Carlos Acosta

Fashion Neurosis with Bella Freud

In this episode of Fashion Neurosis, Bella Freud interviews legendary dancer Carlos Acosta about his life, fashion, and the art of ballet. A

Key takeaways

• Acosta describes his current outfit, featuring a 20-year-old leather jacket and a Cuervos y Sobrinos watch with his personal logo.
• He recounts how his father used ballet training to steer him away from the street life and crime in Havana's Los Pinos barrio.

Main topics

• Cuban heritage and history
• Personal fashion and identity

Notable quotes

For me, it was salvation. My life depended on it.

Conclusion

A deeply moving exploration of how art and discipline can reshape a pe

Transcript preview

Speaker 7 (0:00) I'm Mitch Purse, and this week on Confessions of an Elite Athlete, I'm sitting down with Matt Fries, goalkeeper for the U.S. men's national team and New York City FC. We discuss how to prepare for one of the biggest moments of your life. You can hear it all by listening to Confessions of an Elite Athlete on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 5 (0:25) Hey, it's me, Will Anderson, host of the new Music History Podcast, Monday Music Club. And on this week's episode, we're talking about pop music with the boys from one of my favorite podcasts, Switched on Pop. Charlie Harding and Nate Sloan are two of the smartest and sharpest minds chatting about music right now. And we got into how they got their start, what they love about pop music, and some recommendations on what we should be listening to. It's a great conversation. These guys are just... brilliant and you can find it by searching for Monday Music Club wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 3 (1:11) Welcome to Fashion Neurosis, Carlos Acosta. Speaker 2 (1:15) Thank you for inviting me, Bella. Great to be here. Speaker 3 (1:18) Can you tell me what you're wearing today and why you chose these particular clothes? Speaker 2 (1:24) I'm wearing this very timeless jacket, leather jacket that I bought 20 years ago in Camden. I love it. I love the feel. I think it's me. Nowadays, as a director, I'm wearing all these suits all the time. There's all formality. stereotype but this is me right here you know very earthy also this Louis Vuitton shirt which is blue blue is my favorite color I got also these diesel jeans I love the the the fit in me I wear them constantly And then in my wrist I got this watch which is very special. It's also dark blue watch by a watchmaker company called Cuervos and Sobrinos which has a very Latin heritage story. It was one of the oldest luxury watches made in Switzerland by a Spanish family that settled in Cuba, in Havana, in 1882. Wow. And it just had this kind of art deco kind of designs. And this one is very special as well because they made it with my logo, this flying man logo that I have, which is my personal logo. And it has these kind of memories. You know, it's a way of saying, you know, I'm bringing Cuba with me all the time. That's so great. When Speaker 3 (3:10) you uncover it, I can only see the edge of it. Yeah, let Speaker 2 (3:14) me just see. I don't know if you see that. You know, it has this art deco inspired dial and dark blue, which I like. That's so cool. Speaker 3 (3:26) And Speaker 2 (3:26) it's very vintage. I also like vintage cars, classic cars. You know, I always thought that an XK120, 58, which I love those kind of cars. They're all timeless and very distinctive of that time when people described the golden era of classic. classic car designs. Speaker 3 (3:47) And Speaker 2 (3:48) anyway, it's just, this is just me right here. Speaker 3 (3:52) The total look. Because in Cuba, they have so many classic cars there. Speaker 2 (3:58) Yeah, it's like a museum of classic cars. In Cuba, obviously, you know, it's a kind of country that time stopped. Speaker 2 (4:09) You had these treasures on the street, you know, running. It's almost like going back in time, the time of the 50s, when Cuba was one of the places to be and leader in many ways, in fashion for sure. It was almost like the playground of the greatest stars in the world, you know, Hemingway. And there was Jose Raul Capablanca, who was one of the... the most recognizable figures, chess player, champion at the time, but all of them, Sinatra, all of them, they were there. And so, yeah, it's still pretty much you go there and of course everything is crumbling down suddenly, Speaker 3 (4:54) but Speaker 2 (4:54) still you see all these cars, you know, this 57 Corvette and Cadillac and automobile running around, you know, still 70, 80 years later. Amazing. Speaker 3 (5:06) It's amazing. I went there, I was telling you just before, 30 years ago, and there was still... Speaker 3 (5:16) It was the kind of moment where, even though there was so little, there was also so much. The education and the medicine and the people were so elegant and just full of dignity. And it was so striking how impressive people were. And I'm so glad I managed to go then. Speaker 2 (5:44) Yeah, I think dignity is a really special word to describe it. Because obviously, you know, we all come from very humble beginnings. But the Cuban people always had this sense of pride. And obviously, you know, like you say, very cultural. Very happy people, revolutionary in terms of the music that that tiny island had gave to the world. And full of amazing sports players like Javier Sotomayor, who still up to today is the highest jumper in history. Speaker 3 (6:25) Really? With Speaker 2 (6:26) a record jump of 2 meters 46. Speaker 2 (6:32) Imagine the kangaroo is 315 meters. And then after that is Javier Sotomayor. That's so cute. And that, you know, it's a kind of sense of, like you say, pride and dignity that Cuban people, regardless the environment and the circumstances, always carry with them. And that's what you saw in the 90s. And I remember that time very, very well. I was in and out from Houston and from London. I returned from London in 1991. And then in 93, I went to