Amélie Pichard, designer: "Fashion knows what is bad, but does everything not to change"
She herself recognizes her outspokenness: "I put myself the fashion system on the back.It does not suit them, that someone kicks the anthill ".The words sound a bit like a slingshot, but Amélie Pichard is especially busy following her way, at a distance from business plans, sustained rates imposed by fashion week and the system she denounces.For ten years, this Parisian has been making bags and shoes stung with sweet exuberance imbued with gluttony and uninhibited kitsch.In 2016, after a remarkable vegan collaboration with American actress Pamela Anderson, she puts her brand completely flat.His awareness on the crossing of the sector made him escape from the boxes, frantic mechanics and conventions.And the door to a decreasing fashion.
However, it is not short of ideas.A bag entirely made from a large tropical sheet (the very first in the world), a shoe with a platform customizable at the envy...Singular creations are raising, and the slowdown rhythm.Amélie Pichard affirms that the period of confinement "did him good".The Covid crisis overthrew a well -oiled machine.The workshops started to turn slower, the productions arrived in dotted lines and the campaigns were almost nonexistent."The world stopped, I hope it changes".Did he change?The designer returns to this "mode after", so fantasized.
Resumption of activities
Madame Figaro.- New York, soon Paris...The parades resume service.What does this recovery evoke? Amélie Pichard.- I am disgusted.We can see that with New York Fashion Week, we are coming back where we had stayed before the COVID.We were in an in-between, fashion could have invented something else.Instead, she returns to what reassures her to be sure to sell.Fashion loves not to remember what she said before.We resume the podiums, we start to make people move all over the world, we use the same photographers on all the countryside, we communicate with the same stars ... When we take a Kendall Jenner or a Kim Kardashian to enhance hisimage, it is not a choice of heart, but a choice that sells.This unification disrupts me a lot, the creators are supposed to make unique creations.
During confinement, several brands had announced to withdraw from the calendar, today, some come back to it.These announcements of withdrawal from the fashion week calendar made during periods of containment suggest that it was com cou ’com’.At that time, the brands had no other choice than to slow down the pace because the production factories were closed.This obligation finally turned into an opportunity to be in tune with the times, and at the moment it is the green.
The fashion industry would therefore not have learned from this period of stopping? It knows what is bad but it does everything not to change.Business of brands is often managed by financiers that are not reassured about the idea of a change, even when the profits stagnate.The change implies that to achieve a new dynamic, you have to go through "a day after" complicated ".And obviously, the industry does not want this step.The path can be scary because to be green, some brands must sometimes consider closing and rethinking everything.
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Calendar dictatorship
The brands are very numerous to be part of a more responsible approach, without going through the "draw the curtain" box.Indeed, the table is not so black.We can see that everyone is trying to go in the right direction.We just note that something holds them back: the money.For many, the profit is contradictory to an ecological approach ... it's a shame.Why always do more?Develop products that are useless?Make collaborations with large stars that don't look like the brand's DNA?Fashion is a job of dissatisfied who feel obliged to be at the quest for "always more".Not to mention the trends that are really problematic.We think fashion as if everyone was going to die tomorrow and that we had to do everything very quickly.IT-BAG, for example, is super dangerous.To avoid any weariness, we release new models each season.Could we not just consider a break to rethink the system?
This break, you did it in 2017 by stopping the classic economic model of your brand to embrace a decreasing fashion.What did this consist of? I no longer wanted to play the renewal game every seasonality.When I made this decision, my brand was six years old.It was starting to be well installed, the jump was obviously a big risk -taking.Overnight, I was of everything that made my turnover.But I aimed to talk to my customers live and take the time for each model created.Today, I no longer have any calendar, it can happen for two and a half years between the moment when I understand a bag and the one when he goes out, against six months usually.
The choice of materials also complicated my life, the whole vegan was not yet green, so I continued to make leather while not being secure on the abominations made on animals, including in France.My customers have also changed, they are patient and understand my approach.The fact that I don't get bigger, for some it means I hate money.This is not the case, I just think that we can do less.I spend my life to be discouraged, to be afraid that my firm business, to lose my name, but I have personal convictions which are forced to adapt to my professional convictions.
How do you see the future of the fashion world? I am optimistic in nature, I am hopeful that the world will open my eyes.Advanceds are done everywhere everywhere.Luxury makes great announcements on the discovery of new materials, but the problem is that it keeps them under the elbow.Our duty is also to be a sharing when you can get things done.For fashion to evolve towards the right direction, all the trades must change and the young creators have the courage to listen to each other and to free themselves from a too formatted professional entourage.
