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How Moschino’s Adrian Appiolaza built his dream fashion archive

Like any self-respecting designer, Adrian Appiolaza, the Argentinian who took over Moschino last year, is an avid researcher. Some use Pinterest and Instagram; others—most, I’d like to think—favour Vogue Runway. But Appiolaza is more analogue in his approach; his research starts with the actual clothes.

Together with his partner, Ryan Benacer, a fellow fashion designer, Appiolaza owns 20 Age Archive, an impressive collection of (mostly) 20th century vintage ranging from conceptual Comme des Garçons and Maison Margiela to iconic footwear by Nicolas Ghesquière at Balenciaga and Phoebe Philo for Céline. “But,” Appiolaza clarifies on a call from the Paris apartment he shares with Benacer, “I was buying vintage before I thought I was collecting. How it really started is that I began to work and needed to find inspiration.” He was curious about the inner construction of garments by Rei Kawakubo and Yohji Yamamoto, and favoured “pieces from the ’80s” to wear. These interests fed what is now a robust assortment of more than 4,000 pieces.

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A wall of archival vests by Franco Moschino.

Photographed by Alex Huanfa Cheng

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Dress by Patrick Kelly.

Photographed by Alex Huanfa Cheng

After a childhood in Buenos Aires, Appiolaza decamped to London in the early 1990s to study at Central Saint Martins. He got his feet wet in fashion with jobs at Alexander McQueen, Miguel Adrover, and Phoebe Philo’s Chloé. From his early days, he loved buying vintage, but the real romance began when he met his partner in 2016. Our obsession “grew quickly, because it was still a time when people weren’t necessarily interested in those things, so you could find really good deals,” Benacer says. Something they shared from the get-go? “My first love was Comme des Garçons,” he says, same as Appiolaza, though now they favour Jean Paul Gaultier and Martin Margiela, respectively. Another thing they have in common: “I was at first looking for things to wear myself, because I’m flamboyant and like to wear the clothing,” says Benacer. Both he and Appiolaza are frequently seen in Vogue Runway’s street style photos, often wearing their archive pieces.

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Comme des Garçons, spring 1997 “Body Meets Dress, Dress Meets Body” look paired with a Comme des Garçons Homme Plus, spring 2015 shoe.

Photographed by Alex Huanfa Cheng

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Comme des Garçons, spring 1997 “Body Meets Dress, Dress Meets Body” look paired with Céline, spring 2013 shoes by Phoebe Philo.

Photographed by Alex Huanfa Cheng

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Balenciaga, fall 2007 shoes by Nicholas Ghesquière and Pierre Hardy.

Photographed by Alex Huanfa Cheng

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Photographed by Alex Huanfa Cheng

What started as a passion project and research library for Appiolaza soon evolved into a business with Benacer in the picture. With vintage booming in 2021, fuelled partly by clotheshorse celebrities like Zendaya and Bella Hadid, “we realised that we had these pieces that had a meaning, that we could do something with them so they don’t sit in the apartment,” Appiolaza explains. Pre-pandemic, they started renting out pieces for advertising projects, but it became a full-time thing when Benacer lost his job during the shutdowns and had more time to dedicate to the project.

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“This to me was the grail of conceptual fashion,” Appiolaza says of this Martin Margiela, fall 1989 broken porcelain waistcoat. “I look at it all the time and feel joy, it’s that kind of obsession.”

Photographed by Alex Huanfa Cheng

Together they christened it 20 Age Archive, creating a proper digital catalogue and an email newsletter. (I was following Appiolaza on Instagram at the time, fascinated by both his archival discoveries and the behind-the-scenes glimpses he’d share from his job. Often, I tried to connect his current work and the vintage he’d share: “I was trying to limit how much I was showing because of my job, but I was so obsessed with the archive that sometimes I couldn’t hold myself back,” he says, continuing with a laugh, “I guess my passion for the archive pieces we have was stronger than my common sense.”)

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Jean Paul Gaultier, fall 1985 dress.

Photographed by Alex Huanfa Cheng

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Maison Margiela, spring 2001 gloves waistcoat.

Photographed by Alex Huanfa Cheng

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Jean Paul Goude Violin pants for the 14th of July défilé of 1989.

Photographed by Alex Huanfa Cheng

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Junya Watanabe, fall 1998 dress.

Photographed by Alex Huanfa Cheng

It’s passion, not common sense, that factors into the equation when they set their sites on an acquisition. “It’s so nice to rebuild the puzzle of the past,” says Benacer, a ’90s kid, rather poetically. “Most of the things I buy are older than me. Since I never lived those years, I’m living through the stories of what people tell me.” Appiolaza, for his part, was in London in 1997 when the Comme des Garçons “Body Meets Dress, Dress Meets Body” collection came out, of which they own several pieces. “This was unreachable for me. So now to be able to own these pieces… it’s very fulfilling to bring the past to today and be able to appreciate it in real life.”

The pair now also collect pieces from the labels where Appiolaza has worked over the course of his career, but the Franco Moschino originals, in particular, have special meaning now. “Because my starting there was very abrupt, I needed to be practical and resourceful to do something quickly,” he says. “The fact that there was an archive available, was, for me, bingo! My immediate thought was to just go and see the archive, and it remains very important as I transition from my first collection to the next one, and the next one—it’s a way of learning about Moschino going to the archives.”

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Adrian Appiolaza, left, in Comme des Garçons Homme PLus fall 2020. Ryan Benacer, right, in an Issey Miyake shirt and Jean Paul Gaultier theater costume from “Pinocchio,” 1998. Both wear pieces from their archive.

Photographed by Alex Huanfa Cheng

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A Louis Vuitton x Takashi Murakami trunk (Louis Vuitton, spring 2003) and a Louis Vuitton x Stephen Sprouse (Louis Vuitton, spring 2001) jacket with miscellaneous accessories.

Photographed by Alex Huanfa Cheng

Not to say that it will always be like this: “I’m interested in learning and creating a new language, but one that’s impregnated with the DNA,” Appiolaza says. “I breathe vintage, so it’s natural that it comes through my creative and personal language.” Also top of mind is the idea of “future vintage.” “I think when you create in my position, because I’m a collector and I love design from the past, it is definitely in my mind to do something that could live through time,” he explains. “You want to make things that will feel special, as specialists; that in 20 years people will look at it and say, oh wow, that’s an interesting approach to design.”

This story first appeared on Vogue.com

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