French Federation Creates Committee to Support Young Designers
The French fashion’s governing body, Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode (FHCM), has considered designers of “tomorrows fashion” a top priority since their early beginning. FHCM’s main objective is to promote French fashion culture while strengthening the support of emerging designers.
The Fédération’s new platform, Sphere, which launched January 15th, 2020 at the Palais de Tokyo, is a showroom that will take place four times a year and will represent both women’s and men’s fashion week. The Sphere is intended to bring together a mix of known and emerging designers.
As part of the support for emerging brands, the Fédération created a professional partnership aimed at specializing them in major thematic within the sector. FHCM is structured around two divisions: legal, social and institutional division; and development, communication, and events division.
A model has her photo taken as she stands near a wall / Image Credit: Flaunter Unsplash
The first division, Legal, social and institutional, provides its members with “information and advice on economic, social, IP & IT regulations and more specifically those governing Haute Couture and Fashion House activities,”. FHCM provides young designers with individualized advice and can negotiate preferential conditions with law firms that specialize in creative industries and young companies.
The second division, development, communication, and events, offers a diverse form of exposure that falls within the time frame of fashion week. The Fédération provides “logistical support to member and guest brands by negotiating showrooms, SACEM fees early on, and can, depending on the brand's profile, offer financial support for shows (DEFI)”.
Audience watches as the model walks the runway, Image credit: Unsplash/Brunel Johnson
The first edition of the Sphere showroom was held January 15-19, 2020 and showcased nine up and coming designers: Blue Marble, Boyarovskaya, Egon Lab, Ester Manas, Gamut, Kits, Mansour Martin, Mossi and Simon Lextrait.
The second edition of the Sphere showroom will take place February 26th - March 3rd, 2020 during womenswear collections and will notably be joined by Germanier, Kenneth Ize, and Thebe Magugu, the winner of the LVMH Prize in 2019. According to a press release on the Sphere Showroom, “The Studio Haddou-Dufourcq is inaugurating a creative partnership through which the spaces of the PFW® Center and SPHERE – Paris Fashion Week® Showroom – will be entrusted each year to a winner of Design Parade Toulon – Villa”. The Fédération is promoting not only its fashion designers but also interior designers.
Capturing models as they walk the runway, Image credit: Shutterstock/Garnet
“We want to inject a new dynamism into our action [to support young talent], firstly by switching to four sessions per year, which allows us to better represent the men’s fashion world, and a reduced selection in each session, to truly accompany them, which takes time,” said Serge Carreira, head of the initiative for emerging designers, who joined the program in early October. “We don’t want to do more, but we want to do better” he added.
The committee for supporting emerging designers by FHCM is one that offers visibility to both menswear and womenswear collections. The committee acts as a guiding hand throughout the young designer’s showcases and grants them support by offering various services in legal fields and communication and marketing fields.
