INTERVIEW
Could you tell us briefly about yourself and your crew?
We are a team of only 3 with completely different backgrounds. I am Hijiri from Japan and I have a fashion buying background. I've worked a fashion buyer for multi brand concept stores in Tokyo for a few years.
I mainly manage the business & commercial parts of the project. Agoston is from Hungary but has lived in France for more than 10 years. He develops most of the illustrations for our collections and he also develops his personal paintings aside!
In fact, although we are a French brand, Theo is the only one who is from France He overviews our artistic direction and also works as an art direct for various projects. We believe that what makes our brand so interesting is our diversity!
How did you three decided to work together?
The project really started as a friend's joke. One night in Paris, we were having drinks as friends and started to talk about creating something we had never seen before. The idea of sex as the main concept came up quickly and naturally (I guess we were talking about our sex life at that night). We really didn’t think we will one day become who we are today. At the beginning, it was just a little project and we just wanted to make ourselves and our friends laugh about it.
What was the trigger to form the sex positivity concept of Carne Bollente in the first place?
As said, we came up with the idea of sex organically. When we started the brand, there weren’t many nicely designed clothes with obvious sexy illustrations or prints. We first wanted to create something sexy, which we wanted to wear! I think the sex positive concept was born also naturally because of personalities. We didn’t want to make something aggressive. It was so obvious for us to realise that the subject of sex was / still is often seen as taboo rather than something we can talk about openly. There was a clear lack of positive communication towards the concept so we wanted to tackle this!
What lies behind the name “Carne Bollente” ?
Our name comes from this legendary porn movie ‘The Rise of the Roman Empress’ – the original title is ‘Carne Bollente’. Our idol, Cicciolina is the lead actress and she embodies, for us, a positive and uninhibited vision of sexuality. In fact, Carne Bollente means “boiled meat” in Italian and we found it super sexy and funny.
Which message do you want to spread through your design?
Stay positive! Love yourself and others!
There always seems to be some kind of mischievous sense of humor in your design. Is there any intention to always weave some humor into eroticism when designing?
Yes absolutely! Having a sense of humour in design is so important for us. First of all, we always aim to entertain our followers & customers through designs, visual creations, names of our products and daily communication. More importantly, we simply want to have fun while designing our collection.
Where do you usually get inspiration from?
It comes from various things including our personal experience, vintage porn and other forms of art including lots of old movies and music. For example our SS20 collection is about Japan. We collected different inspirations from both Japanese traditional and modern art, movies, old advertisements and pornographies.
Does Paris in somehow affect your brand’s identity?
Yes, Paris is such an amazing place with a full of creativity, interesting culture and diversity. Every weekend you can discover great parties and events where we make our friends and meet collaborators. Paris is a city of love and new encounters!
How did you start working with TGH?
Tom Greyhound is one of our oldest friends and partners. When we started working with TGH, we didn’t even have a proper collection nor were we presenting our pieces during fashion week. We were introduced to the buying team by our friend and one night we had a chance to have some drinks at a little Parisian cafe in Le Marais and showed our clothes to them! Since then, TGH has been supporting us so kindly!
What is Carne Bollente’s final goal?
Our goal is always to entertain our customers and spread sex positive messages around the globe.
Recently, we see that the community around the brand is growing and everyday we feel we are getting closer to everyone. We would like to enlarge our community base and communicate, engage and share ideas with them!
Clothes by Carne Bollente are available in store & online.
Image credits: Carne Bollente