By Salar Bil is the Godfather of Conceptual fashion based in Tehran, Iran, with the alter-ego Bil found out his first decade of work through his alter-ego; the term alter ego may be applied to the role or persona taken on by an actor or by other types of performers even like fashion icons, he was the freedom icon before the protest 2022 of Iran and stood for Gholam-Hossein Sa’edi, Fereydoun Farrokhzad and Ahmad Shamlou his Iranian idols, critic Diane Pernet made him the Freedom Icon, and after death of Mahsa turned it into the article ”Dialectics of Design”
As a child who was interested in fashion from a young age, he worked enthusiastically and was engaged in filmmaking in adolescence, His painting teacher made him interested and introduced to Abbas Kiarostami and avant-garde documentary filmmaking. Then he did not continue studying cinema and has a BA in Textiles and MA in Arts & Culture research, He has more of an avant-garde mentality, his styling and design cannot be discussed much because he broke the framework each time but in his own way and this is the avant-garde mentality itself. According to BoF, he is one of the first successful market leaders of Iran and the hottest designer back in 2015, He wrote a book about Anthropocene age for sustainable fashion published in Iran. He is the ambassador of Tom of Finland and Christina Aguilera as a phallic icon paid tribute to him for L.A. pride 2022 as a controversial legend.
Bilehsavarchian designed for Christina Aguilera, Erykah Badu, Róisín Murphy, Boy George, Betony Vernon & Ellen von Unwerth; Patti Smith also praised him as a master of punk literature icon.
He has been introduced as a threat to the Islamic Republic of Iran and has launched unisex fashion as the first person in Iran with supporting the LGBTQIA community and the blackness of the hijab on Iran TV. as Sophie Fontanel, Tim Blanks and Diane Pernet mentioned Salar is the Forefather of concpetual fashion based in Tehran, all of them are icons in shaping the Global Fashion Industry (Three icons of BoF 500 People Shaping the Global Fashion Industry).
Q: You predicted Iran’s 2022 protests with the Bionic postfeminism concept and in the end of dialectics poetry manifest against the Iranian regime in the conceptual series, How did you become one of the most important figures of this movement?
S.B: I started my work with historical texts in an underground gallery, my peers had great designs but not a literature form planned for a purpose like a dialectic series, From the sun and justice of the Achaemenid Mithra to the Qajar jewel, I had traveled the historical path and the decay of values in Iran history and I believe in ancient human rights, I spoke with Patti Smith about the importance of poetry and the ancient world, In ancient times we used to communicate with the Creator through poetry, these days, it is the adhan(azan), and everyone can do it the way they like, after that for the beginning of dialectics I had mentioned back then for the concept of Bionic that this concept will be examined in this space… and place… and the next decade will lose its color with my dialectical result show in my private Maison. Before protest With space, time, Tehran on the other hand Nietzsche’s Übermensch, who unites his will with the world, I did revolution online on my Instagram page with my interviews, Patti Smith and greats of art and fashion shared the interview, half an hour after Mehsa’s death, I wrote that many people are in a coma, and I wrote seriously about equality feminism and the liberal feminist tradition that focuses on the basic similarities between men and women, and whose ultimate goal is the equality of all genders in all domains. This includes economic and political equality, equal access within the workplace, freedom from oppressive gender stereotyping, and an androgynous worldview. and the revolution happened, then i shared my image of a girl walking in Iran’s highway proud without hijab from 2012 with the flags of the Islamic Republic on the back and the empty spaces of the missing posters on the wall. Well, i guess everyone should know the difference between politic, art, theology, culture, philosophy and psychology. Me with the help of my friend from family of the philosopher Ghomshei started my Fashion Runway from Africa, with African instrument. The musician was wearing a sex symbol T-shirt, he was wearing also sunglasses with Marilyn Monroe and her legs out of the skirt on the red carpet, and African model for the start of the show with 7zār metaphysical concept as science is clear, we all come from the same ancestor from Africa, Although I dealt with music and African ancestry, sex was also my message for women before that on Glamour of Bandar i did research about Afro-Iranians when no one in Iran did native and everyday people fashion, a research about the environment and everyday people of the region. Most of the Iranian fashion of that time would be about street wear and Golestan Palace and patterns of Iranian architecture, but the colonial southern of Iran design on a box was a struggle with tradition and the state of Don Juan and androgynous even with drag queen in a foggy limbo, It was a not very pretty to mainstream sort of camp glam rock from 2010’s era, inspired by poverty and I had to mock the culture of celebrity and consumerism with Anti-capitalism Bionic in front of those lakes of ecosystem in a empty narcissus pool, 7 zār is the Fashion Week inspired by Ahmad Shamlou’s narrating for Nasser Taghvai’s zār with Shamlou’s famous protest against censorship or his famous Quote: “After cholera, Abaya is the most dangerous disease in the world” so i tried like the greats before me to fight against traditions, i’m proud of my origins and great muslim philosophers and poets of past centuries but i am from 90’s and a globally raised person so i’m a newer muslim, I tried to depict the border between the port of my country and the mockery of Hollywood celebrity in the root of the work. So as master Shamlou taught me aggressively i threw out my Abaya in the streets in my street performance, and when I used to be a teenager, I had attended the classes of Ehsan Shariati, the son of Ali Shariati, about metaphysics, that 7Zār concept was important and heavy for me, for example i went for the trilogy ecofeminism and i just knew where i want to go from the beginning, then northern Iran after that good conceptual art challenges the market and artistic process with essays and reflections.
