Virgil Abloh broke the mold in terms of the skill set a creative director can and should possess.
The late designer, the mastermind behind the Off-White brand and Louis Vuitton’s explosive menswear business, has become a role model for fashion students with his multidisciplinary, inclusive and community approach to fashion, according to Valérie Berdah-Levy, director of the School of Paris at the Istituto Marangoni.
Equally popular is Japanese streetwear pioneer Nigo, now Kenzo’s creative director. Berdah-Levy explained that he is a multifaceted man with tentacles that extend into music production, industrial or graphic design, and DJing, as did Abloh.
“Students love multi-creative minds and talents who are not only fashion designers but also have many passions,” she said.
The same goes for recruiters: headhunters say fashion houses are increasingly looking for creative leaders who have the attention of the internet, an enviable creative network and the ability to inspire a community.
They point out that formidable design skills and industry enthusiasm remain important attributes for achieving top positions in fashion. And they point out that second-in-command designers often have the inside track, as witness the recent appointment of Matthieu Blazy to succeed Daniel Lee at Bottega Veneta.
But there is no doubt that cultural influence and connections are increasingly important attributes in fashion.
Consider, for example, artist Daniel Arsham, who recently launched his own clothing and accessories brand Objects IV Life, following several collaborations with Kim Jones at Dior. He has 1.3 million followers on Instagram.
According to Floriane de Saint Pierre, founder and director of Floriane de Saint Pierre & Associés, today’s brands must be social media influencers to lead the game.
“With social networks, and the acceleration of their use due to COVID[-19] lockdowns and travel restrictions, we live more than ever in the attention economy, where attention has become a scarce commodity, therefore it has a value,” he explained in an interview. “Without attention, brands cannot create any desire and consequently cannot sell dreams or products.”
De Saint Pierre noted that today’s creative directors may possess a variety of skill sets to engage consumers.
In his opinion, they may come from a more classical fashion background and education, such as Phoebe Philo, Demna at Balenciaga or Maximilian Davis, recently appointed at Salvatore Ferragamo, or they may come from other creative fields.
Examples of largely self-taught fashion entrepreneurs include Nigo, a record producer and DJ who created the A Bathing Ape and Human Made brands before joining Kenzo; Teddy Santis, who harnessed his love of New York’s ’90s hip-hop scene and basketball culture into the fast-growing brand Aimé Leon Dore, and Tremaine Emory, who is appreciated for his storytelling and who spanned multiple industries before founding Denim. Tears and taking on a creative role in Supreme.
De Saint Pierre calls them all “catalysts of an aspirational society” and inspiring brand leaders whose customers “feel part of a community of values to which they want to belong.”
“It goes without saying that the product has to represent those values, and the moment it becomes too obvious or too banal, the influencer community moves on to other brands,” he added.
To be sure, many acclaimed and famous fashion designers in the last 50 years have been largely self-taught, including Karl Lagerfeld, Miuccia Prada, Vivienne Westwood, and Manolo Blahnik, or come from other fields such as architecture, studied by the likes of Pierre Cardin. and Gianfranco Ferre.
But the advent of social media changed the dynamics of the industry, allowing creatives to engage directly with their audiences, rather than through gatekeepers like publishers and retailers. At the same time, the purpose, values and messages behind brands have become important qualities alongside aesthetics and design.
Abloh was also trained as an architect, and Off-White chose Ibrahim Kamara, a stylist and editor, as his de facto successor.
Ibrahim Camara
courtesy photo
Editor-in-chief of Dazed magazine, Kamara was part of the Off-White family for years, styling the brand’s runway shows. Before assuming the top job at Dazed, she produced editorials for iD, System, Vogue Italia and Another magazine, drawing attention for her rich visual storytelling that weaves high fashion with diverse cultural references and questions of gender and identity.
Kamara has 246,000 followers on Instagram.
Celebrity entourages can’t be ruled out either.
