By Augusto Morel
Buenos Aires, February 1.- Actors Michael Temar, Carolyn Hennessy and Loretta Sweet wore Jorge del Busto for the red carpet and now those dresses – works of art in their own right – are housed in the Hollywood Museum along with 11,000 other items. los angeles.
Argentinian designer, 53, the doors of the “workshop” in Buenos Aires EFE to discuss the work that covers more than 20 years and haute couture designs, including three clothes that are now preserved in a museum in LA.
“For the red carpet, I dressed them with handmade clothes and recycled materials. I think the costume that cost me the most was Michael Tamred’s because it has about a million beads and weighs between seven and 10 kilograms (15 and 22 pounds). They are unique clothes, impossible to repeat, “del Busto said at the workshop.
In contrast, the gown he designed for Hennessy was embroidered French lace over a metallic corset. “Everything was completely handmade and most of the dresses have curtains from my living room,” says the designer, who has lived in the United States for 23 years, inserting English words into the Spanish-language description.
Surprisingly, he first came to public attention in the field of “fitness”, where he began to stand out for his competitive aerobic gymnastics skills, his physical strength and his fashion sense in dressing himself.
“I became one of the best people in fitness and social media. They always called me one of the most stylish people in town in Chicago and Los Angeles. I was attracted to him because of my Argentinian admixture. Like ‘pure gaucho?’ I do not know.
In the year In the early 2000s, he was a gym teacher and as his students were having lunch and discussing business, he got the idea to design semi-formal sportswear.
In the year In 2010, it could have been a precursor to that style, but at that time it was already unique in the world of high fashion, where the importance of clothes is in the details, the fabric and the design.
“It depends on the foundation. There are dresses with structure, others … like tunics, the value is in the fabric and the looseness. They are 100 percent handmade and made with fine materials. That’s the rule for haute couture,” he said.
While many pray fervently for creative inspiration to hit them, Del Busto says his grandfather was his muse, advising him to follow his dreams. She was, he said, “flawless beauty” and “a typical woman who wouldn’t leave the house if she wasn’t working, who wouldn’t leave the house with her hair tied and well dressed.”
Born in tiny Puerto Rico in the northern mission state of Argentina and raised in Greater Buenos Aires, Del Busto had to deal with his father’s prejudice against his passion for the world of fashion at the age of 12.
“I thought of about 14 paintings, some of them watercolors, on the clothing line that came to me. My family loved it until I showed it to my dad. He tore up the paintings and burned them. He didn’t want to have a son who would try to do that,” Del Busto said, seeming to have little significance in the matter.
At the age of 21, he packed his belongings and moved to Asuncion, where he worked as a physical education teacher. His talent in the gym allowed him to hone his skills and broaden his horizons when he moved to São Paulo and eventually settled in Chicago.
Connect with people who can give you some help. “If you want to work, you have to go where people are.” It was one of his grandfather’s advices, which inspired him to immigrate to America. There he entered important circles that marked the world in which he wanted to work.
At the same time, he seeks to gain more knowledge and training to avoid being left behind in the cut-throat and fast-changing world of fashion, but he has not lost his sense of style. “These lessons have helped me modernize. My creations are more relevant to the times and what my customers want,” he said.
Although fashion is a cyclical industry, del Busto has non-negotiable rules when designing his creations; Among them, “there are things that can be emphasized and things that should be hidden no matter what.”
“Shoulders, neck and bust, there’s always something to emphasize. Age and weight don’t matter, you have to emphasize regardless.” He said the idea was that the fashion model should be “dress rack”, tall, curvy, busty and unattractive.
And he concluded: “There is no good reason to say, ‘I don’t wear nice clothes.’ You can always dress yourself well.
EFE am/bp