Ddiddue & Juana Etcheberry

The duo’s process is to produce in their studio, using the local know-how and collec- ting end-of-life objects or decommissioned industrial products. They experiment new forms of creation around the imagery of Basque customs, between mythology and popular tradition.
The collaboration with the Métiers d’art Chanel honed in on an interpretation of a tradition of popular theatre, the Souletin Maskarada, and of the formal and symbolic hybridisation of these two entities.

ETXEAN BELE, KANPOAN ÜRZO
Raven indoors, dove outdoors This Basque Country’s folk saying stands as the starting point of the project. Maskarada is a theatrical expression of the dual identity of human nature, the self-construction in private and in society.
Such duality is reflected in the characters of the Souletin Maskarada, like in the man-horse whose appearance and rituals convey the dual aspect nature-culture and wild-social. Two Souletin entities are embodied, between symbolic narrative and whole cloth.
The Aitzindari, the “beautiful”, is civilised.
This silent character, concerned about physical performance and self-discipline, spends all his energy in locking his wild side up and perfecting his appearance. His goal is Promethean: dominating his environment.
A pleated and colourful vegetation is longing to spring from his chest but is contained by a structured jacket, nailed by a chain stitch. The character goes through this civilising process to become a social being. A hairdresser will come to cut his mane and give it a “French-style garden” form. A performance, a ritual of taming the hair and the vegetal.
The Kauter, “the vulgar” is wild.
A speaker and a politician. He is an impulsive and instinctive tribune who speaks in a cyni- cal way. His cutting sense of humour reflects all over his figure through embroidery - like a dazibao - and jewellery simbolising refine- ment. Hist taste for self-mockery manifests in a burntlooking branch piercing his head through, while his gentleness emerges from a white animal wool sleeve, thus tilting his other protective sleeve.
The pleats in the jacket of Aitzindari and the Jardin d’Eden (the Garden of Eden) were made by Maison Lognon,
the tightening pieces and jewellery by Maison Desrues, the ruff collar, and the embroidery of the quilted coat by Paloma. Every single piece is exclusively made from recovered materials gathered from the firms Etchesécurité (decommissioned boots), Emac (decommissioned floors from the RATP, the Paris public transport network), Euromaster (inner tubes) and the National Centre for Space Studies (parachutes).