After a brief stint as artistic director of the Rochas house, the couturier, who will chair the International Fashion Festival in Hyères in October, says he is “relieved” to do as he pleases for his own brand. The parade, accompanied by a live pianist and which comes in three acts, is a reflection on the process of creation. The first part, exclusively white with large swan-shaped hats, symbolizes “research”. In the second, we find colors, prints, flowers and large volumes. Before concluding on “something sophisticated and mature, more built and structured”, all in black.
In this “unisex” wardrobe, there are masculine looks “as always in my approach”, says Charles de Vilmorin in the living room of his apartment-workshop cluttered with pieces from the collection, while his young collaborators were sewing. a coat. This is common for ready-to-wear collections, the vast majority of which are unisex, except in the big houses like Dior or Vuitton, which have a dedicated women’s and men’s artistic director. But haute couture, with its evening dresses and vertiginous heels, was until now a privilege of women. “If the others don’t necessarily do it, I have to do it. In real life, there are a lot of men who wear haute couture,” underlines Charles de Vilmorin. Putting men first, “it’s not a desire to do things differently, it’s a kind of normality, it’s extremely natural for me”. “Unisex means that a piece can be worn by a woman as well as by a man. It’s more a question of casting than clothing,” continues the designer.
Desire to grow
Compared to Yves Saint Laurent because of his slender figure and fine face, Charles de Vilmorin has a rich and atypical career. He wants to turn the page on Rochas while acknowledging that this experience was “very enriching”. “I got there very early, without too much experience. It was the best school to put your feet in the dish and learn how to build a collection and make it live afterwards,” he says. Stepping into a historic, crumbling house that he was supposed to dust off “was very challenging, a bit more complicated towards the end,” he admits. Without forbidding himself to work in the future for a big house, without abandoning his brand. “I want to grow and I’m open to all proposals. (…) You can also grow up in the context of a small house,” he says. He is still working with friends who had participated in preparing the previous couture collections presented virtually during the Covid. It was the students of the French Fashion Institute (IFM) who helped him create the prints “like a tattoo”, a “more traditional” way than printing on fabric.
There is a real “osmosis” with his teams who work at his home in a room transformed into a workshop and decorated with his sketches. “We get along well, but we walk on each other a bit. The apartment, which seemed big to me before, seems tiny to me, smiles Charles de Vilmorin. “For this first collection, it’s very good that things are going like this. »
Olga NEDBAEVA/AFP
After a brief stint as artistic director of the Rochas house, the couturier, who will chair the International Fashion Festival in Hyères in October, says he is “relieved” to do as he pleases for his own brand. The parade, accompanied by a live pianist and which comes in three acts, is a reflection on the process of creation. The first one…
#Charles #Vilmorin #Unisex #natural #haute #couture
