creations. Beautifully and artfully embroidered, the pieces made from fashion houses’ offcuts and vintage fabric exhibit a genuine love for craftsmanship and uniqueness.
If you enjoy my perspective, support my work as a writer who aims to highlight aspects of fashion that you won’t read about in mainstream media. A monthly subscription is 6€, and a yearly one is 48€.
Are they high fashion or haute couture? It’s impossible to tell. And that is fine because MAISON ARTC thrives on the gap between fashion and art. “I am not branding myself and MAISON ARTC […] I am just practising my creativity and expressing my culture in a way that eventually when you see the clothes that I am making, you will realize that is me.” About this, the writer that I am must say something. I thought I didn’t know MAISON ARTC, let alone Artsi Ifrach, until I remembered Moroccan photographer Mous Lamrabat’s images. And then, I realized, of course, I knew him!
The designer collaborated with the image-maker to create fantastic pictures featuring ravishing freckled model Tilila Oulahj, Ifrach’s muse, and Vogue Arabia's February 2020 cover girl. In one photo, she stands against a reddish village wall dressed in a severe black imposing gown adorned with a pointy exaggerated white collar. The contrast between the Moroccan rural environment and the dress reminiscing, in a more dramatic style, XVIth century fashion is proof that Ifrach also excels in art direction. A photographer himself, he has an eye for composition and gives life to a visual body of work that, again, can’t be classified. Yes, you see clothes in each photograph, but above all, you see a story.
The way he puts together old fabrics and deconstructs and reconstructs vintage clothing belonging to different cultures around the world, and stages them creates a visual world that makes you feel at home. That’s the very reason behind the name of his label. MAISON ARTC borrows its name from the French word home. “MAISON ARTC is a home for our uniqueness. It’s a space I created for us to take pride in our culture. It’s a home where we celebrate who we are and our values as human beings. It’s a home where you can express yourself or come as you are.” Funnily enough, the term ‘Maison’ is often used in the luxury world to describe a heritage brand with a storied past. If there is exclusivity behind the idea of Maison, the home Artsi Ifrach created advocates for community and individuality."
“Individuality is essential to me. That’s why what I create shouldn’t look like anything that already exists because I consider fashion to be a language, an individual’s choice,” the designer explains. If not a single MAISON ARTC creation has an iteration, the concept of individuality also mirrors his customer service experience. The boutique atelier welcomes Ifrach’s fashion and artist clientele only by appointment. But unlike one could expect, he doesn’t do custom-made clothing and he justifies it rightly, “I tried it before and decided never to do it again. Why? Because I believe creativity should always be free. When someone asks you to create something for them, they ought to be disappointed because they come to you with a different expectation. You cut the love between what I am doing and what they love.”
Contribute without strings attached. I know not all of us can commit to supporting every writer and artist we love regularly. If you can’t commit to a monthly or annual subscription but still want to support, you can buy me a coffee below.
Just like his brand’s creations, Ifrach’s approach to fashion is one-of-a-kind, but it has a cost. “I pay the price for being who I am. And that means not being a wealthy designer, but I am very happy to pay that price because I live a beautiful life. I don’t need to be a big designer to consider myself big,” he reflects. Ifrach decentralized vision of the industry allows him to see with clear eyes the creative potential of Africa and the value of its cultures and craftsmanship. “It saddens me when I see African designers leaving their countries for Europe. Despite gaining recognition for their talent initially, rightly because they are African, they always end up embracing the European aesthetic. And what is left of their Africanity is a mention of their native country in their biography. I am a North African designer, working in North Africa, who will stay there and present where I am from in the best way possible.” Ifrach’s choice to establish MAISON ARTC in Marrakech becomes even more understandable. Through his work, he is reclaiming the singularity of his country and Africa.
His art direction and photographs are representative of that vision. From Amazigh to Bamiléké headpieces all the things sourced to complement Ifrach’s creations scrolling MAISON ARTC homepage feels like exploring the diversity of Africa. It is not a case that the multifaceted creative chose models hailing from different parts of the continent. Rightly because Africa is rich in culture and art, mirroring its diversity through people is necessary. “Morocco is in Africa. I feel strongly about my identity as a Moroccan and African,” he states. “Unlike Europe and America, our culture still lives on the streets and isn’t caged in museums. And that is what makes Africa interesting. It has a myriad of cultures that come with specific art, and they are all extremely valuable,” he points out. Rightly because Ifrach understands the value of craftsmanship on the continent, he has set prices that reflect his vision. MAISON ARTC starts from one thousand euros and up. Whoever buys his pieces is investing in them. His unique creations are made in Morocco by Moroccan craftswomen using fabrics with a past and history. “There is no high fashion anymore. You can’t say you do high fashion when you mass-produce because where is the value there? High fashion shouldn’t exist if it is not done with the highest standards," he says. From Marrakech, Ifrach challenges the validity of luxury.
“I refuse to be in the industry because I believe its role is to educate people, yet it doesn’t. Fashion is the second most polluting sector globally, but it educates us to consume more than we need. It educates us to value more what we are wearing than ourselves, which leaves us to feel miserable.” In a world where growth means more is more, Artsi Ifrach dares tell fashion and sustainability can’t coexist. “Fashion has that tendency to pick up ‘themes’ and then abuse them to make itself comfortable. But if we want to be sustainable, we have to stop fashion right now,” he argues. That is one of Ifrach’s bold statements that made him an outcast in the industry. But the creative doesn’t mind. He didn’t start MAISON ARTC thinking about who would buy it. Through his work, he hopes to shift the mindset about growth.
“You know what scares me the most? To be a rich designer. It would pardon my French, a 100% fuck my creativity. Because the more money you put into things, the less beautiful they are,” he tells half-joking. Despite Ifrach’s complex relationship with the industry, style makers recognize his talent. “I get a lot of respect from many people in the industry,” he confirms. Again all odds, Artsi Ifrach is winning the bet that you can do fashion without being in the industry.
Get your copy of Naïfs Magazine here.
Congratulations and I love reading your work!!
"I pay the price for being who I am. And that means not being a wealthy designer, but I am very happy to pay that price because I live a beautiful life. " I love this!