Santiago Artemis, the millennial couturier of pop stars

The apartment is in the Retiro neighborhood. It is spacious and old: corridor, armored windows, several rooms, original walls and floors. There are two green corduroy tufted armchairs, a floor lamp and 39 figurines taped to the wall with paper tape. Around the glass table, the plastic chairs. At the head of the table is Virginia, mother of Santiago Artemis, public accountant. It is February, a feverish midday. We are waiting for her son, who has been delayed in Eleven with the purchase of fabrics for his next haute couture collection.

"He is a bit idealistic," says Virginia, the mother, "but well... In the family we are all a bit like that." The glasses on the tip of the nose, the hands on the keyboard of a notebook, flip-flops, a black Indian dress; the white roots of his hair gleaming faintly. She is a simple woman. We talked about the book that is on the table. It is the Book of Mormon, a scripture as sacred as the Bible. Virginia chose the name of her only son after James, author of the epistle on which the Mormon church was founded. At age eight, Santiago Artemis was baptized and became the sixth generation of Mormons in the family. “When the missionaries came home for lunch, Santiago made sketches of wedding dresses. She designed her own for each one and gave them the costume when they left”, recalls the mother.

Now we hear the turns of a key and the click of heels. Santiago Artemis, clothing designer, enters the apartment. He wears an embroidered blouse, skinny elephant-leg jeans, a little wicker hat, and Texan boots. “Hello, hello, love, I was late, sorry. What were they talking about?” asks Santiago. I show him the book and the answer comes like a shot: "Ah, the church... A sect."

A lean body: long thin legs like stilts, the relief of the joints, the thin waist. Bambi look, duck face mouth; sometimes like a fish gape, parted lips, barely two teeth showing. Aggressive short black hair or a cap made of moon. A Xuxa paquita, but unisex. Yesterday he wore a straight cut suit. The day before yesterday she wore a skirt and buccaneers. And tomorrow, what does it matter? He moves with the manners of a Sailor Moon and the drama of the Ingalls family. Talk fast, get bored faster. The false eyelashes she wears bother him, but it's all for the exchange and the experience. Artemis lives a selfie life, from stories on Instagram to a pure front camera: me, me, me, the work is me.

"My childhood? It was very heavy, I debated everything. Let's see, a gay boy, effeminate... They didn't bully me either, huh; that poor thing, no. Never victim. But he talked all the time. 'Santiago you are unbearable, stop talking, shut up a bit'. He was restless, he broke things. It was very intense. Bah, I'm intense,” he says.

It is now a January afternoon. Santiago speaks while he responds to a comment on some social network where protectionists accuse him of using animal skins in his designs. Last year, singer Lali Espósito wore an ensemble that earned her and the designer a virtual escrache under the hashtag #NoSosCoolSosCruel. "I'm fed up with it," Artemis continues, "I already said I use synthetic fur."

But there are no furs here. This is a room at the back of a place called Vurda, located in Palermo. There are coat racks, a mirror and clutter. In front they sell the prêt-à-porter line that he himself created. They are urban and cheap clothes, less glamorous than their haute couture.

“Why Vurda? When I visited my grandmother, the first thing I did was look for Burda, a magazine that educated me in molding, in aesthetics, in kitsch -says Artemis-. And 'rough' also means medium hair, berreta, fat. That is: we are not fat, but we are Vurda. And the short v for Vurda is a backwards 'A', for Artemis. So, well, it is the union of several things.”

Why do you use your mom's last name?

Because he is more impressive. My dad's sounded like a cardiologist to me... Besides, I've been using it since I was thirteen years old. In the chat, my nickname was Santiago Artemis. And he used it in the photolog too, when he was a flogger.

Santiago is 25 years old and was born in the south of the South, in Ushuaia, province of Tierra del Fuego. The younger brother of two women – one a chef, the other a doctor – his parents divorced when he was twelve. His father, a merchant, stayed on the island, and the rest of the family settled in Chubut. They first lived in Puerto Madryn and then in Trelew, where he finished high school. In that present he drew his future. Santiago sketched the first garments looking at his grandmother's magazines and knew that, once he was 17 years old, he would move to Buenos Aires to study Clothing Design at the UBA.

