NICOLA FORMICHETTI

Despite the controversy about his comments on W magazine, we are all have to agree: the guy is a genius.
Nicola Formichetti was born in Japan in 1977 to Italian and Japanese parents, he grew up between the two countries, which are the fashion-industries equivalent of an anorexic midget with arms like Popeye deciding to become a jockey. But moving to London became his great desire and he used the excuse of attending an architecture school to which he was accepted in order to get there. Formichetti has explained that instead of attending he "literally walked in the front door of the architecture school and then ran out of the back one to go clubbing for three years." He became a student of the nightlife and street fashion,He is most widely known as the new creative director for the French fashion house Mugler, and for being a frequent collaborator with singer-songwriter and performance artist Lady Gaga. Formichetti is also known as fashion director of Vogue Hommes Japan, is a contributing editor of several other fashion magazines, and is fashion director for the clothing company Uniqlo.

Talking about his first shoot with Gaga: “She arrived fully dressed, in hair and makeup, wearing shoulder pads and this leather dress and heels and shades—at 8 a.m. on the beach,” said Formichetti, laughing. “I was going, This bitch is crazy! She is the real deal. We fell in love with each other, totally. It felt really organic. At the end of the shoot, she said she was going on The Ellen DeGeneres Show the next day and asked if I could maybe help her with that. So I gave her this amazing Nasir Mazhar orb hat, and she wore it with this cool denim jumpsuit. She sat at the piano and did ‘Poker Face.’ I was completely mesmerized. I’d never really experienced the power of pop music and performance and fashion together like that.”

About Gaga project:" It was like jerking off—doing your own thing and being happy. Gaga made that stuff into a reality."

Formichetti is keen to brainstorm about everything else under the sun: new store concepts, new avenues of retail distribution, new interactive website models—you name it. Clearly, and luckily, he won’t be doing it alone.
And Yes, screw what others say, he is still my hero.