When the creator becomes an actor · ttt magazine

L’époque contemporaine est marquée par la confluence des idées, qui plus que jamais, interrogent demain. Un élan créatif qui se renouvelle sans cesse et accélère la cadence des envies des générations hyperconnectées, suscitant des réactions instantanées vis-à-vis du devenir de la création. Conscience environnementale et réalités socio-culturelles sont ainsi deux grands piliers émergeants, qui traduisent ces changements sociétaux majeurs. Quels nouveaux comportements adoptent alors les créateurs pour rejoindre ce mouvement ?

Fall 2012, NOTicolas Ghesquière left Balenciaga after 15 years of work in favor of the Renaissance of an illustrious house which has been sleepy since the departure of Cristobàl, in 1968.The creator managed to give the Balenciaga woman a futuristic line, playing on technical volumes, and an incomparable cup, thanks to the heat -tightening process whose house workshops have the secret.Karl Lagerfeld too, for 35 years now at Chanel, has been able to enhance the most famous haute couture house, combining its history and a certain dose of Zeitgeist.Gabrielle "Coco" having as horror these silhouettes dressed in Blues-Jeans and Mini-Japes, the Kaiser does not hesitate to rejuvenate his client, while suggesting the emblematic: Camélia, Marinière, versions of the bag 2.55 or the eternal tweed tailor.

This peak sewing may transcend the fashion planet, the millennials remain difficult to convince.Claiming itself from any category but relying on a more extensive mentality than that of its elders, the millennial wishes to adapt to the world, refusing to be a brake on the progress of it, which falls little toLittle in environmental complexities.However, it remains reassured by these traditional brands, synonymous with elegance, a perpetual changing heritage and a transfer window between these designers who juggle artistically from home to house.It remains alert, informed as it should be on technical progress in mode, on the lookout for durable and sometimes connected textiles, swapping animal leather for plant materials and attentive on production techniques respectful of ecological balances.Today, the consumer cannot ignore that his consumption impacts the planet on which he lives.

50 years ago, already, social codes were turned upside down: educated bourgeois youth opposed parents in a certain quest for identity.Gucci also paid tribute to them this spring 2018 through a seventies wardrobe and a campaign photographed at the Sorbonne (one of the departure places of May 1968).At the time, rebellious artists and students inaugurated a decade placed under the yoke of the liberation of standards.Freedom, equality, sexuality.This return to an era under the sign of the Flower Power and the SEA, Sex and Love, resonates as a desire to return to a simpler time, less anxiety -provoking.NOTot to mention the many attacks in the West in recent years, the political regression of the member states of the U.E, it is a disturbing subject, worrying young consumers: the future.Foots and fists linked by overconsumption and ultra connection, the millennials feel an increasing concern towards their future, which promises to be the fall point of a race in the vacuum started at the end of the 70s.

The 80s, indeed, were far from being a "sustainable development" model.This term, which is also controversial in its sole purpose of hypercroissance, was not taken into account until the end of 1980, following the Bruntland report in reaction to climatic hazards, which we thought natural but which reveal themselves beautiful andwell artefact.It is at the same time that the notion of anti-Fashion appears the first time, a manifesto written by the Lidewij ("li") forecastist EDELKOORT.In this way, it decrees ten reasons explaining the end of fast fashion, trained by the globalization and consumerism of our connected and interdependent societies.The writings of Li Edelkoort today bear fruit through a congress, a real intellectual broth bringing together researchers, designers, students and enthusiasts.The third meeting with the anti_Fashion Project took place in June in Marseille, speakers of all trades were able to share experiences and progressive visions with an audience concerned by the application of innovative methodologies.All react, without really finding an answer, to the decline of the female press disillusioned by this fast-fashion.The stakes are high: how to face advertisements, fashion weeks and above all convince the least informed?Aware of these questions, but finding no immediate interest in it, the heirs of the generation May 68 go food on the achievements of their parents, at best exploiting the rights and technical progress which temporarily improved their lifestyle.

The 2000s were still worse.As icons, place in Paris Hilton and other stars artificially propelled by reality TVs.The jet set, a proud vestige but emptied of its essence, accentuated its tropézian meetings and was admired, envy, mass, performing the profession of influencer even before the explosion of social networks.Benefiting from a favorable economic situation, designers had no choice but to meet growing demand.Speculative behavior that still leads to the waste today of know-how whose realization is in total opposition to this consumer philosophy.Marked by a very sexualized era, (Mario Testino, Tom Ford or Carine Roitfeld), the 90s-00 thus deflected the momentum of freedom of movement 68 to the detriment of intellectual overtaking.If there is an artistically strong, completely justifiable will, the message is lacking today and is deviating from the utilitarian design of the design.

Today, some traditional brands are still lacking in will to meet the challenge of a recovery of ideals, the recovery at the root of the values of May 68.And moreover, what would Prada or Lancel be without leather?Fendi without fur?Fashion without the shiny?The identity, the value of a claw is sometimes too attached to its own products: changing them would amount to driving customers.