Q: The #MeToo movement in Iran happened after your street performances, how did you have the courage to fight for human rights in a fashion atmosphere attitude, country where queer people are executed and you went dirrty in the streets?
S.B: I was sure of the social situation that I would get the right answer based on my studies, although there was a lot of controversy and notoriety for me, I lost a lot of followers and created chaos in my own way, and I lost the support and approval of many people which is not good for me also but for them to accept us that we exist, but not important to me because I believe in God and I had to leave an achievement for the next generation at any cost, so that they will be empowered, that they will not be afraid of anything to be ashamed of expressing their sexuality or is it something that should be kept a secret? As a gender player, I portray different aspects of my sexuality to evoke emotion, there is no need to be afraid, or you will not succeed because in Iran everything is based on tradition and religion, a victim of hatred and laughter and a thousand things that happen in other people’s heads. which I don’t know about their mindsets, cause god is not what my people talk about it to me, and all of these arts that we create are not a joke, they are a model for the next generations, and it is not so easy to stay committed to your profession. and i have to stand for muslim’s rights in the new age as a African god, cause we are all the African gods. as i mentioned Iraj Mirza, Samad Behrangi these are Muslim men who stood for ladies in the history of Iran and after i’m gone i don’t wanna be in the circles of Muslims who poison and kill school girls, but a Muslim who fall down on his knees and shamelessly opened his hair for school girls in front of the mosque and he sings and dance about dirty politics, don’t take it seriously, on the other hand for protest i shaved my head. the street is a place of empathy, that’s why my street pictures are very important to me as a visual statement in fashion. In the end, I have no fear, even if they want to execute me now, I am ready, I have a good understanding of religion and history, and I have to answer to one God and I have no fear of openly living my life, when a genius like Patti Smith calls me master, I can easily die in peace and I will not leave my country.
Q: with a Kurdish Wikipedia, that Erykah Badu shared it as “Hi-Fashion” you mentioned about the democracy of Kurdish people and the longest war of the 20th century between Iran and Iraq and suddenly the death of Mahsa Amini as an elite you talked about surrealism and you foresaw the movement and all the topics, you mentioned superhuman like Rumi and Hafiz express themselves in their poems, and reconstructs the truth. How did you organize your ideas?
S.B: you shape your destiny with what you study and put in your mind, I sent David LaChapelle my friend my dirrty performance that “David every 15 seconds a child dies of hunger” i did my part for schoolgirls with beautiful and dirrty performance, i’m trying to serve to all men-kind and after that Iran’s school girls poisonings began, it’s a world full of trouble and it’s a very sad and troubled world we are living, then i removed censor from my picture in parking shouting! with the text: “Orwell, the fascism & democracy repeatedly, And the strategy that I implement against this sick system will be useful in the future. It is enough to speak the truth! We make it in history, but those who are in Illusion…. screaming people that are wondering at my posts better know that for years, I see the poverty and misery of my people and I know where I want to go.” Amanda Lear messaged me “don’t try to be a hero your life is precious” i replied “i paved the way after you and Salvador Dalí, they are traumatize it’s after the longest war in this century…” you study the history of art, literature and you plan for your future. in Bandar which Shiva (Mansoureh) Kaviani, an Iranian researcher, writer, translator and poet who studied philosophy and Western and Eastern religions, used to be the source of inspiration for the woman in Bandar, i talked to her, She is a wasted cultured woman and I have to plan for my people and know this is my calling and duty as a human being to pave the way after greats of art history.