Does it make sense to study a university degree to do fashion?

It is not useful at all. I have three subjects left that I am going to take because I want to hang up the title. But, does it make sense? None. My achievements were not from going to college. I shelled them all, and they all finished and they're ten, but I don't know what they do with their lives.

And what are your achievements?

Last year was my media outburst. Many things happened after dressing Griselda Siciliani for the Martín Fierro ceremony. Until then I was known by gays, fashionistas, clothing students, and aunts and moms. But when I televised myself, I put on more cache, as they say. In this country you have to deal with the fat to be popular. Now everyone knows me, but I had been breaking it since before.

Will it have been defining in your career to move from the South to Buenos Aires?

Everything changed. The creatives have to leave the town where they live because if they don't, they die. Or they commit suicide. Either they disappear artistically or... I don't know how anyone can live in a village. I crack a shot of boredom

In 2011, at the age of 19 and two years after leaving Trelew, Artemis sold four dresses to the American singer Katy Perry. That year he designed Lisa Cerati's Quince dress: black, short and with shoulder pads. In 2013 he presented a capsule at London Fashion Week. In 2014, she was already dressing local actresses and a year later she won an international fur design competition. In 2016, Britney Spears wore a coat of her own in the video clip Slumber Party. Last year, Guillermina Valdés, Pampita and Siciliani wore her clothes. But Vurda, the Palermo store, will close in a few days due to differences between Santiago and his partner.

"It will be an experience as a creative director and that's it," he explains. Santiago works more like Santiago Artemis than anything else. The event is me.” So he's focused on his evening collection that he called Bulletproof: glitter, bows, plunging backs, opulence. In three months he will return to Tierra del Fuego to show his work in a parade. Debut at the origin, they will also distinguish him as an outstanding citizen of Ushuaia.

He comes and goes from Japan. He always hired by the embassy of that country to learn about new trends and be inspired. He was invited to Thailand to promote tourist areas. He traveled to Milan as a fashion influencer. He stopped by Copenhagen to take photos –of him–. Between December and February he was in Paris, Rome and Austria, where he bought goods, clothes, shoes and accessories. He also visited Amsterdam and Toronto.

He speaks fluent English and mixes it with the Portuguese he learned listening to Xuxa's songs, whom he discovered by chance on some of his sisters' VHS. Last year he traveled to Brazil to meet her.

"But in my way of speaking, the drama is pure theatrical instinct," says Santiago. Because apart from speaking English well, I am a very theatrical person. I do imitations… impressions. I learned from watching vintage cinema. Ever since I was a kid, I loved it. Joan Crowford, Bette Davis, Greta Garbo, Audrey Hepburn. And Esther Goris! He loved playing Evita Perón, he recreated scenes from that movie… He loved, he was re K as a kid.”

We are in the Retirement department. Santiago enters a small room that is a black hole of pillowcases, brand new clothes, shelves and boxes. Virginia, his mother, is in the kitchen with the door closed. She hasn't gone out since her son returned from Eleven, delayed by the purchase of fabrics. Now Santiago emerges from the room wearing a baggy shirt, so much so that he looks like a ghost. He sits in one of the chairs and looks at the 39 figurines on the wall: long, trapezoidal silhouettes, the drafts of his next collection.

“2017 was an important year for me, with a lot of exposure. What do other designers think of me? Some look at me like 'Wow, I re admire it, I re bank it, it's the new generation'. Others... see a young gay breaking schemes with impunity. At my age they didn't exist! That gave me a harder layer and today I say: 'I'll take it on my own.'”

What is fashion for you?

Fashion is a place where I don't ask permission. I encourage you to wear buccaneers, a skirt, a jean, a sweater, whatever. Before, for me a skirt belonged to a woman and not to a man. Spot. But once I got over what will they say, there was no going back. If you got past Alicia's mirror and survive, she's done.

