Tea Hacic-Vlahovic is a fun historian: the Milan you never got to see
Interview by Tommaso Höger / hogertommaso
Editors-in-Chief: Alina Ferraro / ally_ferraro
Guilherme Ferrari / gferrari____
Photography: Veronika Orlova / lolorlova
Styling: Stela Plaka / stelaplaka
Styling Assistance: Nataly Bondar / natalybondarmuah
Production Assistance: Riham Bou Ghannam / rihamsbg
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“I write for living and I party for a lifestyle”
Explaining Tea Hacic-Vlahovic is almost impossible. She’s a blogger, a comedian, a writer, a podcaster, video maker, a philosopher, a model and even a tarot reader! She’s a whole artist, but if artists are the means of their own art, we can ultimately define Tea as the LIFE OF THE PARTY!
Party is a very ancestral and wide concept, is one of the most ancient things we started doing as humans: we gather together and celebrate life. A party is a hub in which countless aspects of our society are mirrored: fashion, art, music, performance, excess, fantasy, contradiction.
Before being a writer, Tea was a fashion student in Milan, and that’s what got her into writing: ”In fashion school in Milan I was working in fashion and studying fashion and I was so disillusioned with both that I turned to blogging out of desperation. The blogs led to columns which led to books and the rest is HERstory! I decided I was ready to write LIFE OF THE PARTY at an Autogrill between Verona and Milan, I always knew I’d write it, it just took time to build my skills and gather material. Lots of crying! Bringing up repressed memories, trauma, Tweets…it took four months to write it but it took years of living on the edge of glory.”
LIFE OF THE PARTY revolves around the ups and downs of Mia, a fictional alter-ego that Tea created to tell her story. In a Milan of the late 2000’s where you could tweet only from a Blackberry and THE FAME MONSTER by Lady GaGa just came out, Mia is a pink panther; dealing with the glamour and the decadence of the city and the people who inhabited it. She suffers from an eating disorder and an abusive relationship, but her pictures are on magazines, she knows every artist and DJ, events in clubs have her name on it, she parties on a boat at Venice Biennale, gets lost in flip flops and the morning after manages to return in Milan on stolen heels. LIFE OF THE PARTY makes us wonder is: Is life just a tragic comedy? Or a comic tragedy?
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If we think about the origins of western literature, we cannot ignore what Nietzsche postulates in The Birth of Tragedy. Greek theatre is where the modern concept of making literature is rooted, and it is not a coincidence that that those stage plays were catalyzed towards two main poles: the comedy and the tragedy. The first one has the ability to strip down unnecessary misconceptions about society trough satire, but the latter has a much deeper meaning. Tragedies, problems, sadness, they bring people together, they draw a lot of attention and ancient representations of them served as a teaching means to society. This happens because a moment of crisis, or the depiction of it, summons two different scenarios in people’s consciousness: either they become selfish or they become empathic.
Pathos is what makes problem interesting. Since Nietzsche’s time a lot happened. Our society grew but our mindset unfortunately didn’t change much. When trying to explain what Glamour is, Tea says “it’s a styling to life.” Everything can be glamourous if it’s done in a certain way. An olive in a glass can be glamour, a walk of shame can be glamour, Cicciolina showing her tits to the Italian parliament is glamour. Glamour is that way of experiencing things that some people have and some don’t but almost everyone wants. In modern times a new concept originated: glamourizing things. You can glamourize your house, your laptop, your Instagram feed, your dog, hummus in a bowl, everything.
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The patriarchy was always afraid of women and the power that the feminine holds: the power of choosing, the power to say no to expectations without the fear of feeling ashamed, since femininity is already considered a shame. Tolstoy explains it flawlessly in the Kreutzer sonata: femininity is prisoned under this golden cage that the masculinity came up with, observes and desires to control. All of this is so useless. The only glamour the patriarchy holds is money and coercion, while the feminine has it all, just think of fashion. Still in 2021, in mainstream fashion, men’s wear are often beyond boring, when feminine clothes have always been much more experimental, risky, outrageous, creative, sexy, free, artistic. But classism back in the days, and capitalism nowadays, always tried to deconstruct freedom and community. Patriarchy also needs to control artists: what makes a culture a culture are the artists who move in that specific community. Artistic estrum and wealth have really nothing in common but still the industry wants us to believe that art, fashion, expression and life has to be expensive or exclusive in order to be valuable.