Houston, Texas to dance with the Houston Ballet. And after a few years of leaving home and loneliness, trying to... have a career, a dancing career, I decided to go back to for good. And that was the time of the massive exodus in 1994, 95. And everybody, all of my friends wanted to leave Cuba. And I think I was the only Cuban probably who wanted to go back. And in many ways it was because I felt like... going from one place to the other didn't give me a root and a base. And I miss my family terribly and I miss my origins and I miss my black beans food and the chicken and the plantains, all of that I miss. And my parents. But still, the art was there and the music was still in the air. Speaker 2 (8:13) Caribbean colors that you could find there. You know, it just filled my senses and I really needed that. Speaker 3 (8:23) Yeah, yeah. It's a real kind of infusion to identity, to be connected. And you're the dancer that people who don't know about dance have heard about. Speaker 3 (8:39) born in Havana and the youngest of 11 children. And you won the Prix de Lausanne at 16 and became the English National Ballet's youngest ever principal at 18. And now you run the Birmingham Royal Ballet and you've said, some dancers see it as a job. For me, it was salvation. My life depended on it. And what do you think your life would have been like? What would have happened to you without dance? Speaker 2 (9:11) Hard to know. Hard to know. I can give you a couple of indications. You know, for instance, a judge of what happened in my barrio Los Pinos, a lot of my friends that I used to hang around with, you know, they either in jail or died, took him to sea, trying to make it to Miami. Yeah. Speaker 3 (9:34) I Speaker 2 (9:34) was immersed. Speaker 2 (9:38) or getting into a life or a petty crime at the age of nine, ten years old. I wanted to be the next Michael Jackson growing up. And so during the 80s, the break dancing scene emerged and I get into this kind of scene, you know, street scenes. and try to, you know, sort of like dance battle with different adjacent barriers of Havana. And so that was the scene. And always you could count that. In every dance battle of this kind of tournaments that we used to have, there was always a street fight broke out because we were so bad losers. Nobody wanted to lose. And so there were always, you know, somebody who end up with, you know, sort of like cut with a machete or some stabbing or whatever, horrible like that. And then the ambulance, the police. So those were the scene that I used to frequent at age nine, 10 years old. But obviously dance came very natural to me. And my father as a way of... take me away from that scene and this horrible life that it would lead me to a path of delinquency, Speaker 5 (11:05) he Speaker 2 (11:06) put me into ballet. And that would end up being my salvation. Because obviously ballet was associated with culture, with art, something that we at home were alien about. And also was in the center of Havana. And so I used to live in the peripheral barrio called Los Pinos. Speaker 8 (11:31) It Speaker 2 (11:31) took me like two buses, two, three buses to make it to school every day. But within that, my father found the solution that he needed to get me, you know, or try to put me in a path of a better life for myself. And that's how it came. I didn't chose ballet for me. I didn't care about ballet. In fact, I thought ballet was hideous in the beginning. Speaker 3 (11:59) But it was Speaker 2 (12:00) my dad who chose it for me as a way of an imposition. So that's what is peculiarity about my career and my origins. Speaker 3 (12:12) I mean, it's ingenious because your father was a truck driver, but he loved classical music and he had an appreciation of the arts and dance. And so he had this kind of ingenious idea to send you to this school. took care of you and also... gave you a free meal every day because it was all the schools are state or they certainly were state run and It's very Speaker 2 (12:49) important Exactly. Speaker 3 (12:52) I mean that was part of you know the thing that I my experience of this sense of dignity when I was there is that the level of education and to do with culture as well as science but um and your father was a truck driver and your mother had really extreme ill health and you you talked about having very little food at home and but I wondered also who dressed with flair in your family um given you had very little did you notice how people you said you Love Michael Jackson. Whose look were you kind of... Speaker 3 (13:42) Did you notice? Speaker 2 (13:44) That's a tricky one. No, no, no. No one dressed with flair, to be honest. I'm brutally honest here. We were really, yeah, it was just, and also, you know, you need to factor in as well that Cuba also being a communist country, that's another dimension. And we were obviously very poor. Speaker 2 (14:10) We were obviously, everybody compete with each other somehow because nobody wanted to be left behind. And my mother used to make my clothes, you know, and so the mothers of my friends. And so, you know, you will go and buy these many square meters of fabric and then you will see with the Singer. Speaker 2 (14:32) sewing machine. They were doing all with the jacket, the zipper jacket on Michael Jackson and everybody wanted to have that. So if you talk about fashion, that's what it comes from me. The zippers, all the zipper thing. And you go out to parties and then you see somebody with a maltration zipper jacket design and you go back and say, man, we need to spice it up or things like that. But there was At the time, or later on in the, sort of like in the 90s, at the end of the 90s, they were introduced, these t-shirts. I remember clearly because I was an obsession. It was the coolest item that we had, this Ocean Atlantic t-shirt. You know, and always had a man surfing on a wave and this. Big letters, colorful letters, so Ocean Atlantic. And it became an obsession for all Cubans. They always wanted