Multisciplinary mastermind: the life and times of Marcelo Burlon

I don't want to focus on just one of my passions - I don't want to feel limited. I don't put boundaries on my creativity."

L’OFFICIEL IBIZA: You often talk of the importance of your early  years. How does your background inform your work?

MARCELO BURLON: My mother’s parents moved from Lebanon to Patagonia in 1915. My Italian grandparents moved to Buenos Aires after the Second World War. I was born in Patagonia, in a hippy village called El Bolsón. It was  surrounded by lakes and mountains, very safe and quite  wild. We used to take swimming classes in a waterfall and go to the hippy market on Saturday mornings, where the air was thick with patchouli and marijuana. Patagonia is a part of my soul. I go back twice a year and all my collections are influenced by that culture. The folklore, the nature, the spirit animals and the traditions of the indigenous Tehuelche people of the region. When the economic crisis hit Argentina in 1990 we moved to Italy, close to Riccione on the Adriatic coast. We didn’t have  a lot. I worked in a shoe factory and I cleaned hotel rooms with my mother. It was tough. But in the nineties Riccione was a very special place for the club scene. Clubs like Cocoricò were the best in Italy and people from all  over the world came to dance. In 1991, when I was 15, I started going to the clubs on Sundays. I quickly became a club kid. I quit the factory and started club work, doing  PR and then dancing. They used to pay us to dress up in Jean Paul Gaultier and dance like crazy. Those years were the start of my obsession with music.

LOI: You are now inextricably linked with Milan. How did  that happen? 

MB: I moved to Milan in 1998. I became the door selector of a Friday night party at Magazzini Generali. It was massive, packed with fashion designers and celebrities, architects  and writers. I became the face of the party, and I knew  everyone. One night Domenico Dolce came and said, ‘I have a project for you.’ I became the Dolce & Gabbana PR guy. I was working by day in the office and by night in the clubs, so I created an agency. I was hired by all the designers to  curate store openings, gallery events, you name it – I pretty much had a monopoly on the party scene in Milan. I think the fashion industry in the city had been quite stuffy and old-school before that, and I was this young kid bringing a fresh energy. My first event was a 25th-anniversary party  for Giorgio Armani. They asked me to plan the guestlist  and I brought all the drag queens, the streetwear kids, the artists, the fashionistas. For the first time, Milan started to feel inclusive. I was throwing events like you’d find in New York, with an old bourgeois woman from high society next to a graffiti artist who the police were looking for. That was my talent – bringing incredible people together. 

LOI: How was the seed for your own label sown? 

MB: In the early 2000s I started to DJ. I became a resident  DJ at New York’s Chelsea Hotel, and I’d go to play in Tel Aviv, Beirut and San Francisco. Thanks to social media I built a very strong global network. I could see that the kids didn’t want to just come and dance to my music – they also  wanted to be part of my crew. To belong to this big family that I was building. I decided to launch a T-shirt label and it went viral straight away. The American rapper Pusha T bought 20 T-shirts and wore them in his videos. Pretty soon LeBron James and all the NBA players were wearing  them. It was a crazy time. I think at first the fashion  world found my multidisciplinary approach a little hard to understand. Switching from music to designing to PR to  DJing – it wasn’t what the industry was used to. I think it’s far more readily accepted now, especially with the younger generation. I don’t want to focus on just one of my passions  – I don’t want to feel limited. I mean, I didn’t study design, but I have a design team and I drive them, I direct them. I don’t put boundaries on my creativity.  

LOI: You’ve lived in Ibiza for three years. What does life look like right now? 

MB: I’m enjoying the island! I love my home. It was  designed by the Ibicenco architect Jordi Carreño and it’s quite striking. I make music here with my friends and I  collect art. My home is filled with art. I have sculptures by Helmut Lang, some works by Keith Haring and a 1976  Victor Vasarely. Stefan Bruggemann’s Stargate is in my garden. I have a beautiful Damien Hirst that he sent me as a gift, and I’m collecting Andy Warhol’s 1970s polaroid series of transsexuals in New York. I also love sports – I  play padel every day – and I’m crazy about cars. I have a  1965 Mustang and I’ve just converted a 1970s Land Rover Defender with a new wood floor and new leather. I like to take my boat to Tago Mago or Es Palmador and I’m  always at the San Jordi flea market on Saturdays. There’s  an English guy there named Peter who sells vinyl, so I visit  him and look for rare old records. Last July, I launched  the Fondazione Marcelo Burlon, a charitable organisation with a lot of projects. We have Casa Marcella, a refuge in Italy for trans girls who are transitioning. We have a swimming school in Kenya to help build life skills. We’ve rehomed a lot of people in my native Patagonia following  the disastrous fires last year and we have a hotel that is  currently home to 70 Ukrainian families. The foundation is my focus right now. Fortune has been good to me. Now it’s my turn to help.