Nik Thakkar: Mind Map, Decoded

Jack of all trades and master of all, there is no stopping Nik Thakkar. Sample this. He has been the face for Jean-Paul Gaultier, has collaborated with Louis Vuitton for a project, and made a short film for Tom Ford. Phew! This London born, desi- Ugandan is a multi-tasking, multi-talented, platform artist, who means business. As he spoke to us from his London home, we figured that after ages (it felt like that) we have had a great conversation with a man, who is intelligent and fun!

Your stage name, NEO 10Y is quite interesting. Is there a back story there?

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I guess it’s rooted in the amplified futuristic version of my being, or at least the awareness of the dichotomy of that in my mind. There’s a word in zoology, neoteny. It means the retention of childhood characteristics in an adult animal. So, the idea is to embrace that. You know how creativity is educated out of us. The idea is to go back to it. Also, in numerology, 10 signify rebirth and revolution.

Let’s go back to 2013. How did the Jean-Paul Gaultier campaign happen?

I was working at a marketing agency called Exposure on the social media for their ad campaign with Diet Coke and various fashion designers. Jean-Paul Gaultier was one of them. About a month after meeting the team, I got a call asking if I wanted to be part of the brand’s A/W 2014 campaign. It was such an honour. I love Gaultier’s work and respect his ethos.

You wear many hats. If you have to choose one, would you rather be a model, a critic or a designer?

You know, I struggle with defining myself all the time. I like challenging myself. I have had so many different labels over the years and I am all of them and none at the same time. I sometimes love fashion and sometimes resent the industry for being so fickle. It’s a personal battle that I have to win. I love style and believe in it, no matter where you live or what your budget is. Self expression is the most important thing in the world, and if you don’t have that, then what do you even have?

Tell us all about Ada + Nik project and why did you feel the need of designing a menswear line?

What we created with Ada + Nik was an alternative silhouette to what was popular in the West. What you find in lots of different cultures around the world but that has dissipated over time due to masculine ideals. We wanted to bring that timelessness to life and fashion. It didn’t matter what gender you had. The idea was set within the same dystopian world as my art flows from paintings, videos to music.

You love music, don’t you?

I believe in the power of humans, of what a human can do. Society tells you to stop believing in yourself from a very young age. That happened to me, but music always stayed with me. I love music, artists, the intricacies and creating art around a product. I like bringing to life my ideas, and music was a great medium. It’s something that I can build all other mediums around.

What do you think about wearable technology?

It will be integral to us, but it won’t be built into clothes, but into our flesh. I think that is what I would prefer to develop now. Clothes was just an idea based around elevating the core self.

How did the Amerikkka, Janis and West Wild controversy change your idea of creative freedom?

Those tracks and the film, The Kid That Killed Tr*mp together gave me a sense of creative freedom. Doing it anonymously imbued me with the ability to speak my mind through art, sound and film. You know that’s actually a real struggle in 2018, creating something conceptual that people actually would like to spend time absorbing. And when it fits together, the narrative is so hypnotising that it really resonates with us. I knew what I was doing when I made it and if anything the whole process has just made me more conscious as a human and an artist, and about the idea of collective power and how can we advocate for big changes together.

You also teach children who cannot afford a fashion school education. How did it become a part of your life?

I would say I am more of a mentor than a teacher, who will end up being a life coach by 2024. I just want people to believe in themselves, in what they can create, how they can think, and break out of the matrix that a lot of humans are locked into. You grow up and then work as a slave until death. People are not enjoying the gift of life on this earth. I want to help them do that, by being more conscious and collectively moving forward.

From the March 2018 issue of L’Officiel India.