Gabriella Cortese

AN ODE TO CRAFTSMANSHIP AND AUTHENTICITY. Gabriella Cortese made her mark on the fashion universe when she founded Antik Batik in 1992. The Antik Batik fashion house stands out for its collections of chic, bohemian clothing and accessories that emphasise craftsmanship and artistic techniques. It was the alluring scent of adventure that set Gabriella Cortese on her travels and inspired her to create Antik Batik, thus it reflects its designer’s ever-renewed desire to explore the world with boldness and curiosity, and to share her discoveries. Fiercely committed to freedom and open-mindedness, Gabriella has built her Antik Batik brand – which has now gone global – as a true ode to craftsmanship and authenticity.

21 minutes read time.

You can listen to the podcast of this interview here.

Gabriella Cortese, you were born into a prominent family in Turin, Italy, and as a child you wanted to be a ballerina. When you moved to Paris around the age of 18 you studied, but you also danced at the infamous Crazy Horse cabaret. Why did you then change? 

Because when you are 18 or 20 years old the nightlife is never healthy. And also, it was something that I hid a little in my life, because I was not really proud of it, even if it’s great because my husband reconnected me with that part of my life, saying to everybody, “My wife was a dancer at Crazy Horse! These are the most beautiful women on earth!” So that became a part of my life that I can share now. When I was 18, I was going out partying every night, and to come back onto the ground I started to travel – and that’s how I started Antik Batik.  

You are a big traveller, but since when?  

I was a born traveller. As a child I was travelling with my multicultural family: my grandmother was Hungarian, and over the years I realised that that background was very important for me, because of the colours, because of the opening of the Orient that was implicit in the Hungarian embroideries and culture. I was a traveller since the beginning, and as a child I loved reading Emilio Salgari stories. Then I discovered Hermann Hesse and Alexandra David-Neel, and Alexandra David-Neel actually gave me the courage and the force to travel to Tibet and to travel through her stories as she counted the kilometres she did walking with her chaplet.

ANTIK BATIK – GABRIELLA CORTESE BY VIKAS MAURYA

Gabriella Cortese, you went all over, to India, Peru, Uzbekistan, Bali, and many other places. Were you motivated by the desire to understand other cultures? 

My passion is for meeting people. For me, the most important thing is not travelling without a soul, it’s travelling and meeting people. It was very important for me to start to create something through craftsmanship as a way of connecting with other people that didn’t speak my language and didn’t have my religion or my education. That was the first thing that connected me to other people in the world.  

Nevertheless, you have lived in Paris for a long time, in a very special hotel particulier in the Pigalle neighbourhood, a house where creative people such as Giovanni Boldini and Toulouse Lautrec had their studios. Why Pigalle?  

I was living in Saint-Germain, and then somebody called me up and told me come to visit this house and I said, “No I don’t want to cross the river.” When I went there I said, “This is the one,” because Pigalle at that time – and especially that road – was a road where all the models used to pose for the painters. Boldini had lived in my house and just in front of my house Toulouse-Lautrec was living. You cannot say no to this kind of story.  

Being in Paris, you obviously were in contact with the world of fashion, and around 1990 you started to do bikinis in Batik material. In fact, you invented what would be called the “hippie chic” or the “bohemian chic” style?  

Yes. I started this fashion, but not through the big door of fashion. I started travelling. I went to Bali and I started to design on the corner of a table the designs that the artisans were doing, carving batik blocks in metal. That’s how Antik Batik started. I started to do pareos, and then suddenly in winter they became scarves, they became a shesh. This could never have happened in Italy, because Italy at that time was winter material and summer material, but in France, with the shesh around the neck, people felt like they were travelling in a magic story. Antik Batik has always had a soul, because the things are done by hand, and they have the soul of the people that make them and of all those families that have had the courage to go on with their craftsmanship. I’m proud to say that I always work with the same families since 30 years. It’s a very nice thing to be able to say.  

In 1992, when you founded Antik Batik and were based in Paris – even if you travelled and worked with craftsmanship in India, in Peru, in Scotland, in Italy – were you inspired by Yves Saint Laurent and Kenzo Takada? 

Yes, and as a child I was inspired by looking at my mother wearing Saint Laurent. It also inspired me a lot that Torino at that time had a lot of people like Aldo Sacchetti, who used to make the shoes for all the ladies, and Maria Volpi who used do the hats. With these artisans all around my eye was becoming educated and I was fascinated by the silhouette that Saint Laurent had at the end of the 60s and beginning of the 70s. In my eye this was something that was always important when creating my collections.  

Antik Batik became very important in the early 2000s and at a certain moment you had three boutiques in Paris and four boutiques in Japan, and famous women like Carla Bruni and Vanessa Paradis as your sponsors. Why did you then have a crisis?  

I thought at that time that I could handle such a big company, but it was too big for me, and then my husband died and I had a small child. I continued working, but I had to stop and start again from zero. That was a good lesson for my ego, and freshness is very important. I have always been blessed with a lot of creativity, but when you start from zero it’s very important that you start with the relationships with people and you start like a family, and not in a big way with assets, banks and everything. Today we are completely independent, and it’s a very nice journey. Much nicer than before.

