biography 2009

Haman Alimardani (hamansutra) was born in 1977 in Tehran, Iran. He moved to New York with his family in 1978 but was principally educated in Germany (he has German nationality) so English is his third language.

His brand name and working name of hamansutra is a mixture of Indian and Persian influences. Haman was the prime minister of the Persian king Ahasuerus, also known as Xerxes, who reigned from 485-465 BC. Sutra means a joined thread, but also instructions or discourse; in this meaning, it is probably best-known in the West in the Kama Sutra (a discourse of instructions for sexual positions.

hamansutra was introduced to graffiti in 1989 through the Munich underground scene; in 1993 he formed an artists’ group with a streetworker and obtained funding from Munich City Council. He began to study graphic design in Munich to develop his style further. During this period hamansutra held exhibitions of graffiti art and illustrations on canvas and paper at locations in and around Munich (Pasinger Fabrik arts center in Munich in July 1995, Groebenzeller Buergerhaus arts center in June 1996). He would later continue this work in June 1999, organizing an exhibition of Fashion and 3-Dimensional Illustration at Blocherer Schule fashion academy in Munich.

From 1993 hamansutra funded his studies by working as a DJ at various clubs playing Soul, House, Rap, etc. and by contract graffiti artwork, some of which was published in the book “Graffiti Writing in Munich”. During his graphic design studies he was able to fully unfold his potential in working on the themes of fashion and accessories, where he could successfully synthesize his Persian cultural background with fresh ideas.

In 1996, during his graphic arts studies, hamansutra began to look more closely at fashion. The students were given assignments such as writing campaigns for snowboard clients – so hamansutra started to design the clothes to go with them. hamansutra launched his own hamansutra label in Munich in 1996 and established it as a company in London in 2004. The label aimed to present clothes as artistic objects rather than commodities, regarding fashion as part of an overall concept, the ceremony of clothing oneself.

hamansutra developed his own philosophy from his own personal passion for instructions and from the endlessly changing positions in the game of fashion, adopting the slogans “A thousand moves in the game of fashion” and “Because perfection is protection” to express these ideas.

Inspired by kids’ heroes like “Hercules” and “Master of the Universe - He-Man” (which sounds like Haman…), hamansutra started to experiment with leather accessories in 1995, using himself as a guinea-pig and model to find out exactly how these accessories feel, how people respond to them and how they capture the attention.

During this process hamansutra discovered that he was less interested in how people responded to his designs: it was the actual function of the designs that he found so fascinating. At the same time, he began to use the name hamansutra on stickers which he stuck up everywhere to publicize himself – like the tags of graffiti artists.

In 1998 hamansutra worked as a graphic designer for the well known advertising agency Jung von Matt in Hamburg (Germany), with Audi A3, Deutsche Bahn (German railway company), and Benson & Hedges Silver among his clients. Work there included fashion briefings, e.g. designing “Lingerie for the year 2000” for premium German underwear brand Mey, selecting outfits for a Mey shoot, etc. He was encouraged by his art school tutors and Creative Directors in the advertising agency to study fashion design at Central St. Martins, with the idea that the courses would best reflect his previous study background as well as his personal style and that London would be a good starting-point for exploring the world of unconventional design.

hamansutra therefore decided to finish at Jung von Matt in order to study fashion design at St. Martins School of Art; he successfully completed the first year of the BA (Honours) in Design Technology for the Fashion Industry at London College of Fashion in 1999-2000 and subsequently joined Central Saint Martins in October 2001 for the second year of the Fashion Design with Marketing course.

hamansutra also worked as a freelancer for deepend in London in 2001, designing characters for computer games and 3D visualizations to ensure that characters functioned effectively in 3D from the outset. deepend was founded in London in 1996 and quickly became a leading force in design and marketing for digital media, being named No. 1 creative interactive agency worldwide by Advertising Age 1999 and 2000. The company’s clients included Cartoon Network, the British Council and Creative Review, with projects including animations for the Olympic Games in Sydney. This work was followed by freelance work as an illustrator for MTV in 2002, primarily focusing on fun, creative logo realizations.

In 2002 hamansutra worked on the Scorpions Team Posters project for the client Nike. This project involved a set of promotional posters depicting the winning teams from local tournaments in 9 cities across Germany. The Nike SCO Victory Monument is the world’s largest victory monument, located on Ernst-Reuter-Platz in Berlin, displaying the winners’ portraits on 3300 square meters of vertical surface, in co-operation with Wieden Kennedy Amsterdam and Less Rain Berlin.

Following this, he started work on 3 costumes for a major project at the London International Film School 2002.

