MIKA for Gioia Magazine: MALE MIKA!
This must be the magic phrase that the Anglo-Lebanese pop star pronounces every time he launches a new talent. Musical (in September he will be again judge at X Factor) and artistic: he now seeks out the most creative for Swatch.
As a child, he was dyslexic, unable to write only on the computer, he can’t read the clock (although he has designed one for swatch) yet, beyond any reasonable doubt, Mika has talent to spare. So much, and so transversal, that he is accustomed to recognize it in an instant, and the role of talent scout, in addition to the one of pop star, now fits him like a glove. In September, he will return to the jury of X Factor, in France has boosted the ratings of The Voice, while we met him with his sister Yasmine in Trieste for Swatch, among the judges of International Talent Support (ITS), a competition that launches (and rewards) new creative on the Olympus of fashion. About the talent he has no doubts: “It means being able to transform energy into something tangible, restore the daily through a different lens. The ideas are useless in itself and for itself, there must be something that justifies their implementation.”
It is not always so easy.
To realize an idea you have to use the language, the intellect, the history and the design.
How many guys have this ability?
When you evaluate a talent you wonder how much it’s complete, how much it’s sincere, how much it’s educated or how much it’s not, and you wonder how it can be produced without that nothing, in terms of identity, is missing. It’s a difficult puzzle to put together.
But you’ve made it. Not only with the music: your first watch, Kukulakuku of Swatch, broke all sales records.
Swatch is like that sort of colorful maze for children that you can find at McDonarld’s. The only thing you want to do is throw yourself in, then you come swamped by 300,000 baubles and say … ****!
You just have to keep moving.
Exactly. The artistic work that my sister Yasmine and I did on the watches has influenced the cover of my latest single and I believe that it will also influence the one of the next album. Which in turn it will influence the next job that we do for Swatch: things are mixed with each other, it works in this way, it is inevitable.
It seems that you enjoy the work of designer.
We are working to jewelry, Swatch has given us confidence. We have sought advice from our sister Zuleika which is a jewelry designer and she has just graduated from the prestigious Central Sain Moartins of London, but she sent us to f*** off: “Sorry, I made so much effort and you have an easy life?” (He laughs). So we replied: ” it’s ok, then we will not make a piece of fine jewelry, but one thing with temper”. We aren’t designers, we like to tell stories and to do that we use objects or pictures.
What did you use of?
Of a pendant. When you see it, you’ll understand everything. By the way, yours is beautiful! (looks at it, grabs it and plays with it gently)
It’s of Reminiscence.
It is a challenging name! We were talking before about reminiscence, for the Lucid Dream (the theme of the contest ITS2014): it is encouraging that someone talk to young people still talking about dreams. Yasmine interrupts him: “how many turns of phrase! the dream of all the guys we met is to finally see their idea realized.” He pursues: ” she says so because she does the illustrator, and if his work does not end on a book… I speak with the privilege of popularity thanks to the music, the TV, the web. But she, every time, protestes: “Look that with it you don’t eat!” (He laughs). Jokes aside, the prize of Swatch is important, not just because it has an economic value, but also because it allows for a real work experience. For the guys, today, is crucial.
Do you dream often?
My sister dreams of night and she uses dreams to solve problems. Instead, I dream with my eyes open. Or, I dream in reverse: if it seems to me that one thing work, it will be a disaster. But if I see black, it will work great. she dreams in order, I in total chaos.
Does daydreaming means to dream lucidly?
I think that the idea of a lucid dream doesn’t refer at all to the world of dreams, but in a very conscious creative process, the discipline that translates talent and art into something concrete.
Do you like fashion?
For all of us (mika has a brother and three sisters) fashion means threads. As children, we didn’t do other that remove them from under our feet, our mom sewed and the workshop was the kitchen. Not to mention the pins to the ground, our terror. I imagine that the great photographers see it as a matter of art, but for us the fashion is that practical, physics thing, of which the seamstresses of valentino discuss when they dispute on how to set a bias of organza. We don’t care about collections, but the quality of the stitching and details, yes!
Credit Translation: Lucrezia in MFC
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