090: Oskar Metsavaht – a Brazilian Estonian medical doctor turned sustainable fashion designer, multidisciplinary artist, and UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador
„Estonians are like satellites of their culture. This also happened to my family – there is now a new kind of culture of Estonians around the world. This of course follows from the opening of the borders in the 90s, but until the 2000s, I couldn’t see any Estonians [in Rio]. When anyone would ask me where I was from and I would say Estonia, only the more cultured people would know. Now Estonia is doing so great. My friends tell me that they read about Estonia in the news. And news coming from Estonia are cool news. It’s very innovative and contemporary. I like the spirit of Estonians spreading Estonia around the world, and our contemporary culture.“
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Oskar Metsavaht was born and grew up in Caxias do Sul, a city in Rio Grande do Sul state in Southern Brazil. His paternal grandparents came from Estonia to Brazil ("Metsavaht" meaning "forest guardian" in Estonian). His father was a doctor and his mother was a teacher of philosophy. He graduated from the University of Rio de Janeiro with a degree in medicine and later worked as a physician. Later on in life, he became interested in clothing design as inspired by his multiple trips to mountain peaks. Oskar's work expresses the theme of preserving the forest, water and the empowerment and protection of the peoples of the forest, which he largely attributes to his Estonian roots. He is the founder and creative director of the brand Osklen, recognized as one of the forerunners of the New Luxury concept that strives for the fusion between ethics and aesthetics and advocates conscious fashion through the adoption of sustainable practices. He has also held exhibitions, shot documentaries and he has been appointed the UNESCO's Goodwill Ambassador for his work on preserving the Amazon rainforest.
In this episode, you’ll hear us talk about…
his upbringing in a family of natural scientists and artists, between physics and philosophy;
his student years studying medicine in South of Brazil in 1970s-1980s;
the first time he visited the Amazon rainforest and the impression it left on him;
the hints of minimalism from his Estonian background that he has incorporated into his maximalist Brazilian self-expression;
how his clothing is fashion and equipment;
how fashion is actually a communication tool of society;
how his creative process is triggered;
the difference between art and design;
and that he thinks creativity is a weapon that Estonians can never be stripped of.
Selected quotes
“I come from an academic family – art, philosophy, science, physics, the environment and the relationship with nature. Europeans have more respect for it, having nature reserves, also from an economic perspective. And we also understand social issues. In Brazil, we live around different economic, social, cultural classes so we have to understand them.”
Talking about his name: “I was told that Estonia is the country in Europe that has the most forest preserves by surface area. When it came up in conversation, I was thinking, wow, I already love my name, and it connects to my family history, my relationship with nature and my projects in the Amazon forest since 1994. My family and my ancestors were the protagonists. And now I live in Brazil, in the country which has the largest forest in the world kept alive. So of course, now I talk about my name in a more romantic, spiritual way.”
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but Estonia was one of the countries that was the most resistant against the dogmas of new religions that were spreading through Europe at the time. The culture of Estonians, the primitive sense of ‘religion’ was related to nature, to the cosmos, to forests. /…/ When most people see Osklen [his clothing label–ed.] for the first time then they think it is a European brand rather than Brazilian. I like to synthesize and bring minimalist ways and meanings of Brazilian culture – we have a mix of African, Indigenous and European cultures – and we have tropical nature, landscapes, wonderful landscapes. Brazilian culture is identified by maximalism. And I love to bring it to and synthesize it in a more minimalistic way without losing the Brazilian essence of it.”
“When I was 16 years old, the first or second skateboard park in the south of Brazil, I designed it. I was looking into Californian skating and surfboarding magazines. I was even competing in championships.”
When I was 17 and had to choose what to do after school, I was thinking of being a diplomat because I had curiosity to discover the world, but the school for diplomacy was in Rio de Janeiro while we were living in the south of Brazil. And then I had to choose. You have to take a huge test to get into university. So I got into medicine through listening to my father talk about science, which I loved. I had a great academic life there and then I came to Rio de Janeiro because I wanted to do my residency here and it was also a place where I could surf and live in a cosmopolitan city, the lifestyle which I wanted. It has both the urban culture of the city but you also have nature, surrounded by mountains.”
How he became a designer: “During my residency I did an expedition to the Andes, to the highest peak in the Americas and second highest in the world after the Himalayas. It is located between Argentina and Chile, at 7000 meters high. I was taken with as a physician and the university let me go, so I did academic research on how we behave with low levels of oxygen. /…/ Part of my responsibility was the clothing, technical clothing of the team members for high altitudes and low temperatures, that we did not have in Brazil in 1986. So we had to design them. I used my knowledge in biophysics and ergonomic anatomy and I created them, I read an article about isothermic things. My brother helped me develop it. We also did a documentary and I became a young known mountain climber in Brazil. My friends thought the jackets were cool and since I had some fabric left over, I started making them for them too.”
