meet Pierre François Valette of VALETTE

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Anyone who reads my interviews and reviews knows that I am more or less a classicist for better or for worse. Rarely do new designers catch my eye, but Pierre François Valette of Valette has captured my eye, my imagination and most of all my sense of fashion for the future generations of fashion consumers.
NOW YOU CAN SHOP IT! https://valettestudio.com

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I have often spoken about designers who tweak the classics and here is a designer who perhaps tweaks it just enough to make them edgy without looking ridiculous or so over the top that the clothes become unwearable.

So here, today, we have the designer who will tell us all about his collections, his modus operandi and just about everything we need to know about the collection and who the Valette man is as well as who is Pierre Francois Valette. 

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To say that Pierre-François has taken a circuitous route to arrive in the world of fashion is an understatement but then again it is possible that it is the exact reason why he sees fashion as he does. So here in his own words is the designer explaining the genesis and rasion d’être for his eponymous collection.

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 JF: Can you sort of give us an idea of how you arrived at the point in your career?

PFV: I don’t know if we can say “career”, I see it more as an irrepressible desire to make something. Having said that, I haven’t had an ordinary education. I have been 10 years in flexible music schedules where I played instruments but also taken part as a singer to various opera productions, notably La Flute Enchantée of Mozart directed by William Kentridge when I was 13 or 14. However, this education gave me artistic sensitivity. This desire to imagine, to create an atmosphere, to relay an idea, an emotion, a message … Then, I undertook law studies which I interrupted after my graduation to join l’École de la Chambre Syndicale de la Couture Parisienne. I studied there for 4 years (Master 1 Promotion 2018). From the very beginning I knew I made the right choice! After 2 years, I worked a few months at the Isabel Marant’s studio where I really discovered that this job was for me. All this work around creative development, from models to toiles; the attention to details, prints, the functionality of clothing… I didn’t want to leave!

After graduating, I joined Saint Laurent’s studios and the Saint Laurent Fashion Institute, which describes itself as an immersion program in the history and DNA of the Maison Saint Laurent. I discovered the culture of beauty, refinement, excellence … I also had the chance to work with the Ateliers, which are probably among the most competent in the world, and to learn from their savoir-faire and their history. After these few months at Saint Laurent, I won the Saint Laurent Fashion Institute’s Prize. Surrounded by friends and professionals I met throughout my formation and professional experiences, I decided to create my own men’s brand VALETTE, the first presentation took place on January 17th 2020 in Paris.

My desire was to start a personal story that was perhaps time-consuming but just as fascinating! The idea was to get back to the base of what I liked: developing an idea, creating an atmosphere and bringing people together around a project. Fashion is above all a dialogue, and I dared starting it.

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JF: Who is your target clientele and why have you chosen them and why do you believe they are your audience?

PFV: When I started to think about this first collection, I did not have a specific customer in mind. I believe that this is not the first objective for a new brand.

I wanted to express myself personally and show my universe, the look, tell a story ... more than asking myself about customer barriers.

I wanted the collection to be understood as a wardrobe collection with all the pieces needed (jumpsuits, coats, jackets, shirts, T-shirts, vests, pants, overalls but also accessories like gloves, scarves, belts).

The VALETTE look is inspired by the classics, but add a Dandy influence with a modern and sophisticated attitude.

Rather than imagining a specific customer, I always had in mind that I call an embodiment (incarnation in French). It means: an attitude, an allure of a boy I want to dress - what brings out of him and reveals. A head carriage, a wiggle, a way of evolving in space.

The VALETTE boy with the most innocent expression of his face, is daring, adaptable and asserts who he is. He is free: free to be, to surprise and to surprise himself.

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My idea was to imagine for this modern Dandy a “cool tailored suit’ adapted for the modern urban and social way of life. VALETTE clothing is the work around shapes, the cut and the details turned to functionality and fit. I always keep in mind that elegance, simplicity of shapes and colours must be a constant concern in order to create a garment that is both beautiful and useful for everyday life.

VALETTE clothing is the work around shapes, the cut and the details turned to functionality and fit. I always keep in mind that elegance, simplicity of shapes and colours must be a constant concern in order to create a garment that is both beautiful and useful for everyday life.

The objective is therefore not to divide the creative ambition by age group or customer, but to dress a plurality of people to enable the total look or simply to accessorize the outfit.

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 JF: Do you have any style or fashion mentors who have inspired you and why did you select them?

PFV: There are so many! However, I think inspiration happens every day and all the time. It’s a feeling, it changes and you have to work on it. Inspiration is a wish, a desire, an emotion, a smell, a touch … something that is here but evaporates. Imagine how to freeze an idea that comes to your mind for one second before disappearing! I always thought that creation was transmission.

I’m inspired by many things: music, literature, art, poetry, movies… and everyday life. I like to make connections between things that seem very distant. I think the most interesting thing with an idea is when it brings together different inspirations.

I am also inspired by the journeys of many artists from different fields. How they went through life including their joys, their disappointments, sometimes their sorrows - the difficulty to create and for some of them, to live. There is always something to learn from others!

