Marc Audibet to become design director at Vionnet
Marc Audibet to become design director at Vionnet By Suzy Menkes
Monday, June 18, 2007 (International Herald Tribune)
When Marc Audibet was 14 years old, he visited a Paris museum to see an exhibition of Paul Poiret. The presence of the legendary designer's elderly wife and an introduction to the curator, brought the stripling Audibet to a turning point in his life: a chance to see a cache of the work of Madeleine Vionnet.
"I was fascinated by the fluidity, the extraordinary intellectual play - don't forget that this was the era of Courrèges and of fashion architecture," says Audibet, 52, who went on to develop stretch Lycra with DuPont in the 1980s, to work with Miuccia Prada from 1990 to 1996, then at Hermès and Ferragamo.
Now Audibet is coming back to his first love as design director at Vionnet. The fact that his mother was a dancer meant that he was fascinated by "the idea of liberty of movement" and he says that Vionnet's fluid, bias cut dresses fit precisely with his own aesthetic.
"My work started with Vionnet, via McCardle," he says, referring Claire McCardle, the American inventor of feminized sportswear.
The Vionnet label was dusted off last year by its family owner and chairman, Arnaud de Lummen, who did an exclusive deal with Barney's New York, after picking the designer Sophia Kokosalaki. But she left after the Italian Diesel company invested in her own fledgling label.
Audibet says that he defines fashion designers as those from the school of construction - like Christian Dior and those who focused on the body, like Vionnet and Madame Grès. The former dealt in side seams, zippers and buttons. But he is with the latter's slithering ease - even if his tough mission is to capture couture draping as ready-to-wear in just six weeks.