to have that. One of the things also that was tricky that I think I should point out is that the relationship that we have with America culture, North America culture, you know, for us being communist country, these two countries have a name, it's forever, you know, for over 70 years. Yeah. Every time, but again, we... Every time, most of the time, we have American movies we could watch on TV. They put, I don't know, Back to the Future or King Kong and some American movies. And I remember clearly Terminator when it came about. And some of the time, there was a passage in Terminator that he hides in this kind of Walmart or market. Not Arnold, the other actor that was doing O'Connor. Speaker 3 (16:24) Oh, Speaker 2 (16:25) yeah, yeah. And he hide in this Walmart or Target or something. And we see all these clothes, you know, the Nike shoes and the clothes. And we would look at our clothes and compare it. And we wanted those clothes, you know, how fashionable everything look and the glasses and everything. But of course, we didn't have access to any of it. So eventually, Cuba opened up more. you know, teachers like ocean Atlantic teacher came our way and we were very obsessed. But there's always this relationship that was kind of like a bittersweet from us. We always wanted to dress like that, but that wasn't possible at the time. Speaker 3 (17:07) God, Speaker 2 (17:07) that's fascinating. Speaker 3 (17:09) That's so, the idea of seeing all these things via the movies and seeing what was there waiting and that thing of a... obsessing about a particular thing in your childhood, that if you could have it, it would change everything. Speaker 2 (17:26) I Speaker 3 (17:27) love that feeling. Speaker 2 (17:29) Yeah. And our parents, our parents, our mothers did the best. Yeah. Because they tried to replicate with the fabric they have and be creative, you know. I think my mother used to, at some point, also make this small trip to the countryside to exchange clothes with food. And so it was almost like a very folkloric transaction where the country folks would lay down all the things that they had to exchange. And then we bring a bag full of items that we had to exchange. And sometimes it's like some coffee bag with soap, you know, change it with soap bars. Speaker 1 (18:20) And Speaker 2 (18:21) then a pair of very worn shoes, pair of shoes. that might suit the country's folks, daughters or sons, for another item that you see on the other kind of side and then you exchange. It was very, very folkloric like that. And of course, you know, almost this transaction happened without money, you know, being the money, the main currency that we use for such transaction. It was just like, okay, I give you this and you give me that. Speaker 3 (18:55) Yeah. Speaker 2 (18:55) And occasionally my mom would come and surprise us after this journey, you know, with some item or fashion items that she brought, some blouse that she managed to bring for my sister. And my sister was overjoyed and shouting in the house for happiness. And of course, I, you know, I cry when in comparison. there was nothing for me or my eye didn't match the blouse of my sister so it's always something like that but it's given an indication of how is to live there yeah then because Speaker 3 (19:36) it's the the fantasy of capitalist society to be able to you know liberal people to have this wonderful exchange and you know equality but to have actually live that is different and it doesn't take into account the longing for things that make you different from other people and they're your Speaker 2 (20:01) own thing. Absolutely. And everything, evolution and life in general is a journey towards wealth. And when I mean wealth, I'm not talking about money specifically. It's prosperity. It's having friends. It's trying to meet your dreams and aspirations. And once you get there, that is not the end of the dream. You will find other aspirations, other dreams to work towards. And then once you get there, then you go. And so everything is a journey towards wealth in many ways. And I think, you know, for us, that sense already was hindered somehow or was stopped because we... We had to make a living with what we have. And even if you try to aspire, you know you're not going to get it in that environment. And so in a way, it was a very unnatural way to be somehow. Speaker 7 (21:14) And Speaker 2 (21:15) so when a movie such as Terminator and others come back, or when the MTV phenomenon came to Cuba, that we are allowed to see these bands wearing all this cool fashion, you know, they look great, they have long hair and all that. For us, it was a very far-fetched kind of dream because that was beyond our possibilities. So I think that, in a way, was quite, you know, a sad aspect. of living the way that we are in the kind of environment that in many ways gives you so much knowledge and culture and education, but at the same time, you're not allowed to really go beyond somehow to achieve your goals and aspirations. Speaker 3 (22:17) That's really interesting hearing you talk about it like that. Do you remember what you spent your first paycheck on? Clothes-wise, when you could just get whatever you wanted. I think it was when you went to Houston and you were having, like, good money. Speaker 2 (22:39) Oh, I got crazy. Oh, that's the thing of not having much. And then all of a sudden you could have a lot. Speaker 3 (22:47) Yeah. Speaker 2 (22:47) You get to a phase, you're getting crazy. You know, you're just saying, okay, like, almost like vengeance. Now I'm going to vengeance myself with this life of austerity. And so I remember in Houston with a friend of mine who was the, you know, end up being the best man of our wedding. You know, I wasn't very fashionable guy, so I had to catch up. I had to. And he enrolled me into a GQ magazine and said, this magazine, you need to become member and you need to have a... And then he would give me sort of lessons on how to dress and this and that. Look at the