Fashion designers? Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé for their Beauty, Raf Simons for his global design, Helmut Lang for his modernity AND Martin Margiela for his spirit

Other sources of inspiration? Cocteau for his audacity, Chagall for his hope, Ravel for its authenticity, Dali for his enigma, Sagan for her Panache (cf. Edmond Rostand - Cyrano de Bergerac)

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the designer... click  image to enlarge

 VALETTE is the disobedience of elegance
follow him and his brand at www.instagram.com/valettepf 
www.instagram.com/valettepf/ 

meet Thomas "Tom" Bloch..ballerino

One more time I cannot sing the praises of the internet enough that allows me to meet some of the most talented and gifted créateurs of this age. Today’s subject is all about the rigor and training that allows this young man to be a dancer of the dance…. so to speak … and that is his artistry and his creation. This is not a quasi-danseur but a certified dyed in the wool ballerino, if you would, who has danced worldwide as an invited guest performer for several classical ballet companies/troupes as well as taught. 

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“A ballet dancer's goal is to make physically demanding choreography appear effortless” Wikipedia

As it turns out, not only he is a “talent on his toes” but he is genuinely gracious, multilingual, and sincere in his dedication to the art of dance. With his self-effacing demeanor, he is inordinately endearing as well. We are not speaking of some wannabe prancing around people’s living rooms pretending to be accomplished but about a dancer who has performed in legitimate venues as part of established troupes from NYC to Russia to Japan or in other words, an international gentleman of the ballet pursuing a trajectory toward worldwide recognition.

click image to enlarge/ photographer Dean Barucija (@pickledthoughts)

 So now I share with you the pleasure of meeting Tom Bloch, in his own words:

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Jeffrey Felner:  Can you give us a sort of brief resume as to how you arrived at your present professional situation?

Tom Bloch: I had a very different route seeking my professional career. I wasn’t   involved in ballet or dance in any way until I was almost 21when I discovered my love and passion for ballet and quickly tried to get the best training possible; within a year I had scholarships from prestigious summer schools where I met incredible teachers and was suddenly enlightened.  The turning point between treating ballet as a hobby and deciding to make it a profession was thanks to the one and only, Violette Verdy. She told me I would be a dancer to watch and that was my trigger to make ballet my profession. 

*I had the good fortune to cross paths with a very famous dancer and teacher …. Eitan Sivak who simply told me that I have a gift from God, but I might be too old to use it. So it is now or never…  find a ballet academy with a company that will train you well enough but if that’s not possible then forget about it as age is a huge factor. I took his advice and went to audition for several ballet schools and academies but given my age came into issue and I was turned down by most. *Fortunately, the National Ballet Conservatory, in Portugal, gave me my chance. The teacher Marc de Graef insisted the school accept me after my audition. He was not only my ballet teacher but my guide and mentor. Thanks to him I was given the chance to learn and develop and grow as a dancer and artist. He is the reason I have a career.

*Upon graduation, I returned to the USA to dance, where I met the wonderful Kyra Nichols who led me to fall in love with the Balanchine style and technique. Upon moving to NYC, I joined the Manhattan Youth Ballet, where I was trained by some of the finest teachers in the USA.  I had learned the Balanchine way as I wished and improved tremendously in a very short time. After only eighteen months, I signed 2 contracts in Europe and have been working ever since!

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JF: If you hadn’t chosen this particular aspect of the arts, what would have been your ideal situation/dream and why and where would it have been?

 TB: I always wanted to be a model. If it weren't for ballet, my dream life would be to have been involved in the world of fashion. I have always had a strong attraction to fashion and style; its creativity and breaking into that industry always intrigued me.

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 JF:  If you could invite any 5 people to dinner who would they be and why?

TB: Madonna, as my favourite artist and a fashion icon I would love to talk to her about what was behind her "reinventions" in her styles and looks. Next, Raf Simons as I would love to hear about his inspirations and imagination. I would have love to hear his opinion on whether he would design ballet costumes. George Balanchine, his style and ballets thrilled me from the early stages of my career. I would love to talk to the man who changed the perception of ballet …A true genius! Max Richter, the incredible composer. His way of composing such wonderfully crafted modern compositions that aren't dissonant as many modern composers write their music; He is unique and very true to classicism. I’d love to discuss a new piece with him and how the melodies are created in his head. Lastly, my late teacher - Marc de Graef who I would have love to see once more, and tell him everything I had achieved in my career and life. he would be very witty, sassy, amusing and very fatherly, just as he always was with me.

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JF: Can you speak to what you do as an artist and what sets your work apart from so much of what we see on social media? Do you see a downside from “putting yourself out there” with regard to how people react to your images?

TB: "He who tooted not his own horn, the same shall not be tooted" or words to that effect

I can't really tell what really sets me apart from what you see on social media.

However, many people react that I have a unique look and physique and that I can look sexy but never sleazy. I always try to have different styles in my photos and most of the reactions are more than very good.

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 JF: Do you have any mentors, whether in dance or fashion, that you admire or try to emulate and why have you chosen them

TB: I really admire Roberto Bolle and Friedemann Vogel as they have always been the dancers I looked up to as they represented the type of body that I have. I always admired how they dance with elegance and exquisite precision and have demonstrated that ballet is not a circus, but a fine art. 

