Alber Elbaz on Making His Return to Fashion

The Business of Fashion Podcast

The Business of Fashion

Fashion & Beauty, Business, Arts

4.6 • 770 Ratings

🗓️ 29 January 2021

⏱️ 54 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The celebrated designer talks to BoF’s Imran Amed about fashion’s new digital landscape and the launch of AZ Factory during Haute Couture Week.

The timing of Alber Elbaz’s return to fashion is apt. After a five-year hiatus following his departure from Lanvin in 2015, the designer debuted his new venture AZ Factory this week. The philosophy underpinning the label, a partnership with Richemont, is to tackle fashion’s challenges of excess, irrelevance and exclusivity with technology, focus and innovation.In the latest episode of The BoF Podcast, editor-in-chief Imran Amed and Elbaz discuss how the designer fell back in love with fashion why it is necessary to slow the pace of the industry.

AZ Factory was born out of Elbaz’s disillusionment with the fashion world. His goal is to bring greater transparency to the design process and a more inclusive feel to customers. His first collection runs from size XS to XXXL. “We always have to remember again and again that this is 2021. How do women live, what do they need, how can I give them what they need?” said Elbaz. “It is taking all this information and processing it and then [giving my] take on it.”
The label made a digital debut at Paris couture week with a fashion film. Elbaz said the restrictions created by the pandemic were both a creative challenge and opportunity. “I cannot tell you that it was always easy” Elbaz said. “The night before we air[ed] the film I was still working in editing and looking and changing the music.”
One outcome of fashion’s current crisis that the designer is fully onboard with is the move towards a slower pace. Elbaz is increasingly focusing on new and innovative fabrics that require time to fully understand from a design perspective. “I cannot do it every couple of weeks so I know that I will have to keep [it to] two projects [at a time],” said Elbaz.

Inside Alber Elbaz’s Return to Fashion

Couture in the Time of Covid-19: Realism or Fantasy?

The BoF Podcast: Alber Elbaz Is a ‘Zoombie’ Now

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, this is Imran Ahmed founder and CEO of the Business of Fashion.
0:14.1	Welcome to the BOF podcast. It's Friday, January 29th.
0:18.5	With the coronavirus still spreading in Paris, French authorities banned gatherings of
0:23.1	people, including fashion shows, so Ote Couture Fashion Week took place in a completely digital format.
0:29.4	One new addition to the week was the debut of Albert Albaz's new startup fashion company,
0:34.5	AZ Factory. It was his return to fashion after being unceremoniously ousted
0:39.4	from his role as creative director of L'Envain. But since then, Albert has been on a personal
0:44.1	journey, trying to figure out what more there was for him to say in a fashion world that was
0:49.0	constantly changing and being shaped by technology. Back at our annual gathering for big thinkers, voices in 2018,
0:56.0	Albert shared his feelings and observations about the industry
0:59.0	with the new distance and perspective that he had.
1:02.0	There is no industry like fashion.
1:04.0	No film studio is capable of producing eight blockbusters in one year.
1:10.0	No singer or a rock star can produce 14 hits in one year.
1:14.6	In fashion, yes we can.
1:16.6	In Hollywood, Netflix and Apple are taking over.
1:20.6	In music, we now download.
1:24.6	But in fashion, we run.
1:26.6	Run, run, run, run, and we lose no calories. I've been
1:30.3	homeless for a few years. I lost everything. My studio, my team, my ego, my dignity, everything.
1:37.3	I didn't work as a creative director for a few years now. I didn't have a marketing meeting.
1:43.3	I didn't have board meeting. I didn't have a marketing meeting, I didn't have board meeting,
	...

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