Gabriella Cortese, you opened a very successful space in the Marais, another neighbourhood in Paris, and have many other locations where you sell. In 2024, you opened in Saint-Tropez, in Milano, and you are exhibited in grand magasins like Le Bon Marché. You started working with China, and recently you also started menswear in Florence with Pitti Immagine Uomo?

Yes, we have been at  Pitti very recently to present the men’s collection for the second season. Antik Batik launched menswear in 2024 with the Spring, with French star dancer at the Opera de Paris, Germain Louvet, as ambassador. I imagine myself to be a sort of nomadic person who meets other nomadic persons; we recognise ourselves in every different country.  Our flagship shop in the Marais in Paris is a space where you can come and feel at home, I have designed a “boudoir” where clients can sit and have a cup of mint tea while trying on the pieces of my collection. Saint-Tropez is the same. Deià as well, in the Balearic Islands. We started to sell at Biffi Milano in May 2026 and did a very nice window with a collection exclusive for them called NOMAD with all hand embroidered material, and we do a lot of projects like that. We just did one collaboration with Terre di Sacra in Capalbio, with a take-over of the restaurant. I designed pareos, a small collection of ready to wear sold in their Terre di Sacra shop and I am very happy about our special, iconic hippy bag with the logo Terre di Sacra woven on it. In the last 4 years  we also did three very nice projects with Martina Mondadori at Casa Cabana in Milano, always with the sense of travelling all together.  

Also with the Spanish socialite Eugenia Martínez de Irujo? 

Yes, we did a very nice collection with Eugenia, all around flamenco and her life in this world. Martina’s was a story of the silk road, and thanks to her I read again Il Milione of Marco Polo. At that time my son was 17, and I was so amazed by the life of Marco Polo, who in 1271 travelled through Mongolia at 17 years old. Everything comes in a way that is your own path, your own story, that little by little goes on, and you only realise why at the end.  

Did Terre di Sacra happen because you met Carlo and Giulia Puri, a prominent Italian social and business couple, or because you were a friend of Martina Mondadori?  

It happened because they are friends of friends, and because you feel that at that right moment it is the right thing to do. Every time that I feel through my intuition, I do the right things, and when I go far from my intuition things go wrong. You recognise the people that you can be a part of a big family with in that way.  

What kind of menswear were you recently doing in Florence for Pitti Uomo?  

Menswear for summer, especially, for men who love to travel, to go on vacation and feel like the shirt is a second skin, woven by hand, and feel really free on vacation. A lot of Italians come into the boutique and ask me if I have a men’s collection, and I say, “This is a men’s collection!” “Oh, wow. I didn’t see it like that.” We also have the khadi material made with the wood loom that Gandhi made an icon of liberty to Indians to free them from English power. I do trousers, different kinds of shirts, some that are very much embroidered, and short sleeves that look more like Cuban shirts, or normal shirts but in cotton or very fine voile. Super beautiful.  

Is Pitti Uomo a new venture?  

It’s a new venture, but it’s already the second time we did the Pitti Immagine Uomo. We started in winter and now in summer. High-end boutiques are buying the collections, so we are very happy.  

Would a nomadic writer like Bruce Chatwin have liked Antik Batik men’s shirts?  

Yes, I’m totally sure of it. Bruce Chatwin travelled with Moleskine black oilcloth notebooks in one pocket and a book in the other pocket, and he would have worn the same pants I’ve been showing at the Pitti for that.  

You have travelled a lot and people work for you in Rajasthan in India and other places. Nevertheless you are established in Paris. Why? Is it because Paris is the city of fashion?  

Paris came by chance. I don’t know why I’m still there, but my son now says to me all the time, “Mamma sono Francese.” I say, “No, you are half Italian, half French.” So that’s why for the moment I’m in Paris, but I’m always ready, tomorrow I can travel everywhere in the world. It’s the way your soul is, to be open to whatever is coming in your life and to meet people. Curiosity is very important for me in my life, and being with young people, following something like a thread that brings you somewhere.

Gabriella Cortese in India – shot by Robinson Ferreux

ANTIK BATIK – GABRIELLA CORTESE BY VIKAS MAURYA

GABRIELLA CORTESE BY VIKAS MAURYA 2024

Gabriella Cortese, what kind of clients or customers do you have at Antik Batik?  

I am very lucky, because I have a great breadth of clients. I had the mothers, and now I have the younger daughters; and now I have young boys and men who are free minded, because you have to be free minded to dress up with prints and patterns and new materials. I like the idea of being not only a fashion brand, but also different, like a philosophy. 

Today fashion can be very expensive – like Dior, Chanel, Saint Laurent – or much less expensive – like Zara and Uniqlo. Where is Antik Batik positioned? 

Not in the more expensive and not in the less expensive. It’s in the middle. We are a niche brand and I don’t think it’s a good idea to do crazy prices like you see today. I try to keep the prices the same from one season to the other. Of course, things that are handmade have to be paid for, because everybody has to be paid if I still work with the same people for 30 years. 