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Special thanks to Klaus Wegele (@dancemovements), Mario Malhöfer & Tom Ge, Dean Barucija & Nick Trautman for their images

Follow  Tom... www.instagram.com/t.b.ballet

The Future of Fashion … a fantasy wish list

In these extremely sad and uncertain times, the fashion industry is taking a huge hit on every level. So, I decided to write about what the next wave might be like in a perfect world. I offer a sort of wish list as well as a cautionary tale…. after every tragic era in the history of civilization came an upheaval in the status quo or what one might look at it as a rebirthing…. Fashion is severely in need of a recalibration.

 

Why can’t we go back showing fall, spring and couture ... all the adjunct collections like pre this and early that were for buyers only and not for the entertainment of the masses (thank you Style.com) who have no clue why these pre seasonal collections exist. If I had to point a finger, I’d point it at Ms. Wintour, aka the assassin of fashion, who turned it into a 3-ring circus by trying to pander to a generation of that she doesn’t understand nor relate to while decimating Condé Nast as a fashion media empire.

 

The aspirational customer of the 60s 70s and 80s has disappeared as fashion has now become visually available to everyone from Abu Dhabi to Zanzibar. Now the latest generation isn’t so interested in just having a key chain with a logo as they once were but now they want to own the look which is sadly nothing more than tired retreads of what once was minus the luster, chic, status and style of that brand.

 

The glorification of no talent designers who have ad dollars behind them is insulting and tragic. We need a media that is honest to a fault and is not influenced by the almighty ad dollar. The great fashion arbiters of times gone by… think Vreeland, Fairchild, Sheppard, Morris and many more who actually reviewed clothes and not venues or first rows in hopes of pandering to those who haven’t the vaguest clue about the business of fashion.

 

The glorification of the freakish attributed to the likes of that so called designer at Gucci, the Rooskies who got rich by turning fashion into a side show, the faux intellectuals ( Miuccia & the meatball) who think clothes come with cliff notes attached to justify what they look like and lastly those who just create fugly clothes to hang on a rack at astronomical prices that so few can really afford or even want.

 

Where are the design whisperers ... the ones who can turn a Brandon Maxwell or a Christian Siriano into a 21st century Bill Blass or Galanos? Where are the brands that once ruled the roost of Seventh Avenue? The times when true top shelf fashion was king and shock and awe were at the bottom of the list instead of at the top.

 

Where is the prestige and reverence that was once afforded to some of the most prestigious names in fashion such as YSL, Ungaro, Mainbocher, Montana, Ferré, Lanvin, Mugler, Courrèges and scads of others… the only thing that remains is the name which is unidentifiable except by name... what happened to the brand signatures… where are the whisperers at LVMH and Kering?

 

Fashion is more than selling a tube of lipstick or a handbag or a pair of shoes... it is about selling clothes… clothes that women and men covet and want to wear as well as own. What happened to that aspect of fashion? If the latest looks are available at the local second hand store then who needs the pomp and circumstance of runway shows that are attended by an audience of those who have no relation to the business of fashion other than that they wear clothes or rather as a means of self-promotion by being present.

 

There are so many untapped talents as well as extraordinarily talented designers who go unnoticed either because they don’t have that almighty ad dollar or they aren’t being worn by some D list wannabe celebrity or some trailer trash family with more silicone and Botox in them than any plastics factory. Where are the once great editors and stylists who traveled every back street and walked up and down rickety staircases to find the hidden treasures behind those doors that are never opened today.

 

The retail business has changed dramatically over the past 5 decades when big stores only carried big brands and the small specialty stores were at the vanguard of what was about to happen. The mom and pop retailers of that era truly were the directional retailers and then the big boys decided they wanted some of that action and fucked it up royally. Well… take a look at what happened ... it’s not a pretty picture …store cloning. I long for the days when there was such a thing as co-op advertising and hitherto unknown designers made the front pages of WWD and found their way to editorial pages of Vogue, Bazaar and Fashion of the Times. Now we have carbon copy retailing and media while almost every store and magazine look the same and feature the same brands…. The poor consumer has lost the ability to stand out in a crowd by wearing clothes that aren’t seen in every store in America.

 

I pray and hope that in this next iteration of fashion, après the pandemic, that true talent is recognized and that the fashion media becomes an unbiased and utilitarian vehicle that promotes the best of the best and does not pander to only the ad driven brands. Mrs. Vreeland had it right she said words to the effect of give them what they never know they wanted. She wasn’t a businesswoman she was a fashion enthusiast/aficionado and consequently brought fashion and fantasy to the printed pages as well as aspiration. Fashion was far less democratic and far more restrictive in terms of appeal and affordability. What we didn’t have then and have now is fast fashion (H&M or Forever21) and it is they who should be pandering to the masses not the top shelf media and prestige brands borne of fashion’s glory days.

 

Imagine reading a review that omits the venue, omits the front row celebrities and wannabes and only discusses and solely critiques what came down the run way ... you immediately thin the herd of who is actually interested in the business of fashion.