Ever since Yves Saint Laurent posed bare in 1971 to advertise his perfume Pour Homme, males’s designers have been spokesmodels for their very own manufacturers. Some — like Jean Paul Gaultier, Michael Kors, Jeremy Scott and Christian Siriano — even took on aspect gigs as TV personalities.
However as trend embraces a extra collective strategy, some designers are setting apart potential rivalries to faucet their friends to stroll of their runway reveals.
Among the many artistic administrators moonlighting as fashions throughout the menswear reveals in Paris in June had been Stefano Pilati, who appeared in Pharrell Williams’ debut present for Louis Vuitton, and Spencer Phipps, who popped up on the runway at LGN Louis Gabriel Nouchi.
Principally, it’s pals doing favors for pals. For others, modeling emerged as a aspect gig throughout the coronavirus pandemic, when bodily reveals had been canceled and reserving fashions for shoots concerned advanced logistics.
Compelled to current his spring 2021 assortment on-line, Phipps fulfilled a childhood dream by starring in his personal western, titled “The Spirit of Freedom.” That led to different provides, prompting him to signal with Subsequent Administration’s Expertise division, which additionally represents fellow designer Nix Lecourt Mansion.
“It’s actually humorous as a result of it’s so sudden for myself,” says Phipps, who sees it as a chance to immerse himself in different designers’ work.
“We’re stored very separate, so it’s very uncommon for me to be in somebody’s full setting. Perhaps I’ll see one thing in a retailer and expertise a few items. Perhaps I’ll meet them out and I can say hello to them, however I don’t essentially go of their work zone, so it’s nice. I get to be, like, a full vacationer,” he explains.
Spencer Phipps walks in LGN Louis Gabriel Nouchi males’s spring 2024 present.
Giovanni Giannoni/WWD
“It’s truly actually refreshing,” he provides of being backstage on the LGN present. “I perceive precisely what’s taking place as a result of I’ve been in his footwear. I do know what they’re freaking out about.”
Typically a runway gig results in one thing greater. Having appeared within the movie for Boss’ spring 2022 assortment, Phipps then partnered with the label on a co-branded capsule line.
For Ludovic de Saint Sernin, whose collections are autobiographical, it made sense to star in his personal marketing campaign.
Throughout the first COVID-19 lockdown, he labored with photographer Willy Vanderperre on the pictures for his fall 2020 assortment, titled “Heartbreak,” which confirmed the designer donning a damaged heart-shaped breastplate and posing together with his face pressed towards a mirror.
“For me to make the leap and transfer to the opposite aspect of the digicam is at all times a really particular second that is filled with that means and private connections,” he says.
Vanderperre was impressed by the truth that de Saint Sernin usually posts photos of himself on Instagram.
“I feel it comes from all of the folks I look as much as, like Marc Jacobs, Rick Owens or Donatella Versace, who constructed an iconography round their picture as designers and who’re as recognizable and effectively referred to as their manufacturers. I’ve at all times discovered that fascinating,” de Saint Sernin confesses.
He determined to toy additional with the myth-making course of by strolling in his fall 2022 present, titled “All of the Rumors Are True,” alongside Gigi and Bella Hadid. “I wished to push to the utmost this concept of a designer showcasing himself, and this reflection on the place of the designer inside a model and a group,” he explains.
Final December, to announce what would change into a one-season stint as artistic director of Ann Demeulemeester, de Saint Sernin launched a set of photographs through which he wore objects from the Demeulemeester archive courting again to the ’90s.
Ludovic de Saint Sernin in classic Ann Demeulemeester.
Willy Vanderperre/Courtesy of Ann Demeulemeester
But his greatest thrill thus far was closing the Rick Owens spring 2023 present final summer season. “I’ve been a fan of his for years and he’s impressed me quite a bit,” de Saint Sernin says.
“I used to be extremely touched by this expertise and the brand new perspective it gave me. It’s much more irritating than you think about, even if you happen to’re within the business, to be within the footwear of a mannequin and to understand the strain of being in a Rick Owens present, and rapidly all eyes are on you,” he says. “However it’s such a rewarding and distinctive expertise that you just wish to do it many times. There’s a rush that’s nearly addictive.”
Going ahead, de Saint Sernin plans to proceed to construct his picture with rigorously chosen collaborations.
“I significantly admire folks like Marc Jacobs or Jean Paul Gaultier, who, past their job as designers, have established themselves in popular culture, in tv, leisure and performing. Designers in the present day do much more than they initially did, and you must be very fluid and interested in the place it will possibly lead you,” he says.
It stands to motive in a interval when designers are prized for his or her social media following as a lot as their artistic expertise. Balmain’s artistic director Olivier Rousteing, for instance, has 9.7 million followers on Instagram and was among the many first to mannequin on the aspect, showing nude in a spring 2019 marketing campaign with Cara Delevingne.
Cara Delevingne and Olivier Rousteing entrance the Balmain spring 2019 marketing campaign.
Dan Beleiu
For rising designers working on a shoestring funds, roping in pals is an financial necessity in addition to a solution to have a good time a new-gen artistic strategy.
Victor Weinsanto featured fellow designers together with Charles de Vilmorin, Vincent Garnier Pressiat and EgonLab duo Florentin Glémarec and Kevin Nompeix in his spring 2023 present, titled “Widespread Love.”
“All of us encourage one another,” he explains. “It was my manner of claiming we’re all pals.”
As soon as his buddies hit the runway, every let his persona shine by. “With Charles, it was this combination of shyness and fantasy, whereas Vincent was extra exuberant,” he remembers. “It permits folks to place a face to the designer’s work. It’s like whenever you see a portray and then you definately see the artist: you find yourself understanding quite a bit.”
Charles de Vilmorin in Weinsanto’s RTW spring 2023 present.
Courtesy of Weinsanto
Weinsanto believes that the collaborative strategy is a needed consequence of the explosion in new manufacturers.
“Again within the day, there have been so few designers that it was a little bit bit like a college class: there’s solely 30 college students, and in that group, everybody desires to be high of the category,” he says. “There’s plenty of us now, so we are inclined to pool our sources.”
Nonetheless, this bunch isn’t more likely to let a free hemline go unnoticed. “We’re very acquainted with one another’s work and we pay shut consideration to the end of the garments, the linings. We tease one another if one thing’s not proper,” he says.
On the finish of the day, it’s about serving to another person’s imaginative and prescient come to life. For Pressiat’s first present, Weinsanto took his personal activate the runway, his hair caked in orange paint and a series clamped to the aspect of his mouth. “To be utterly made up à la Pressiat was fairly one thing,” he says with fun. “I used to be tremendous completely happy to be a part of it as a result of it was an vital second for him.”
De Saint Sernin believes that designers celebrating fellow designers is an indication of the instances.
“It reveals mentalities are actually altering in trend generally. As designers, we’re answerable for setting an instance in that sense. Right now, there’s enormous solidarity amongst new generations,” he says.
“I feel it’s actually lovely and it conjures up future generations to not be afraid of competitors,” he provides. “We feed off one another and it’s vital to nurture that, as a result of it makes conversations far more fruitful and galvanizing.”