Q. The initial inspiration and the beginning of existentialism in your conceptual collection is Gholam-Hossein Sa’edi, why and what about him is important in your work?
S.B: You know, Gholamhossein Saedi spoke to me frankly at a young age and told me that you will never become an artist, you are obliged to carry all the human and national problems on your shoulders, and from the view I had of Saedi, a fashion actor is a clown, he does not say that artist is a teacher of moral, but he says that he is telling the truth. He called Googoosh the most popular figure of Iran a clown at that time but I don’t see it as hostility, I think that the movements help each other to move forward and taught me all the schools and the West from ancient times to the seventies and after globalization and diasporains, you should know all! I defended Saedi with elites who themselves, like Christina Aguilera, call herself a clown and like Saedi, she hates festivals and charts, or Patti Smith says, “Aren’t we stupid”? On the other hand Badu, Kim Gordon, I know many artists from history, these elites are very intelligent and knowledgeable in their own special style and are not pretentious in any way, so it was a good group to choose from the West to defend Western schools in the global world today from greats of fashion history of Western world. The world art of 2023 is not the art of previous generations that some of us are stuck in, he said the pseudo-artist is an uncultured being, but pretending to the cultured, the pseudo-artist is suffering from complete mental laziness, and at the level of life, he has such a mental laziness that he has not fully studied the works of 20 artists in order to experience it. The pseudo-artist is also a good hunter, for his survival and the credibility of his presence, he tries to deceive everyone that I am a good person and trust me, artists and writers, as is clear from their writings, only talk about themselves and their purity and innocence. Me, me, me, believe me, I am a good charlatan, who justifies himself and hides himself in another shadow and does not face the reality, the diasporians who sold their country and set bait in the west and live and serve other corrupt systems, hundreds of fake poets come after them to confront Shamlou and the Akhavan to say that we are artists… The monsters of politics and clowns who didn’t work hard enough to predict this revolution. He says that the subject is not relevant to them, because they have nothing to say. They fill the empty spaces with extravagance, in this way they resort to formalism, an artist creates an important work from nothing, but a pseudo-artist destroys everything completely. Not only in his work, but also by his behavior and statements, the work of his colleagues, and even by misrepresenting the works of original and real artists. And this is where you can measure their hatred and malice towards real art, they can’t stand real art. Sa’edi says that the pseudo-artist is only involved in festivals, to receive awards from this country and that country, and to participate in gatherings so that he does not fall behind, and uses others to survive, he says that the reason for the growth of this phenomenon is 100% related to social status It is as if a polluted environment can cause the spread of any kind of disease, the existing social situation has created the necessary conditions for the emergence of these pseudo-artists, the pseudo-artist is not a phenomenon of the last one or two years. It has become endemic like a pseudo-plague for years. The passage of time has made it possible for it to open a wider space for itself and to have various and impressive demonstrations and penetrate into all artistic and cultural branches and rot and suffocate every healthy bud and destroy the original art.
My goal as a conceptual fashion designer was to properly understand the West and properly understand my country so that I could contribute to the social situation, Otherwise, I do not believe that I am an artist.
Q. But most of what you are talking about is about the artists of your own country, I understand that you are talking about conception, but don’t you think that this body of work is too much for being a fashion designer?
S.B: First of all i am very proud of the greats of Iran’s history, I’m not any other fashion designer who ever lived, I chose fashion because it’s the art of the new age, and I think of Laurie Anderson who says, be so special that you won’t be seen anymore, popularity is not the reason for my work, it’s my duty and ours to do the work! Yes, I work multidisciplinary, and if i chose these artists of west to interact with them because i know how thoughtful they are, it’s about their wisdom and activity throughout the years, And I don’t understand at all how Christians are proud of their religion along with their unconventional work, but I can’t? Forugh Farrokhzad also went to the hospital, she was a fighter to tradition as well with controversy, but Forough, who did not live in my decade and the age of internet and computers, it’s a new world from then, but my friends make fun of somethings very persian and rich Iranian music but because they don’t understand theology, i don’t have a problem, they have their opinion, but I modernized the local and Islamic clothes in the form of a camp and I am still the same designer and I am proud of my Iranian roots but in my own way, not the way they want me to be, Music is not my profession but i tried for “Mahsa Amini” and “Iran” to make my part for peace.
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