While the rest of us were home brooding over lockdowns and curfews 24-year-old French fashion’s new wonderboy Charles de Vilmorin got busy in his studio – creating a new collection that practically bursts of color and playful nods to street art and graffiti, modern art, and comic books. His style is playful and bright – the is the dream wardrobe for any villain of the Marvel universe or for a mushroom-eating Alice in Wonderland.
Charles di Vilmorin spent four years at École de la Chambre Syndicale de la Couture Parisienne and worked as an intern for Alber Elbaz at Lanvin. He believes elegance is above all personality and that he owes a lot to family and friends whom he claims is his greatest inspiration, in addition to movies and music and the art of Niki de Saint Phalle, Chagall, Klimt and Odilon Redon. With his quilted brights we also spot influences from kanuki theatre and the pieces Kansai Yamamoto designed for David Bowie in the 1970s.
Vilmorin was discovered after showing his magnificent drawings and prototypes on Instagram.
His feed is showstopping and perfect for a social media platform that relies so much on eyecatching strong visuals.“My inspirations are before all my relatives, my friends, their strong personalities. Painting and cinema are also major inspirations, such as the music that particularly helps me to create. It plunges me into a world of colors and movement,” he said when interviewed by the French Galerie Joseph recently.
At first glance his design and styling are like cheeky pieces of art, sculptures that gives the finger to understated ideas of style and “good taste”. However, they do not violate the design principles of form and function. Just look past the screaming colors, quilted body parts, voluminous shapes and wild crashing prints and you are left with a line of clothes where many of the individual pieces are both functional and even sensible if you can withstand the raw visual impact.
The entire new collection’s visual rhythm is like flickering neon and fragmented pieces of information which makes it contemporary relevant, much how the designer prefer to be. And his clothes can now be purchased through his net shop.
Remember this one? Fashion inspired by modern art
Along with his new collection Charles de Vilmorin published a video that pays homage to the late artist Niki de Saint Phalle – who made a name for herself in the late 1950s and early 1960s. She is known for her colorful sculptures of woman and her controversial and often misinterpreted “shooting pictures” made by shooting at balloons filled with of paint mounted on a canvas. Vilmorin states himself: “It’s meant to be creative, not destructive”.
All photos by kind permission of Charles de Vilmorin