Nigo’s debut show for Kenzo last January helped the brand earn $6.6 million in media impact value and rank among the top three most impactful shows during Paris Fashion Week, after Louis Vuitton in first place. place and Dior in second, according to tabulations from Launchmetrics. “The show’s star-studded front row caused quite a stir in the media, with various hip-hop artists like Kanye West, Pharrell Williams, and Tyler the Creator mentioned in more than 50 percent of brand-related placements,” signing data and information. indicated.
Emma Davidson, CEO of London search firm Denza Limited, said her clients have been demanding influencers, or even influencers, for creative searches.
“I’ve had this specifically from a big Italian luxury house: ‘We want someone like Olivier Rousteing. It’s not his job, but his profile: on Instagram, photos with all the pretty girls, always lively, at the right parties. We want hype. This was about eight years ago,” said Davidson, referring to the creative director of Balmain, who has 8.3 million followers on Instagram and 737,000 on TikTok. “Since then, it has only intensified with the prevalence of various apps that have become connectors between the brand and the audience.”
Davidson cited a number of secondary considerations that have made creative recruiting increasingly difficult.
“There are so many things: minority representation in the industry, sustainability, the designer’s brand/DNA, the designer’s background including bad press issues, available budget, ‘story works’, which celebrity friendships are advantageous, fashion. .. group policy”, he listed.
He noted that candidates with a “strong creative network ripe for collaborations” are also attractive.
Davidson also advocated internal promotion, applauding Blazy’s at Bottega Veneta as an example. Virginie Viard’s rise to Chanel following the death of Karl Lagerfeld in 2019 would be another case in point, as would Alessandro Michele’s rise to fame from the Gucci design studios.
Matthieu Blazy
Willy Vanderperre/Courtesy of Bottega Veneta
“This is called sustainable hiring. There should be more to business planning,” he said. “Companies invest a lot of time and money in people. Payroll is a huge expense and should be treated like gold. These people have specialized knowledge, understanding of a DNA. They need to be hired wisely, trained within a company, build staff retention planning,” she said. “I am very, very pro-investment in people.”
De Saint Pierre argued that there is no single recipe for success in current fashion.
“To become, or remain, influential, we are probably seeing two parallel models. On the one hand, there are long-term, consistent burners with customers who are extremely loyal to the brand and the product itself,” he said, citing Hermès and The Row as two examples. “And on the other hand, there are brands that need to reposition themselves as influential brands. In such a case, creative directors, whether known or unknown, are the catalyst and voice of today’s society… Their role is to visually express the brand at the heart of today’s society and its values.”
Fashion schools have developed a curriculum to reflect the changing profile of creative directors, with influence and keen communication skills among the new elements. For example, at Istituto Marangoni in Paris, second-year students are tasked with creating and presenting a professional Instagram profile.
“They need to learn how to present and communicate their concept and creation, and how to get noticed with their collection,” explained Berdah-Levy. “They can experiment with the communication potential of the metaverse, games, and we try to get them to work with students from other programs, like business and fashion styling, to develop additional skills.
“We promote these interdisciplinary projects so that they are not only focused on design,” he added.
Berdah-Levy stressed that design skills remain paramount and clothing must be “exciting and desirable” enough to excite celebrities and influencers while remaining “customer-focused.”
However, today’s creative directors cannot operate in an ivory tower. “The designer needs to be visible, present, accessible, have a global vision and knowledge of all the factors that a collection needs to be successful. But the designer is also an influencer,” he said.
Lena Situations
Stephane Feugere/WWD
Namely: the Istituto Marangoni has invited people like Louise Parent; Géraldine Boublil aka Erin Off Duty; Loulou De Saison and Léna Mahfouf, better known as Léna Situations, to explain how they have built a following and a business in the field of fashion. “I like that at the beginning they tell students that it’s a real job, that they work hard to get this level of recognition and authority,” Berdah-Levy said.
In addition to Abloh and Nigo, Marine Serre, Balmain’s Rousteing and Simon Porte Jacquemus, the latter with 4.9 million followers on Instagram, are also much loved by students, with Rick Owens an obscure favourite, seen as an outsider with a strong fashion identity.
“They like the idea that a fashion designer can have different passions and be creative in fields other than fashion,” he said. “And they like to project themselves into these kinds of personalities and people.”
Source: wwd.com