Ping Magazine tokio

PingMag met him in New York where he is planning to move next.

Interview by Uleshka - Ping Magazine
Images by Denis Pernath

You did graffiti for many years and worked as a graphic designer. In what way has that influenced the fashion designs you do now?
Everything I did was helpful to learn different techniques of dealing with problems. The way you face a wall for a graffiti freestyle, a throw up, you just go with an idea, completely raw and spontaneous and just do it - and sometimes I work in the same way with designing clothes: I use string, thread, cloth, leather and just face that dummy the way I would face a wall. Packaging in graphic design tought me a lot about creating 3D out of flat sheets, like a pizza box - a few folds and you have an object, but you have to think very well about how and in which order you fold them. The other way around, my fashion studies taught me a lot about imagining things in 3D. If you make a sketch for an outfit, you have to know, what it looks like from all sides, prepare your paper patterns in your head already, the material… you have to think very far in advance - so if I design a character now for a computer game, like I did for Deepend then that character also works in 3D right from the start, in my head.

I still do graphic jobs every once in a while, like that Nike job we did with Lessrain & W+K Amsterdam… and that again was pretty graffiti influenced.

Haman working on the Scorpions Team Posters for client Nike So that comes down to the universal designer, who can do everything.
Exactly. Knowing all disciplines and techniques, being able to do it all; layouts, collages, drawing, photos, sketching, sewing, designing…. so no-one can tell you bullshit. But of course you have to focus at one point and in my case, that is definitely fashion.

During your studies at St. Martins, you went back to Germany for a couple of very unusual internships. You complained that most fashion students do all they can to work with big name designers and polish up their image, rather than try to develop their own style. You had one work experience as an assistant for Kostas Murkudis and also worked for the Bavarian State Opera in Munich as a Costume Assistant for the “Twilight of the Gods” and other projects.

What - in the world - made you go and get a 2 month assistant ship at the Clothing Department of the German military forces in Munich?
The military has nothing to do with fashion. If you are a soldier you lose your personality and turn into a function. That also applies to what they wear: every part of their outfit has a purpose. There are things like G-suits, pressure suits, that you cannot wear without an assistant. On the whole, there is a lot of care, many details and many secrets in their clothes. I very much like the fact, that you have to think about what you wear, how you wear it, in what order you put on your clothes. That is almost like a ritual, a ceremony. I actually like to produce clothes, that need a manual to be worn (smiles). That increases their importance and awareness.

How were you treated by the military forces in Munich?
Most people don’t know that there even is a clothing department of the military forces and I was the first assistant after 35 years.
So many fashion designers steal ideas and copy things from soldier uniforms and stuff like that, but they actually don’t know anything about it. I went through the whole thing of studying all the different ranks, how the uniforms differ for all their departments, air-pressure-suit, diving-suit, parachutes jumping suits….

They didn’t quite understand why I wanted to work for them, but after they listened to what I had in mind, they were really open and enthusiastic. At the end, they even thanked me and considered announcing possible internships at the fashion schools around Germany.

One of their workers turned into my personal assistant now. She has over 30 years of experience with leather, cuts and everything. I am very happy that she is so enthusiastic to work for me.

After four years of studies - you were among those selected for the St. Martins graduate show, which is packed with headhunters from all the big fashion houses.
What was the concept of your collection?

To provoke and make history within one second. Seriously! You study 4 years for 1.5 minutes of a fashion show, so you’d better think of something new.
I created a fashion line for female bodybuilders inspired by cyborgs and created out of pressure suit pants. They carried huge oversea suitcases, which I also designed as part of the collection. If you staple those 4 suitcases on top of each other, you have a whole wardrobe. You can also open and unfold the suitcases to a flat, standing dividing wall. Here is where I can use my packaging design studies for fashion accessories.

Why bodybuilder women?
I am tired of those bloody catwalk shows with walking coat-hangers. I am much more interested in characters, people with a strong personality. Those women are very powerful and extremely energetic. They really wanted to do this and that made me very happy to see. Above all, I like the martial aspect of it.

What does the body mean for you in your work?
It is amongst the things which inspire me most. The architecture of the body and also the inner organs. My outfits should be organic, they should fit the body and they should preferably all be tailor made.

What materials do you like to use?
For the final fashion show in May 2004 I made a whole collection out of one pair pressure suit pants. The people who created such pants in the 60ies almost vanished from this planet, so I mostly had to teach myself all about them. I wanted to show just how much knowledge and skill lies in one pair of these pants - and transformed and used them in my own way.

In general, I really like to work with leather. It is a very serious material, since you are not allowed to make any mistakes (if you make a hole in the wrong spot, you can’t hide it anymore). I very much respect the fact that it is skin and always try to find a way to leave it in one piece if possible and work it around the human body.
Besides leather, I use special-effect fabrics, hard cloth like jeans and science fiction and high technology fabrics.

You call your outfits “prototypes” if they are not part of a whole fashion line. Are they actually wearable, or do they only last for one day?
They are “bombensicher” ! Meaning, that they are properly made, since I take care of every detail, but due to their distinctive features, I wouldn’t recommend to wear them more than once. If you book Hamansutra to create an outfit for your Oscar nomination, you should learn to live with Hamansutra and definitely book him again for the next nomination and not just wear that first outfit again (yeah!).
Such kind of outfit would be made to work only for one night, however, if I make a ready-to-wear collection, like T- Shirts or jeans or so, I want those to be worn for a long time, like a second skin and combined with different things. I am not interested in dressing people for one season only. I prefer to create things that last - despite all those marketing people telling you about “trends”. People should think about the things they wear and therefor things should be considered valuable again and kept longer.

Who should wear your stuff and how should you feel, when wearing it?
Basically everybody, but preferably people with a strong personality, characters or those, who want to be characters. And if you feel like a knight, a hero or a queen when dressing in Hamansutra - it rocks!

You moved back from London to Munich for “relaxation”, even though you work all the time: the suit for the German basketball team, an outfit for the “Geiz is Geil” ad of German company Saturn and the outfit for the Sonique video “Another world”, - which just won the IF communication award 2005 - to name a few of your finished projects. How long does it take you to create an outfit?
That depends how many accessories and other details are included, but if I have one week for one outfit, than that is perfect. Some big studios do that in a couple of hours, but I don’t know how many assistants they’ve got. I only have one so far.

How do you actually produce your outfits?
I firstly try to make a lot with my own hands. You have to be practical and able to create a whole prototype with simple methods. I am also interested in perfecting things with a computer, like we did with the Sonique video.

What are your most recent projects and your future plans?
My Hamansutra Lookbook is out in the stores and I just created an outfit for Amos, whose new album will be out on the 24th of October. We will also produce another video for him together with Designliga like we did for Sonique.

Then I am currently working on an accessory collection out of leather as my first project to be presented in Japan. That will be finger-rings that are a mix of hip hop and gothic, some overhand accessories, galoshes / overshoes… things like that out of black snake… and then I’m also working on a collection for prostitutes, models around 40 years old, showing off their wrinkles…. I’d love to show those characters, but that is still a budget problem.

I’ve got new ideas popping up constantly…. besides I am planning to move and set up my own studio in New York next spring. Then it will be Haman Alimardani working for the Hamansutra label to create clothes with ceremony.

Sounds cool, Haman! Good luck! I’m sure we will hear a lot from you in the future! Thank you very much!