Sébastien Meyer and Arnaud Vaillant to Exit Courrèges

[perhydrol]

The designer duo’s Autumn/Winter 2017 collection was their last for the house. The future of the brand’s creative leadership is unknown.

PARIS, France — Sébastien Meyer and Arnaud Vaillant are leaving Courrèges. The designer duo’s Autumn/Winter 2017 collection was their last for the French house. The decision was mutual, according to a statement released by Courrèges.

A successor has not yet been named. According to the statement, François Le Ménahèze, who was named president of Courrèges in April 2017, will announce the brand’s new creative leadership when a decision has been made.

Meyer and Vaillant were hired in 2015 by French advertising executives Jacques Bungert and Frédéric Torloting, who acquired Courrèges in 2011 from the brand’s namesake founder André Courrèges, a civil engineer-turned-designer once known as the “Le Corbusier of Couture,” and his partner Coqueline.

The new designers were tasked with resurrecting and modernising Courrèges, best known for its mid-century modernist heritage. Their approach was unorthodox in a number of ways. At the show for their debut Spring/Summer 2016 collection, the designers gave an introductory speech explaining that the outing would feature no full looks, that only 15 items would be available (but in 15 variations of materials including suede and leather) and that a ribbed, knitted bodysuit would act as a canvas for the entire collection. Simplicity and a product focus became fundamental values of the brand. “We felt too much information and too many choices are major issues in a woman’s life in 2016,” said Meyer and Vaillant at the time.

The collection was picked up by the likes of Colette, MatchesFashion and Bergdorf Goodman. But in the seasons that followed, the designers struggled to thrill critics and the mission of reviving a heritage brand that was often unknown to consumers outside of France proved challenging commercially.

To focus fully on their roles at Courrèges, the duo set aside their own label, Coperni Femme, which won the First Collections Prize at ANDAM in 2014 and was shortlisted for the LVMH Prize in 2015. According to the company, the two designers — who met in 2009 at Mod’Art International Paris, where Meyer studied design and sewing and Vaillant focused on business and fashion management — will now focus on “new creative projects.”

businessoffashion.com

 

[jeanclaude]

Disposable designers era!

font: tripadvisor.com

 

[IloveDiorHomme]

Bye Felicia(s)

 

[Lola701]

It's a pity because they were doing a lot of great things for Courreges. It was a perfect match.
It's not a secret: if you want something to work, you have to invest everything you can to make it work.
For some reasons, i saw it coming. The had their third show at an Hotel Particulier and for their last collection, they didn't even held a show...

It's really sad. I started to buy Courreges...Something quite unbelievable in 2017.
The clothes were good but the communication wasn't that great.
A part from Brigitte Macron, no real celebrity is wearing Courreges. The parisian It-girl crowd is kinda limited and unless it is related to Vogue Paris or big brands...It's almost irrelevant to the world.

I really hope the best for them. They should revive their own brand and try again with the LVMH prize. They have a great potential.

 

[TREVOFASHIONISTO]

I really liked what they were doing for the house. Sad to see them go

 

[RedSmokeRise]

First those boys at Carven, now these two.

 

[perhydrol]

The ex-Carven duo would be great at Courreges, but we don't really know what they want to do with the brand and which direction they will pick so I don't know...

What I didn't like about that relaunched Courreges is that it hadn't been really relevant. That's sad because the collections were really good, just not as hyped as it would have deserved.

 

[tricotineacetat]

I was really impressed with the selection Colette had of Courreges when these two guys were hired. They really managed to bring the aesthetic of the house alive, much like Nicolas Ghesquiere and Marie Amelie Sauve managed to make the space age aesthetic relevant at Balenciaga and Vuitton. Their little mini dresses, saharienne jackets and blousons had the sleekness and luxuriousness of much more proven designers but maybe it was a mistake it was again just another high end label and not a cool contemporary one that young women could actually afford (like Kenzo or Carven).

 

[vetements]

The ex-Carven duo would be great at Courreges, but we don't really know what they want to do with the brand and which direction they will pick so I don't know...

What I didn't like about that relaunched Courreges is that it hadn't been really relevant. That's sad because the collections were really good, just not as hyped as it would have deserved.

then again, what is relevance?
Going by current trends, i would say Gucci, Vetements, Balenciaga, Louis Vuitton, Chanel are all most `relevant`. But that feels like just hype to me.
Fashion should be able to accomodate more types of voices. Right now, most of the quiet fashions types seem to have been drowned by all of these Instagram driven forces that made these brands popular and hence `relevant`.

Not so long ago, Balmain during its H&M collaboration was very relevant but no one is talking about it these days.
This just shows how much of it is driven by the hype surrounding it than say actual design worth (it may be, but even if it is, it is drown by its own marketing hype).

I really like what this duo is doing at the house.

Maybe they should have been more aggressive with their marketing and create more hype continuously. Since apparently, pure design alone these days are not enough.

On a side note, its website should also preferably have English.

It appeals to me that it only has French, that kinda adds to the mystique but commercially, it is a big failure

 

[AnaD]

Oh no, I really liked what Courreges has been doing recently. It's so sad to see them go.