Do you consider yourself more than a clothing designer?

I think they have put me as a flag, the flag of endorsing and defending the issue of being different... And what do I know. I don't walk around with a sign that says: "Hello, I'm different." In any case, they were intimate processes that in my case took place gradually and today I can live with all nature. It's not that I'm the type I want to support all the gays. If I can help someone, great. But there is no intention, there is no policy. That is not my code.

Did you go from being a niche guy to being popular?

Yes, totally.

And how do you think it happened?

People realize that I am not wearing a costume, that I am not “armed”. I don't turn on/off. The spontaneous is what turns on, that's what people see. Look, you saw me when I arrived from Once, I fell dressed as folk from the '70s, do you understand? There's the joke. It's not that I wear this orange for the photo and then I'm in jeans and a T-shirt, like Chano.

And what inspires you?

Travel, above all. When I travel I go into clothing stores. I love going to museums because a Botticelli painting might inspire me to make a dress. And I like to be on topic, connected. Sometimes it happens to me that I have straw discussions with friends who are not in fashion. I tell them: “Come with me to the Courrèges museum” and no, they don't want to. There you realize that they are not the same universes, that there is no connection.

You go to Austria very often...

I love it. I have an obsession with this half pastoral, half folk, half The Sound of Music thing. Same with Heidi and Switzerland. Those two places motivate me a lot. They give me a lot of peace. Everything picturesque, baroque… And they are not fun places. They are half lead: you kind of get up and say, “What am I doing here?”. Forget the party. Besides, I stop in the countryside. I walk six kilometers to the station to take the train to get to Salzburg.

do you walk?

Yes, I walk. There are farms around and I am listening to the bells of the cows. Or the tractors that move the load. If I go with high shoes, they take me by car because I know I'm going to have a great time. At night I do ask them to pick me up at the station. Not because it's dangerous, huh. But it's cold and since it's a countryside it's all dark, you can kind of step on shit in the middle of the road.

"Hello baby, I'm a thousand for the parade. But I ask you, is it necessary? We already did the re-interview.” Santiago doesn't have time for one more meeting. He says it in a WhatsApp audio three days before traveling to Tierra del Fuego. The municipal government has hired him to present his collection in a luxury hotel and, incidentally, be distinguished as an outstanding citizen. “I am not going back to Ushuaia. I don't go for leisure, I don't have fun”, Artemis had told Viva in one of the interviews. But he left for Ushuaia, with a coat rack, a suitcase and a production team.

Everything is saved on Instagram. The flight to the South left at 4 am on March 24. Santiago got off the plane wrapped in a yellow duck coat, a bag, and a hat with a visor. A few hours later, once he was staying at the hotel where he would present his haute couture line, he attended the media. The photo that went up to his account shows him with crossed legs and a military jacket. On Remembrance Day, Santiago doesn't know or maybe he does and... The caption of the photo reads as follows: “Interview in Ushuaia. Military moment!”

The next day there was a shotting. The models balanced on the Fuegian mob and Artemis's clothes flapped in the wind. Later, a visit to the spa. Then he had an ice cream ("Crema del cielo is very southern," he revealed to his followers) and walked through the port (he gave us a quick shot of the bay and in another shot he celebrated the landscape with an "amen glory to God") . That night he went to a nightclub in the city: he tried, but he doesn't like reggaeton. A black and white story showed him in the center of the catwalk giving directions: "That sign over there, they take it out, right?" And before the cell phone camera that was recording, he said, in one go: "Tomorrow night 36 horses are going to walk here." The preview was for the final adjustments in clothing, makeup and hairstyles. He uploaded a trailer to his Instagram account, something like a preview of what was to come: Santiago appears having his hair retouched by one of the stylists.

The parade was broadcast via Instagram Live: thirteen minutes under a purple light. As closing, the models set up a human corridor for the designer to walk the catwalk. Artemis appeared from the bottom in his red vinyl buccaneers. Standing ovation for the prophet in his land. He, moon helmet and black glasses, with a smile on his face. Who will be Santiago Artemis?