Weird Science

Scratch yourself, Ramesh Nair tells jacquie ang. The artistic director shares the secret of identifying superior skins, and talks about how he is rebuilding Moynat’s lost savoir faire, one skin at a time

“I’M COOKING A crocodile,” teases Ramesh Nair, almost too gleefully. Moynat’s India-born artistic director looks more like an intellectual bohemian than luxury fashion’s Crocodile Dundee — he tames not by hunting the maneating reptile, but by manipulating its prized skin.

Nothing is preposterous for him to attempt, even a chemical used in developing photographic films has been applied on the skin to achieve a rust effect. “I have also tried to use iron rust but it didn’t work out,” he divulges.

Undaunted, he moved on to other “crazy experiments”, producing hits that have made it to the shelves. For one, the Crocodile Camouflage unveiled during Paris Fashion Week this year was the first time water-based dyes were used on the skin to reveal the inherent beauty of the scales. Created together with Heng Long Leather, Louis Vuitton Moët- Hennessy’s (LVMH) partially owned tannery based in Singapore, each skin was made more exceptional with one-of-a-kind patterns stencilled onto the skin by hand.