BoHO hAUtE

Reimagining the paradigms of counterculture aesthetics: Chiara Totire’s vibrant, nomadic style harmoniously aligns with her passion for the iconic universe of Chanel

Exuding an elegance that flows yet is resolute, paired with an innate chicness and a natural authenticity seldom seen in today’s young women, Chiara shines. She is among a se- lect few true Italian beauties, carefully chosen to embody and interpret the distinctive style of the legendary Paris- ian maison. I am drawn to people who know how to stand out from the chorus, and the chorus of girls who want to present them- selves as an aesthetic point of reference for the female public plays the same music, and often out of tune. Chiara is simply and profoundly beautiful; she has not had to cre- ate an image for herself by way of cosmetic surgery and a life of taking selfies in poses in which she exposes her body as a commodity to be consumed. I wanted to present her in her own words alongside the photographs she took for us on the beaches of the city of magical light where she was born and where she always returns, Bari, on the sea that she lives in a free, nomadic way. She seems very young, and I immediately want to ask her if she started in fashion as a child. “How old do you think I am?” Thirty, at most, I answer. “Actually I’m 38, so that’s a real com- pliment; you have no idea!” She begins to tell me that her relationship with fashion was a bit stormy at first, and this I had imagined. “As a child I was actually a tomboy… I dreamed of riding motorbikes, and I played football. I was in a constant battle with my mother who wanted to make me more feminine while I did everything not to be. She would take me to shops to try on clothes for hours, a nightmare. Anyhow, my family had artistic inclinations. At first, I started off drawing, and then I got the knack for photography… and then, just like that, without expecting it, I began to love clothes and to look for a way to use them to express myself. This, however, happened during my ad- olescence. Let’s say that before that, I had absolutely no idea and nor did I care about how I looked, how I dressed, or how I styled my hair.”
So I ask her, if as a child she never played with dolls, if she didn’t use create female imagery with dolls. “No, I never sewed little Bar- bie dresses,” she replies. “In fact, even I find it difficult to admit it, and I still wonder how it is possible for someone who loves clothes the way I do now to not have felt this crazy love as a child.” Chiara comes from a family of pharmacists, she attended language high school, and she herself has a degree in pharmacy. Doesn’t the job of a fashion look creator somewhat resemble that of a pharmacist, like skillfully mixing different ingredients, different stories…? “It may well be so… However, when I embarked on my studies, there was no galenic section in our pharmacy. I was practically going to be a simple shop assistant, and that was something I always hated. So much so that, having done my duty by graduating, I said, ‘Goodbye, everyone. I’m off to work in fashion in Milan.’”

Interesting to know, when Chiara was a young girl, what was her re- lationship with her body, and with her classmates and fellow stu- dents. “I was never bullied,” she clarifies. “I was teased a little bit because I was the tallest in the class. There was a friend in my section who did comic book sketches, and when he drew me, he only drew my legs. I never cared much about other people’s judgment. Honest. It is true, however, that I had a very special relationship with my body. Because when I started to get into fashion, I also started to want certain things to look perfectly on me, and a developing teenager doesn’t always have the body she would like. In fact, maybe she has an amazing body, but she is never happy with herself. I have never met a girl who, like me then, would say, ah yes, when I was 13 I loved my body. Even if you don’t have anything to hate, let’s say you hate a little bit of everything that is your physical appearance, regardless. Precisely because I had this obsession with being perfect and wearing things perfectly, I did a lot of sports, which I still do today even if not at the level I once did. Sports helped me a lot, not only with prob- lems I had due to scoliosis, but in finding confidence in the awareness of my body.” And even so, perhaps only when you become a woman do you really become aware of who you are. But Chiara came to Milan when she was very young and unaware. Did she then already know where to go or did she come on the prowl, looking for luck? “I had a stylist friend who worked for a major women’s weekly. The fashion director liked me and took me in on a giant leap of faith, since I had no training. And this is how I landed in the fashion world, making photocopies and assisting editors in the field. This is a job you learn by doing. Although I think more than learning, you have to possess something, a predisposition, which becomes almost a mission when you start to get the hang of it. In this job, you are never really sure of your abilities. I always challenge myself, and I think I will do that throughout the rest of my career, de- spite all the compliments I may receive, and even the criticism, which when fair, makes you grow professionally.”

It’s not easy to be in a profession where, even if it doesn’t weigh you down, you are always under the judgment of others, with constant pub- lic pressure… “In the beginning, I tended to hide my work rather than share it. Then I realized that that didn’t lead anywhere, and I tried to put myself out there too.” Now Chiara is an Insta-girl and has become a Friend of Chanel. “Chanel is really the highest one can aspire to. Here again I had to wonder why, because I would never have presumed myself to repre- sent Chanel if I was the one judging. Of course it’s a huge honor, and I leapt at the opportunity. But the social media world is not really in my wheelhouse… and a little bit of that maybe shows in the portraits I take of myself. I like being behind the lens more than in front of it. I like my job as a stylist. And if that means that someone can love me for the way I dress or the type I am or the sort of life I lead or which cream I use, all the better. That said, I wouldn’t want that to become my main job.”

I nonetheless find Chiara to be a reference point for those who follow her, and I tell her so. “On the one hand, I’m very happy to be a bit of a counterpoint to this whole fake world of women, even very young wom- en, all the same, all redone, all exaggerated. All based on outward ap- pearance, sex, and the consumption of one’s body. That’s the direction where society is going now; it’s not just a question of image on social media. If you just think about the music that young people listen to now, you don’t even hear the singer’s real voice. The lyrics are no longer poems or reflections. It’s all about sex, about money, and the voice is modified with auto-tune… From this point of view, I consider myself pretty old-fashioned, and I’m horrified, by what I see on social media and by all the rest!” Chiara is also analytical about listening to music. “I love music but not the music of today. I find it all so uninspiring. The songs are copies of each other, and everyone sings the same way. I wouldn’t even know how to define that genre. I always listened to music that went against the grain.” But what does Chiara like about the style of Chanel, she whose taste is so precise? “I like everything Vir- ginie (Viard, ed.) does. She knows how to interpret the spirit of the Maison beautifully. She continues to bring out that feeling of timelessness in every fash- ion show and every garment. Everything she does is iconic.” One last question, which I think I already guess the an- swer, whether she would live an alternative life to her own through an avatar or reject the idea as demented. “If I want to change my life, I change it. I won’t create an avatar to live a new life in the metaverse. That’s just stupid. No, absolutely not.” But has the job taken anything away from her? Has being on the road all the time limited her in friendships or in affection? “Obvi- ously it was very hard in the beginning and my private life suffered; I won’t hide that. But I absolutely do not regret anything I did. Now I am the master of my time, and I’m happy this way. Anyway, I missed Bari a lot at first. Milan was a city-metropolis that took me a bit far from what I loved. Now, when I go back to Bari from Paris, I do it by choice, precisely because it is right for me to be there, and it is right for me to appreciate all that the city can give me. I want to return, not to normality because it could seem that Paris is a city of madmen, but to return to the authentic values of my family, of my friends, and of simplicity.”