In addition, in 2002 London-based design company Me Company booked hamansutra as a character designer for a Kenzo children’s campaign.

hamansutra’s Blu Costume for the high-profile 2003/04 “Geiz ist Geil” campaign by major German consumer electronics company Saturn involved 3 different TV commercials, in cooperation with Jung von Matt Hamburg. Another major project, with designliga, Munich, was to design costumes for a video by singer Sonique (song: “Another World”, Cosmo Records, Munich; release date Christmas 2004) for music TV channels including MTV. This video won the 2005 IF communication design award in the GOLD category.

hamansutra presented his Final Fashion Show at Central Saint Martins in May 2004 and took part in an exhibition of finalists’ portfolios in the college’s Charing Cross Road premises in June 2004.

Returning to Germany in 2005, he completed a two-month assistantship at the KKBw, (Kleiderkasse für die Bundeswehr = Clothing Department of the German military forces), Munich, and followed it with his third work experience as an assistant for Kostas Murkudis GmbH &Co. KG in Munich, Germany (former assistant of Helmut Lang), where he stayed for four months. In the same period he worked as a freelancer for Kickz Sportswear GmbH in Munich, creating a suit for the German basketball team. Finally, he finished a three-month placement in the Bavarian State Opera in Munich as a Costume Assistant for “Twilight of the Gods” / “Götterdämmerung” by Richard Wagner (1874), in the production directed by David Alden in 2003.

In February 2005 hamansutra presented his Menswear Prototypes for PORSCHE DESIGN in Stuttgart. Design continued throughout 2005, concluding in October 2005 with a shoot by photographer Andreas Hosch.

Around this time, hamansutra also developed the costumes for the music video “I Can’t Stop My Feet” by singer Amos, aired in spring 2006.

hamansutra’s Lookbook, published in the form of a 20-page Fashion Card Book in Munich in 2005, was featured in New York bookstores McNally Robinson and ZAKKA, the Japanese design bookstore in SoHo, in the summer of 2005. The Fashion Card Book was a limited edition of 500 copies and was distributed to selected art and design bookstores in London, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Munich and New York.

An interview with hamansutra was published in IQ Style Magazine, Vienna & Berlin, in August 2005; in October 2005 he wrote an editorial, “The Body Politic”, for KLeft Magazine, Sydney (www.kleft.com) and gave an interview for Tokyo’s PING Magazine.

In addition, Hamansutra completed a Carrégammi project for booklet Magazine Issue 3, Düsseldorf, where he designed origami-like “folded” images.

2005 also saw hamansutra entering a T-shirt design for the T-1 Worldcup contest where a selection of designers from all over the world were asked to develop a print motive for their country. The 2005 event proved to be absolutely huge, generating an audience of 1,000,000 people accessing the website daily to make it among Japan’s largest websites. T1 Worldcup generated articles and interviews in all kinds of Japanese design magazines around that time. The T-shirt design was displayed in September 2006 at contemporary art facility Benesse Art Site Naoshima.

At Christmas 2005, hamansutra presented a shirt collection for XBOX 360 in Berlin.

An invitation from Munich’s Blocherer Schule fashion academy in 2004 to lecture on his experiences in the design industry and present his work led to an appointment as a lecturer in visualization and illustration at the school. hamansutra occupied this position from 2005 to 2006.

In 2006 hamansutra accepted an invitation to lecture at the Miami Ad school in Hamburg on the subject of “Hardcore Fashion”. He also accepted a position as a fashion and design lecturer at the Academy of Fashion and Design (AMD), Munich, where he taught visualization from 2006 to 2008.

In spring 2007 hamansutra presented his Costume Design for a trailer for the Burton-supported TTR World Snowboard Tour, produced by Faber Studios Munich. hamansutra was also featured and interviewed in IDN MAGAZINE HONG KONG in 2007.

In 2007, hamansutra was included in a compendium by Charlotte & Peter Fiell, published by Taschen Books, showcasing the extraordinary cutting-edge work of 100 of the world’s important designers.

Spring 2008 took hamansutra (Tailor Made – Because the game of fashion can have a thousand moves) to China to meet fashion fan and entertainer Zhu Jun. hamansutra took part in Zhu Jun’s show “Wanna Challenge” in Beijing, Chinas biggest TV stage, with the challenge of creating the fastest jacket in the world for the Chinese star. The live show was screened in the spring of 2008 in China. Hardcore and sci-fi-esque fashion from hamansutra and Team, founder of the fashion label hamansutra, was featured in Vision Magazine, China in 2008.

A short interview with hamansutra was featured in Trace Magazine New York in June 2008.

From August 2008, Munich’s new design lifestyle store crooma presents fashion creations by hamansutra as an exclusive exhibition of not-for-sale works (including the dazzling stage costumes he designed for star Persian singer Amos) and also offers clients the opportunity to order personal hamansutra fashion designs.

In August 2008 hamansutra presented an exhibition highlighting work from the graduate portfolios of 8 young designers.
The exhibition not only documented the stellar standards of creativity and production shown in the work of today’s young designers; the presentation too was of a uniformly exceptional standard. The exhibition took place in a restored basement under the studio of his own hamansutra label in Munich.

Hamansutra will be featured in Netherlands design publication Code Magazine in 2009, talking about the theme of “success”.