Designers Switching Houses & Moving to New Brands

[Avonlea]

Nowadays it seems to be the path. Most of the new creative directors or studio people have studied fashion design.

 

[Monsieur Cristobal]

^off topic but was it ever the path ?

A form of study was always the path.
Of course, it has not necessarily to do with graduating at Saint Martin's.

When you go to the Cristóbal Balenciaga Museoa in Getaria, the first room is dedicated to a deconstruction made by him of a dress by Madeleine Vionnet.
He cut it into pieces to see how was it constructed.
He did that with seven dresses.
That is studying.

The equivalent in the 60s of what we are witnessing would be firing Marc Bohan and naming Lee Radziwill as CD of Dior.

But, being pragmatic, if you are eighteen and you love fashion, don't study: do a hip hop album or be a successful rapper.
With a little patience it will come 🤣

 

[Lola701]

While I agree with Lola that this is completely irrelevant on the current landscape, it also sends the message that if you want to work in fashion, studying is not the path anymore.

I think people mix a lot of things up and maybe the current climate make everything feels like a war of class. The issue is really that.
Christian Louboutin or Pierre Hardy never studied fashion. They knew how to draw. They started drawing shoes. Christian learned the technicality of his job while being the assistant of Roger Vivier. And Pierre Hardy learned his job while his designs were produced.

The reality is that there was never a real career path to fashion. There was always some autodidactes, some people out of school, some people through nepotism.

With the growing popularity of fashion and various opportunities granted to some alumni of specific schools, that idea of a career path to fashion became institutionalized.

The reality is that, the new Creative Director of Chanel went to a fashion school. The Creative Director of Louis Vuitton womenswear is an autodidact, and now the newly appointed CD of men’s shoes at Louboutin is a celebrity, so nepotism thanks to his proximity to Christian.

However, this is representative of the industry as a whole in various capacities.

I always find ridiculous that need for social justice when it comes to fashion.

Finally, there’s a reality that is quite truth in most creative jobs (and also business decisions), your proximity to either power or key people will help your career…In every stage of your career.

I just think that social media needs to stop making small phenomenon into usual habits.

 

[Monsieur Cristobal]

I always find ridiculous that need for social justice when it comes to fashion.

But it has nothing to do with social justice...

I am all for individuals coming from wealthy families, like Karl, or from the aristocracy, like Schiaparelli or Oleg Cassini.

We are supposedly living the "Fashion's historic shake up" and 80% of them are the same cards from the last 10 years shuffled and redistributed, and the 20% remaining come from the entertainment industry.

When there was this rumour about Hodakova taking over Balenciaga, I was rooting for her. It was exciting to have someone at the helm with not so much experience.

But there is no fresh blood allowed in fashion and the need to rely so strongly in another industries is a sign of decadence.

 

[Lola701]

But it has nothing to do with social justice...

I am all for individuals coming from wealthy families, like Karl, or from the aristocracy, like Schiaparelli or Oleg Cassini.

We are supposedly living the "Fashion's historic shake up" and 80% of them are the same cards from the last 10 years shuffled and redistributed, and the 20% remaining come from the entertainment industry.

When there was this rumour about Hodakova taking over Balenciaga, I was rooting for her. It was exciting to have someone at the helm with not so much experience.

But there is no fresh blood allowed in fashion and the need to rely so strongly in another industries is a sign of decadence.

The social justice comment has more to do with reactions outside of TFS everytime there’s an announcement.

You have a point that being said, there’s also a reality that is inherent to the industry.

The problem with the fashion industry is that it’s not at all the same in Europe than it is in the US for example. So, even the notion of industry changes.

I started to work in fashion when I was a teenager. I left after a decade and so for me, everything that has happened has been a shake-up. Now the industry is going through a huge generational shift. The reality is that the Métier is changing and the expectations are changing too.

Before the success of John Galliano from 1996, followed by McQueen taking over Givenchy, Phoebe Philo and Stella McCartney, the concept of defined path to success didn’t exist. Their success and the success of people of their generation kind of set up the blueprint for what a student could aspire to when working in fashion.

Hedi, Nicolas and Isabel all from the same generation, with different social backgrounds (Isabel being the most privileged) arrived to success in different ways.

Today the landscape is totally different. We have more brands, more schools, more people aspiring to work. When I started to work in 2002, nobody wanted to be in fashion. Or at least, the mass didn’t understand the cultural and financial power of that industry.

In reality, much like the path to success in some field has been through expensive business schools that secure a well paid job, going to a fashion school is a « great business card » that can give a key to some students to high design positions in big fashion brands. Much like in other industries, the son of, the friend of, the nephew of, can have an easy opportunity to have an internship. And much like there are autodidacts who becomes huge on their own (Jacquemus) there are others who have a plan to reach their goal.

Is the trajectory of Hodakova that different from all the stories we have witness in fashion? Not really. She went to school, not the top school but she had a normal path, similar to 90% of the industry. Because let’s be real, there are less people entering fashion through nepotism in design. They either goes to PR or advertisement. And the people from the entertainment industry are probably a hard 1%.
Pharrell Williams or Jayden Smith are hardly representative of the reality of the industry.
98% of the creative directors or head of design working today started as assistant.

And I think it would be equally unfair to dismiss people who have 20 years of their lives to a métier just because we want a generational shift. They can have their moment too.

 

[Marc10]

 

[jeanclaude]

Is Christian secretly banging Jaden?? Either that; or September´s Fools is the new April´s Fools...

makeagif.com