2023-07-04 12:44:24
“In couture, it’s rare to see masculine looks”: at 26, Charles de Vilmorin introduced an aesthetic of gender fluidity, “natural” for his generation, on the occasion of his first show for the week of haute couture in Paris.
The young couturier – from the family The Bishop of Vilmorin – celebrates the first show of its brand for the week of haute couture in Paris. After a brief stint as artistic director of the house of Rochas, the 26-year-old couturier, who will chair the international fashion festival in Hyères in October, says to himself “relieved“to do as you please for your 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 “the 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.
“If the others don’t necessarily do it, I have to do it.”
In this “unisex” wardrobe, there are masculine looks “as always in my approach“, says Charles de Vilmorin, who received AFP in the living room of his apartment-workshop cluttered with pieces from the collection, while his young collaborators were sewing a coat. -à-porter, for the vast majority unisex, except in big houses like Dior or Vuitton which have a dedicated artistic director for women and men. But haute couture, with its evening dresses and vertiginous heels, was until now a privilege women.
“If others don’t necessarily do it, I have to do it. In real life, there are a lot of men who wear haute couture“, emphasizes Charles de Vilmorin. Putting people 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 a man. It’s more a question of casting than clothing“, continues the stylist.
Helped by students from the Institut français de la mode
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 “rewarding“. “I arrived there very early, without too much experience. It was the best school to get your feet wet and learn how to build a collection and bring it to life followingwards.“, he says. Entering a historic house in decline, and which he was supposed to dust off, “was very stimulating, a little 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 am open to all proposals. (…) One can also grow as part of a small house“, he says.
Charles de Vilmorin in his studio-apartment. (JOEL SAGET / AFP)
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 Institut français de la mode (IFM) who helped him create the prints like a “tattoo“, one way “more artisanal” 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 it goes like this“.
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