Richemont: ‘A Bunch of Designers’ unveil the work of its inaugural cohort through a three-week pop-up

For Paris Fashion Week, Richemont is championing emerging design talent with the first activation of its ‘A Bunch of Designers’ programme. The group is showcasing the work of six students from the AZ Academy in a pop-up running from September 30 to October 17. These students were selected for the viability of their distinctive work, their creative vision and, in many cases, their deep involvement in the production process. FashionNetwork.com met with the up-and-coming designers Brais Albor, Caterina Moro, Liwen Liang, Manon Marcelot, Merle Breuker and Sandra Jao to find out more about their projects.

On this opening day, the Heureux les Curieux boutique (in Paris’s 3rd arrondissement) is bathed in soft light that reflects off designer Liwen Liang’s pieces. He comes from a family that has specialised in ceramics for decades. While the world was in lockdown due to Covid-19, he imagined creating garments from ceramics, inspired by the Chinese army and its armour. He set his sights on evening handbags. 

Japanese engineering and Chinese traditions

The result, after several years of work and experimentation, is a collection of pieces made from Italian, French or Chinese leather, covered in 0.3-millimetre-thick ceramic tiles ranging in colour from anthracite to gold. The skirts, dresses, tunics and bralettes have attracted strong interest from the fashion media, and Liwen Liang has even collaborated with Miniso, dressing figurines for fashion week. This season, with the support of Richemont, the designer says he plans to focus more on accessories and, in future, to work for female clients rather than creating exhibition pieces.

The Sandra Jao brand and its eponymous designer take inspiration from everyday objects, blending Japanese innovation with Italian craftsmanship. While studying at Bunka Fashion College, the designer met representatives from YKK, a company renowned in the fashion world for its high-quality zips. This season, Sandra Jao has drawn inspiration from “unglamorous things” such as umbrellas, fishermen’s ropes and soaked fabrics to create sculptural, all-black pieces that prioritise form and material. She presents, for example, a skirt constructed like an umbrella but without a frame, and a jacket made from tubes filled with insulating foam.

Self-confidence and modular fashion

Originally from Galicia, Brais Albor designs a high-end wardrobe for tall men, a group he believes is often overlooked by the ready-to-wear industry outside the LGBT niche. Reinterpreting the imposing silhouettes of his region to move beyond macho stereotypes, he combines Italian semi-bespoke tailoring with underwear and beachwear pieces manufactured in France by Chantelle. For his first commercial launch, Brais Albor notably faces the challenge of finding plus-size models, seeking to reconcile self-confidence, stature and elegance.

An experimental project founded by Merle Breuker, ‘The Lasting’ offers sustainable and transformable fashion, breaking away from traditional fashion calendars. Drawing on her experience in costume design and sewing 80 per cent of her creations herself on her grandmother’s sewing machine, the designer prioritises a long-term approach and craftsmanship. Her unisex collection, based on men’s patterns and European deadstock fabrics, emphasises modularity: button combinations allow a garment to be reinvented, transforming, for example, a tailored jacket into a shorter piece paired with a detachable skirt. By steering clear of trends within reason, she creates all-season pieces that adapt to the body and personal taste, designed to stand the test of time.

The value of business acumen for well-rounded creatives

Viewing nature as the ultimate artist, Caterina Moro draws on her textile research to bring the living world into the Western wardrobe. With her first unisex capsule collection, she designs “responsible” fashion rather than simply sustainable fashion – a vision she expands on in her book “Green Dressing”, advocating thoughtful, waste-free design. Her limited-edition pieces, made in Italy to preserve regional craftsmanship, are crafted from water-repellent technical wool, recycled nylon, silks printed with scanned plant motifs, or a blend of paper and silk. The collection includes a trench coat whose hem transforms into a skirt, and a T-shirt where the veins of a leaf form a ribcage.

Hailing from a family of cattle farmers in the Creuse, the artisan and leatherworker Manon Marcelot translates the agricultural world into leather bags that defy convention. Having made her name at the Hyères Festival in 2021, this season she unveils a collection of five designs inspired by rural daily life, such as the ‘Auge’ bag, reminiscent of drinking troughs; a model inspired by clogs; and the signature ‘Sonnaille’ bag, whose bell-shaped silhouette and double zips echo the workwear of cattle farmers. Crafted from luxury deadstock sourced from houses such as Delvaux, her pieces are, for now, made almost exclusively by her.

When asked, the designers share a common view regarding the A Bunch of Designers programme and the AZ Academy. They enable designers to understand the economic realities behind a brand, to meet a wide range of craftspeople, and to consider scaling up their operations and developing a distribution strategy.

“I feel very grateful; most designers don’t have access to this sort of support and don’t have these resources,” explained Jao. The Richemont Group’s connections have also enabled the designers to forge links with manufacturers and clients, as Breuker points out. Marcelot, for her part, emphasises the shift in her approach to design, thanks to getting to know her clientele over the past few years of training and support.