“Fashion, to me, is rebellion. People use the word “fashion” too freely, to describe jeans and T-shirts or A-line skirts. I’ve always been inspired by subcultures. I grew up as a punk rocker and grew into something else, a runaway with a stolen credit card and a nose for glitter. Art and fashion aren’t so related. But artists and fashion are. The fashion industry is always trying to catch up with what artists are wearing. I’ve never followed trends, but I have set them. As soon as the masses catch on to what artists are wearing, they’ve already moved onto something else. When I was in fashion school I met a professional trend forecaster. (I remember asking her, “how can you live with yourself? Aren’t you ashamed?” She didn’t get it.) She worked for some agency I don’t remember the name of. But they were big, I went to their office in NYC. She did their dirty work, traveling the world, taking pictures of random people in different cities. She’d pool the research, come to conclusions, and sell those findings to brands. All the “top” brands came to HER. Or her agency. Anyway, that’s why runways randomly all look alike each season! Crazy, right? So luxury brands get their designs from streetwalkers and street kids. The way homeless dudes layer their rags, the way hookers mix animal prints. These days, brands just steal ideas directly from Instagram, cutting out the middle man. But this will always be true: ideas are what move fashion and ideas are priceless.”
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Whoever makes art or has a deeper experience of artists and of what art is nowadays can understand this. It’s all about the ideas! As a writer herself Tea claims: “ Writing Is Art at its most obnoxious. I hate to admit my favorite writer it’s Bukowski. He’s like an abusive ex-boyfriend I can’t help coming back to, even when he disgusts me.”
Another theme that really stands out in LIFE OF THE PARTY is beauty and the role it plays in our society. In a historical moment made of beauty standard rather than beauty, is there still space for real beauty? One of the most awakening sentences of Tea’s novel is: “Ugliness is power, youth is beautiful itself, everybody wants it!”
“ […] Everyone looks the same now, down to the face fixed by Bella Hadid’s surgeon. “Ugliness” is the only beauty left. Standing out with your big nose and bad skin and clothes that don’t fit well. There’s nothing more revolting than walking into a room where everyone looks related. What are you, a bunch of Mormons? Also Bullies are hideous. People who push other people around. Kindness is hot. I’m not saying spineless. Don’t be a pushover. Spit in the bully’s face. When you’re young, go for it. Do not be afraid. Or be afraid, but go for it anyway!”
Besides being a blogger and a “nightlife historian and party anthropologist”, Tea successfully conducts an unmisable podcast: Troie Radicali. “A Troia Radicale is any girl (or queer/trans/feminine person) who walks around saying FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU in their heads. They’re bored and they want change. What’s radical to me? Whatever turns me on or makes me laugh.
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With LIFE OF THE PARTY we have the chance to dip into the secret, obscure, provocative and controversial Milan of a decade ago, however, between That Milan and our Milan “There’s no difference. Mia romanticizes the rough parts but that’s part of Milan’s reality. Everyone in Milan must glamorize the grime. While writing the book I was careful to capture what Milan was like ten years ago. The only thing I fictionalized in the novel are the talking pigeons. But even those were real, to me […]. I didn’t write a from memoir because I would have had to “explain” things or write with the “insight” I have today. So boring. Also, I would have had to name names and give attention to shitty people who don’t deserve the attention. I’m a real writer, and real writers write novels. Memoirs are for celebrities. But everything in the book is true.”
LIFE OF THE PARTY is an unstoppable climax, made of strong but honest opinions that will make you question your past, present and your future plans like a domino effect. From chapter to chapter Tea gives us an unmatched depiction of some of the most meaningful contradiction that makes us who we are, and while we’re all expecting her next upcoming novel “A Cigarette Lit Backwards,” What do you expect to see in Mila next, Tea?
“The queers take over. And sandals with socks.”
(1942)
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