fashionculture

Triennale: “A conversation with Pierre-Alexis Dumas, Hermès”

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Insights for the future of fashion

Yesterday at the Triennale Teatro Milano, we witnessed a special event: “A conversation with Pierre-Alexis Dumas, Hermès.” For the level of culture transmitted, the interview was worth it an entire fashion week. Yes, because fashion is culture.

Cathy Horyn – “The New York Magazine” and “The Cut” fashion editor – with Marco Sammicheli – director of the Museum of Italian Design, Triennale Milano – conducted the interview.

Pierre-Alexis Dumas, Hermès: A history of culture & craftsmanship

The creative director of Hermès made us know more about the Maison in an attempt to analyse the issues, challenges and transformation the fashion industry faces in this rough time. Dumas narrated the anecdotes, the history of the family and his personal journey, and craftsmanship as fundamental elements of the Maison. No arrogance, only passion. In fact, the word culture has emerged several times.

“Being a creative director is turning off the ego to listen to others’ ideas.”

“Robert Dumas once said: luxury is something you can repair.”

“We don’t need marketing.” (Like saying we don’t need to trick people).

“My values are sincerity, honestly, quality.”

Most of all, he focused on the creative and artisanal process. Also, he talked about “Petite H” – a workshop where they collect all the scraps and pieces that do not pass quality control so that designers can give them a second life. In other words, they recycle and upcycle.

However, he’s been clear on one point: “Sustainability, that’s where we have a problem in fashion.”
In fact, they are experimenting with vegetable leather and undertaking low-impact practices. He said, maybe, in 15 or 20 years, the industry will reach sustainable standards. But we are afraid we do not have 15 years to make change.

A conversation with Pierre-Alexis Dumas Hermès

Martin Margiela & modern luxury

The conversation ends with a note about Martin Margiela, wanted in the company by Pierre-Alexis’ father.
“Margiela helped redefine the idea of luxury. He could go straight to the essence.”
At that point, we were moved by everything that no longer exists and by what is now fashion.
The image projected onto the screen was the one we reported here as a quote. It was 1999, and we can find everything there:

  • timeless style par excellence, i.e. timeless fashion
  • simplicity as added value
  • quiet luxury
  • genderless

The words culture, tradition, craftsmanship, design, and creativity stood out throughout the event “A conversation with Pierre-Alexis Dumas, Hermès.” Specifically, the whole story of Hermès brought out what is now missing in fashion: family businesses disappeared, and so have their soul. Corporations took the place of family businesses, but brands and maisons have no souls anymore.

You know, there is always something to learn.
Hello, fashion industry!

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Masculine & Feminine

Style plays around the concepts of masculine & feminine. But sometimes the limit between one and the other is not so defined, meaning they tend to mix, which leaves more space to creativity.

Fashion & gender

When selecting items for our boutique, we’ve always kept an eye on men’s clothing. We love picking up some men’s items to mix in. We adore the duality of the masculine-feminine style. Also, limiting clothes by gender is a little too restrictive for us.

If you were young during the ’80 / ’90, and your favourite designer was Jean Paul Gaultier – a real creative genius – later on along your path, you would realise you have seen everything possible in fashion and life too. Forget the fast-fashion era, that was a wonderful time! Creativity was at its peak, that unforgettable energy created iconic moments in fashion history.
All the concepts now popular in fashion were launched by Gaultier about 40 or 50 years ago. He was living ahead of his time, had a unique attitude, definitely a genius!

We can say he was changing culture by making fashion.

Masculine, feminine and gender-fluid fashion

Gaultier has been the first to bring in diversity and inclusion, laying the groundwork for a gender-fluid fashion. On his catwalks, we saw everything, men wearing skirts, women in oversized suits, different body shapes. Love yourself as you are and play with clothes, sounded so beautiful to us.
Gaultier’s fashion has fed our vision to a point that now, everything seems already seen. Perhaps he brought us to another planet made of love, acceptance and play.
Maybe fashion evolved faster than society’s capability to adapt to the changes.

“Too much comfort is not good for creation.” One of his brilliant quotes invites us to reflect on the specific moment we are living.
Discomfort plays a role in creativity. We must remember it.

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Fashion is culture

With the word fashion, we mean the appearance and behaviour of a social community according to a particular taste of the moment. It refers to all the style and life elements that identify a society during a specific era.

Fashion is just another way to scan our society and culture. Another lens through which we can investigate human behaviour.

We can use clothes to hide aspects of our personality or, instead, to show and express our identity. As an overall concept, we can use clothes to analyze different cultures.

Fashion, creativity and finance

Fashion is the result of a creative process that talks about our culture. The reason it became mistreated and demeaned as a vain or silly field, lies in the system itself and some external factors.
Since finance took over the industry, during the 80s and 90s, the creative process has been forcibly accelerated, pushed to an extremely fast-paced model. Very little space was left for creativity.

Later on, when the internet and social media entered the scene, the creative side of fashion became completely distorted.
Fashion has undergone such strong pressure that valuable designers, like Martin Margiela, one of the greatest innovators and game-changers, decided to leave. Too much pressure, a continuous request for something new, too many products to put out in a short time. And then also, an obsessive hunger for information, in the form of silly poses and clownesque outfits.

Rather than a place for creativity, fashion became all about budgets, money and clowns. Pure business without a soul. Tangible examples are the rise of fast fashion and fashion bloggers.

But all that fast-paced overproduction, overconsumption, massive show-off was just a bubble, a system that couldn’t sustain itself in the long run. In fact, during the pandemic, it exploded.

Now that the world is re-awakening, we need to bring a new level of consciousness that puts creativity and ethical work at the heart. Slow fashion and smaller-scale production are the basis on which we can build sustainable models.

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