How many people work for you today?  

There are 12 different ateliers, and each atelier can have 50 or 100 people working. It’s a lot to organise, and I distribute the work every season to everybody.  

Do you design everything?  

Yes, I design everything. We are very few in the company. Today we are 25 people – and it’s a lot of work!  

Do you change collections often? 

Yes, we change collections every season and from one season to the other. We have two collections per year, and from one season to the other you have to change things. We cannot redo the same thing just a little bit, because I have a lot of multi-brand clients and multi-brands clients need novelty. 

When you travel to somewhere like India how long do you stay there? 

Now I stay no more than 15 days. I used to stay one and a half months per collection, and my son grew up in the Imperial Hotel in Delhi. He had his little bicycle and I had my same room at the Imperial hotel for 25 years. Now I stay there much less and I try to move around because it’s very important to go to meet everybody. But India is a continent, so if you start to move in India you only come back after two or three months. I’m very much an aficionado of travelling the way they did in 1800. Travel empties your mind and little by little, you lose your cocoon and you open your eyes to see new things. Travelling in a short time is not very healthy for me.  

Does your son work with you now in Antik Batik?  

No, he’s doing a bachelor of business and management. Let’s see what he wants to do. I’m not the type of mother who tries to make the future of my son nearby me, because I prefer his happiness and he will see what he wants to do. 

Do you take vacations?  

I try to take vacations, and where I go depends. I go a little bit in Liguria, but then I travel around. Every time I have some new trips to do.  

Where is Antik Batik most popular and are your clients mostly French, Italian, or American?  

The first country is France; then Spain, Italy, all the North Europe countries. Now China, with a lot of new multi brand boutiques, and America. We have clients everywhere in the world. 

Is it difficult to stay in fashion for many years and to be obliged to do a new collection twice a year?  

Yes and no. It’s a rhythm that you have to have, then it becomes like a routine. I stay in fashion in my own way. I always follow my own obsession of doing fashion in that way. More and more, I think you don’t have to change here and there like everybody is doing in this difficult time.  

How difficult a time is it for fashion right now?  

It is very difficult time, but it’s also very interesting because things are changing and everything is becoming faster. When it’s becoming faster, I stay back and I stay with my craftsmanship, giving time to time, and doing things in a very natural way, not following the people that are going too fast, not following the people that are growing the prices too much, and not going to the people who are doing fast fashion. We have a very interesting highway opening for us now.  

Of all these countries where you have been travelling around the world as a nomadic person, where would you like to pitch your tent?  

Near the people I love, because a place without anybody is an empty place in your heart. I have built up my families in every place I go; in Nepal, in India, in Bali, in Mexico. I love to be with my beloved ones.

We live in a complicated world in a difficult time, are people around the world in countries like Bali, Mexico, India, and Nepal, as pessimistic and worried as people are in Paris, where there are many riots about political issues? 

Everybody has his own story and his own politics, but I feel that in the Occidental world they want to keep us in a fear state of mind. What is happening is horrible, but I always say to myself that happiness is somewhere else. When you go to the Orient part of the world even if everything is not okay, the people are much more optimistic than we are, because they view the world from a different perspective. We always only see from one perspective.  

Which is their perspective?  

They don’t see the world that we are talking about every day when you switch on the television in the same way. They tell us, it’s a money story and the economy is growing. In India the economy is growing, and the middle class is growing a lot. In China, even if there is a type of crisis, the economy is growing. In our countries, the economy is going down, there are riots and as soon as you switch on the television, it’s desperate people and people dying. It is horrible. It is sad.  

Does Antik Batik sell in India too?  

No because India is a continent that works by itself and it’s very difficult to penetrate the economy of the country and they don’t really need us. They go abroad when they want to go and buy something from a big brand, because it’s nice to go and buy Chanel in Paris. I think there is still a lot of time before they will start to buy a brand like Antik Batik in India and that I can settle a boutique there.  

When you don’t work at Antik Batik, what do you like to do?  

I read a lot. I enjoy nature, and I need a lot of nature to calm down so I go to the country. I stay by the sea, by the nature, by the forest. It’s very important for me. And I stay with the people I love.  

Has Paris changed a lot since you moved there and is it still La Ville Lumière, the great city for fashion?  

I have the feeling that it changed dramatically, but sometimes I say, maybe it’s my age that makes me say that. But it has changed a lot, yes.  

Nicely or not so nicely?  

Not so nicely.  

Why?  

Because of politics, because of crises. You see how the Parisians are very moody, very negative. So I keep going and keep smiling.  

Are you still connected and close to your friends in the city of Turin? 

Yes, I still have roots. I still have my Mum living there. Torino changed a lot since the day I went to Paris. It’s a beautiful town, a romantic town, a cultural town. I love it.  

But still, you live in Paris!  

Yes.  

Gabriella Cortese, thank you very much for this interview.

Portrait of Gabriella Cortese by Elina Kechicheva

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