It is today a new creative generation to take on the role of guide, redirecting the consumer towards a more aligned lifestyle with a long -term vision.An ethical and sustainable fashion, height of chic for specialists in responsible luxury, such as Cécile Lochard, who affirms in an interview with the Parisian that at present "the aura of the brand is at stake, it mustbe responsible, otherwise it is no longer deemed credible ”.Thus the looks turned, for the spring-summer 2019 season, towards a more political message like that of the CMMNOT Swdn label, which opened the Paris Fashion Week in June 2018. Rencontrés sur les bancs de la Central Saint Martins, Saif Bakir et Emma Hedlund, tout deux originaires de Suède, ont fait leurs armes dans la fast-fashion auprès de COS (groupe H&M).An environment they denounce in their second Parisian parade, packing up a mass of clothes in the preamble to the track, synonymous with the frantic rhythm of consumption.Subtile reference, perhaps, to Alexander McQueen 10 years earlier with "Horn of Planty" (fall-winter 2009/2010), where a waste mound was installed in the center of the show, highlighting the atrocities committed by handof man, through mazoutées, tire textures, trash bags and even a plastic bag acting as a hat.We recognize the avant-garde so specific to the London creative parish, where McQueen formed before the CMMNOT Swdn duo.Saif and Emma thus make the promise of a "Passe-Partout" dressing room, suitable for both working and the student, simplicity in lines and the choice of colors evoking the characteristics that make contemporary Scandinavian design.The locker room aims to be responsible, affordable insofar as the brand is still in its beginnings.The two creators are looking for sustainability through the timelessness of their products.It is also the choice that Jinah Jung made by restoring a second life to unused sneakers prototypes provided by the sporting rooster, so that it makes an eco-design range of unisex accessories, called Conhoesness forWord game lovers, presented during the 33rd edition of the Hyères festival last April.The integration of these new criteria in the creative process and the growing place given to them on the artistic scene, reveals an honorable awareness on the part of creators and institutions.

The new creative wave tends towards the opening.One of his many pillars, ethnic equality, sees his efforts of influence slowly rewarded.To date, in France, only four black creators have had access to the artistic direction of a traditional brand: the British Ozwald Boateng for Givenchy, Olivier Rousteing, at Balmain, but also Virgil Abloh, who joined the illustrious Louis LouisVuitton, at the head of the male collections.In fourth, and the announcement has something to interest, Rushemy Botter and Lisi Herrebrugh, Dutch duo named this summer to the creation of the almost centenary house NOTina Ricci.Botter, originally from Curaçao, a Dutch island located in the Caribbean, infuses its inspiration directly drawn from the living conditions of the sinners of its native island, and beyond, in the current climatological issues, concern shared by many creatorsemerging, which pays homage to the house NOTina Ricci, for her desire to draw a renewal as long as her creativity as in his message.

Of course, today, most brands are the challenge of the environmental question, but often as a sales argument.Gucci in 2016 develops a material in "liquid wood", a composition based on organic materials: "wood fibers from forest managed in a lasting way, lignine resulting from the production of paper and natural wax", can be read onThe Kering site.Armani, the same year, announced his rallying to the anti-Fourrure cause, following the step of Balenciaga, Vivienne Westwood, like boys, or Stella McCartney, who also integrates these new constraints in the creative process.Producing otherwise, it is choosing new materials like vegetable leather, which makes the creator's glory in 2010 with the Falabella bag.Real bestseller, we then speak of an ethical first "it-bag".In addition, since 2001, the brand has claimed a "ecologically correct" fashion, from which leathers and furs have been banished.Associations recognize the creator's efforts, but underline the path that remains to be done, which is why Stella McCartney is committed by 2025 to use 100% recycled polyester.It is this same synthetic material that is used for the last collaboration between Stella and Adidas, in which the designer revisits the Stan Smith from a contemporary angle: material and vegan manufacturing process.A large part of the collection is already made from bottles of recovered water, which according to the O.NOT.G.does not constitute a feat, but the claw, by its scale, remains a very good example in terms of responsible fashion towards the future.McCartney philosophy remains controversial, however: some go so far as to qualify the creator as an hypocrite towards the animal condition, mentioning the use of silkworms in the factories, (the technique consisting in boiling the larvae to draw the material), or the lack of information on the polyester, main component of the brand's accessories which, it claims reasoned use.Is ecological responsibility therefore a sincere issue and commitment, or a simple communication tool?It is very often through the new generation that involvement is more sincerely felt, if not more completely.

All these challenges associated with these new movements, trends and manifests in contemporary fashion, only contribute once again to sustainable development and the criticism of gender stereotypes?Is it again to exploit opportunities or explore a desirable future?Australian designer Tony Fry directs us towards a new definition of design, consisting in redirecting our creative activities towards the sustain-abbitity.According to him, "there cannot be a viable future for the human world without the development of an ability to support these interdependent conditions of existence".The age of carelessness, futile fashion, no longer make sense.It is up to the new creative wave to explore the path leading to a rebalancing of our societies, in harmony and in respect of cultures and environments.

Illustration photo: Rushemy Botter for the Hyères International Fashion Festival, photographed by Benjamin Rouan

Article initially published in N ° VIII fall-winter on sale on our blind