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FASHION

Paris names its first street after a fashion designer

In a city yet to name a back alley after Coco Chanel, Parisians stepped out Sunday to do their organic shopping at a street market named after fashion designer Sonia Rykiel.

Published: 30 September 2018 13:26 CEST
Paris names its first street after a fashion designer
Models walk past the Allée Sonya Rykiel sign after Saturday night's Sonia Rykiel Spring-Summer 2019 Ready-to-Wear collection fashion show. Photo: Anne-Christine POUJOULAT / AFP
Hours earlier the city's mayor Anne Hidalgo — something of a fashionista herself — had declared Allée Sonya Rykiel open, with her label staging its Paris fashion week show between the twinkling lights of the market stalls.
 
The “allee” is in the middle of a grand Left Bank boulevard where the late designer, who died in 2016, did her fruit and vegetable shopping.
 
It is the first time the French capital has named any kind of thoroughfare after a fashion designer.
 
To celebrate, Rykiel's successor Julie de Libran staged a chi-chi Parisian market-themed show, with her models carrying baguettes or popping out for a bit of broccoli in lace nighties and a techno trenchcoats. The collection, with dresses inspired by the “petit filet” string shopping bags that are de rigueur among Paris' hipster “bobos”, had a Saturday night-Sunday morning feel, with a cute terrier on a lead and De Libran's young son and his Labrador pup making a cameo.
 
“Sonia Rykiel gave us a taste for freedom, she was the most Parisian of Parisians,” said Hidalgo. 
 
Indeed the designer opened her first shop a stone's throw away in Saint Germain des Pres just as French students rose up in revolt in May 1968.
 
A file picture taken on March 14, 1993 shows Sonia Rykiel applauded by her models at the 1993-94 autumn/winter collection in Paris. Rykiel, the so-called Queen of Knitwear, died on August 25, 2016 at the age of 86 after a long battle with Parkinson's disease. Photo: PIERRE GUILLAUD / AFP
 
But the authorities in the French capital would not be drawn on whether there were any plans for a Boulevard Karl Lagerfeld or Avenue Christian Dior. A street named after Chanel would be politically tricky in a city which mostly votes for the left because of the designer's “horizontal collaboration” during the Nazi occupation.
 
Chanel spent much of the war in the Ritz hotel with her lover, German intelligence officer Baron Hans Gunther von Dincklage.
 
By AFP's Fiachra Gibbons
 

FASHION

Paris exhibition celebrates 100 years of French Vogue

A new exhibition in Paris will tell the story of 100 years of French Vogue - from the post-war 'New Look' of Christian Dior through the sexual liberation of the 1960s to the dangling-cigarette waifs of the 2000s.

Published: 7 October 2021 08:21 CEST
French Vogue celebrates 100 years
French Vogue celebrates 100 years. Photo: Thomas Olva/AFP

But as well as celebrating the magazine’s storied history, the exhibit comes at a time of turbulence for the publication.

Just last month, it was confirmed that its editor of 10 years, Emmanuelle Alt, was out and wouldn’t be replaced.

She was not alone.

Looking to cut costs, owner Conde Nast International has axed editors across Europe over the past year, and put international Vogue editions under the direct control of global editorial director, Anna Wintour, in New York.

New York-based Anna Wintour now has overall control of French Vogue. Photo by Christophe ARCHAMBAULT / AFP

Like much of the media industry, Vogue is struggling with tumbling sales and ad revenue in the digital era.

But the latest twist is also part of the endless push and pull between New York and Paris going back to its early days.

“The whole history of French Vogue is one of back-and-forth with Conde Nast in New York – growing more independent for a while, then being reined back in,” said Sylvie Lecallier, curator of the new exhibition, “Vogue Paris 1920-2020″, which opened this weekend after a year’s delay due to the pandemic.

The Paris edition was often the loftier, more bohemian sibling to its more hard-nosed New York version.

But it was also the hotbed in which much of 20th century style and womenhood came to be defined.

“Paris was the place to hunt out talent and content and bring it to New York,” said Lecallier.

The exhibition charts the evolution from art deco drawings of the 1920s through the erotic image-making of photographers like Helmut Newton in the 1960s and 1970s.

Its last peak was under editor Carine Roitfeld in the 2000s, who brought back a provocative Gallic identity by ridding the newsroom of foreign staff and becoming a fashion icon in her own right.

Her successor, Alt, was a quieter presence, though she still oversaw key moments including its first transgender cover star, Brazilian Valentina Sampaio, in 2017.

But internet culture has created “a perfect storm” for Vogue, says media expert Douglas McCabe of Enders Analysis.

“The first 80 years of Vogue’s life, it had the market to itself, it was the bible for fashion,” McCabe told AFP.

“But online today, there are so many other ways to get your information. Influencers, Instagram, YouTube — everyone’s a threat.”

In a world where new fashion trends can blow up around the world in seconds, it has become much harder for a monthly magazine to set the pace.

“It’s not that they can’t survive for another 100 years — but they will be differently sized,” McCabe said.

Vogue has tried to branch out into different areas, including events.

“I used to work for a magazine, and today I work for a brand,” Alt said on the eve of French Vogue’s 1,000th issue in 2019.

But the big money was always in print, and Vogue Paris sales are dropping steadily from 98,345 in 2017 to 81,962 to 2020, according to data site ACPM.

It is perhaps unsurprising that the new top job in Paris, redefined as “head of editorial content”, went to Eugenie Trochu, who was key to building the magazine’s online presence.

She declared herself “thrilled to be part of Vogue’s international transformation”.

For the curator of the exhibition, it is ironic timing.

“We had no idea it would end like this when we started work on the exhibition,” said Lecallier.

“Who knows where it will go from here.”

The exhibition Vogue Paris 1920-2020 is at the Palais Galliera in Paris’ 16th arrondissement. The gallery is open 10am to 6pm Tuesday to Sunday and is closed on Mondays. Tickets for the exhibition are €14 (€12 for concessions and under 18s go free) and must be reserved online in advance. 

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