“When I went to the Amazon for the first time with some biologists [in 1989-1994], when you see that huge wonderful biodiversity, this knowledge from indigenous ancestry, it’s a way to get into our primitive form as humans. It was a great experience, but at the same time I could see the gold mining, the pollution of the rivers, the logging and destruction of the forest. It happens everywhere. When you come to see this huge amount of richness, and being faced with this old style of economy, you cannot see this and not become an activist.”
“When you are an entrepreneur and create something from zero, when you subtract emotion and desire – it was just so cool to be making those jackets. It was something that was needed and important, because it is not clothing, it’s equipment – it’s survival mode – and it’s not only the aesthetics. When I opened the first store, it was a success from day one. I would say it was a success in 15 minutes.”
“A moment which made me understand my creative process: it was summer, I was in my house in Rio de Janeiro and I got a sunburn. My skin was very sensitive and then we went to a family house in the mountains here in Rio. It was a Saturday and when we arrived there 1.5 hours later, the sky suddenly turned gray and there was rain with large, warm drops. Not the kind of rain which is freezing and hurts your skin. My sons were around 9 and 12 years old and they said “Let’s go into the house!” But when I felt the raindrops on my skin, they were so refreshing. It was subtropical rain, so it was almost delicious. And then I thought, this type of weather is not what you expect from Brazil – you expect sunny and palm trees. But that day was so good, it was the opposite of what you’d expect from a rainy day. I told my kids, “Come on, I will show you how I start a collection.””
“My interest in sustainability did not start because it’s trendy. In 1992, Brazil hosted one of the most important UN conferences on sustainability: with it came the concept of sustainable development – I was really touched by it – and it means that we can use the natural resources of the planet to develop the society economically, but only if we can give the same or better conditions to the next generations. It’s so simple and elegant, so ethical, so economically wise. Before, it was only that activists preserved nature and businesspeople developed the economy, it seemed utopian. I was becoming an entrepreneur at the end of the 90s. I had read the Kyoto protocol, I knew the economic issues with biodiversity, I had read a book on the Earth Chart, and the Agenda for the 21st century. With the turn of the millenia and entering the age of Aquarius, Brazil was developing economically and becoming open to foreigners, also many brands were copying from European or American ones. Osklen was more regional and already somewhat sustainable.”
“The desire of human civilization is not to kill the planet. Consumerism is different – we have been living under it for the last 200 years. /…/ I was a small entrepreneur and a physician, an artist involved with nature, and I felt that this is the “flag of my tribe”, it is the behavior and the lifestyle. I decided I wanted to be a protagonist of this change and my platform was fashion. People often forget that fashion comes from the relationship that individuals have with society, it is the first way we communicate with the outside world, visually. Even indigenous tribes want their clothing to tell other tribes what they think or what they are about. So fashion is a communication tool.”
“Of course sustainable products are more expensive than other ones, because it is still an innovation, we are at the turning point of the 200 years of the old industrial revolution and getting into the new one. What is interesting for Osklen is not that we use sustainable materials, but that we have developed so many materials either from ground zero or from other projects, for example the “salmon skin”. I saw this fishy skin being used as leather in the Baltics. I wanted to create something from the Amazon forest, so we went there to see this large fish that people in the forest use as the main protein and throw away the skin. The skin is wonderful. Then we launched sneakers and bags from it, it is something from the forest. Because for us to keep the forest alive, we have to first help the people that live in the forest, and bring sustainable jobs for them.”
How does he describe Estonia to others: “Estonia is very universal. I always explain its design, art, history, and relationship to nature. I talk about sailing also, even the soccer team. I tell about the beauty of the people. When I was an honorary consulate at a conference at Tartu University, we went to Tallinn for a meeting with the foreign minister. We talked about the issues of Estonia when I was there, I could see the project for the country. When I came back, I told my friends that Estonia’s administration is like a company. There is an entrepreneurial culture in the country. It’s so organized. And of course people know about IT. I visited a primary school in Estonia and they showed us how the youth has been educated into that. I loved to see how the vision was created, implemented and the success that followed.”
“I don’t believe in geopolitical nations anymore. I believe in lifestyle nations. [Estonia] is a cool lifestyle tribe. Contemporary, this nation was created for the 21st century, for this millennium. /.../ It is not a geopolitical but a spatial nation. There is creativity. But to be creative, you need to know your ancestry. /…/ Creativity is not something on a ship that you can invade.”
Book recommendations
Richard Bach – Jonathan Livingston Seagull
James Lovelock – Gaia
This episode was recorded on October 28th 2022 over Zoom between Rio de Janeiro and Haapsalu.
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