3 questions for ... Valentine Gauthier
Valentine Gauthier is the recent winner of the 2019 Grand Prix de la Création de la Ville de Paris, a competition which counts the Fédération Française du Prêt à Porter Féminin as a partner. The award shines a light on the groundbreaking work of the designer who, through her eponymous label, has reconciled style with a commitment to sustainable fashion for 10 years. Let’s meet with this ambassador for ecological responsibility.
Your involvement in sustainable fashion is ingrained in the “roots” of your brand. How did it start?
It happened quite naturally. I grew up in the garigue and I spent my summers running in the forest and painting with my father in the garden. My mother made her own clothes or had my nanny sew them. I admired Commander Cousteau on the television and I was horrified by oil spills … Later on I became active in foundations such as Surfrider, which fights to protect the oceans. So it’s not surprising that I first chose to study geo-ethnology to become an ecological engineer. When I came to Paris for school, I wore clogs and rode a bike. And that’s how the Maison Martin Margiela cast me to become one of their models. The way Martin Margiela made fashion corresponded perfectly to my vision of sustainability: without sacrificing creativity, he prioritised upcycling and handicrafts. It was an initiation that gave me a lot of guidance and was also contrary to much of the behaviour of the students and teachers that I had been in contact with when I was at the Chardon Savard school. Nobody seemed concerned about their impact on the planet! So I built the Valentine Gauthier brand around my values.
How is this engagement expressed?
Right now we’re an eight-person team of – and it’s not on purpose – only women. We’re all inspired about the idea of making the most perfect fashion possible. It starts with the working environment; I get everyone energised for our goals. Once a week we get together to discuss a range of topics and share ideas … At 88 Beaumarchais, our Parisian flagship store where our offices are also located, I set up a kitchen so the teams wouldn’t go buy over-packaged food. In general, we’re on the lookout for waste. It shows in the very careful management our fabrics. If, by chance, we don’t use them up completely, I re-integrate them in a new way in the next collection or we make household linens. We choose our fabrics with the utmost care from suppliers that are also committed to sustainable practices, making sure that each of their manufacturing steps, from yarn to weaving to dyeing, meets our expectations. For production, we work with French ateliers and a maison – under French management – in Hungary. They’re flou (delicate fabrics) specialists, which gives me exceptional savoir-faire and allows me to maintain prices that aren’t prohibitive. It’s clear that our garment tags reflect our standards in creativity and quality, but our clothes are accessible to people who want to consume better by buying less, but by choosing pieces that will last.
And finally, I also look for expertise internationally, such as hand embroidery in India or via my decision to collaborate with an atelier that helps associations – an approach that’s coherent with my vision of fair and respectful fashion. All our projects follow this guiding principle, like our shoes which are made by a family that has made boots for four generations. With them I was able to develop shoes that are as sturdy as men’s footwear but meet the technical specifications of women’s shoes. It took a lot of time to get there, but now it’s done, we succeeded!
This much said, my convictions mustn’t ignore style. That is, above all, what I promote – this silhouette that mixes femininity that’s not vulgar, joy, and references to workwear and military uniforms. It lets women between 20 and 70 years old show who they are without having to speak. It’s primarily for this style that I want people to open the door to Valentine Gauthier and then to discover our engagements.
What does an award like the 2019 Grand Prix de la Création de la Ville de Paris do for a brand?
That depends on which development stage the brand is in. In 2009 I participated in the Festival International de Dinard. I told myself that if I won the competition, I’d launch my project. It was a way for me to put my ideas up against reality. Among other things, I won a booth at a trade show, but I also had to start the brand within the year. That was a needed pressure, a boost. The Grand Prix de la Ville de Paris is something different. First of all, it rewards all the teams; it’s a reason to be proud that brought us even closer together. It’s true recognition for work accomplished together. It also shined the spotlight on sustainable fashion since, for the first time, the award didn’t just recognise a creative process, but an overall vision. And finally, it’s a wonderful way for a brand to get international recognition; it attracts attention and provokes curiosity, which is good for a company’s visibility and growth. We sell in our flagship store on boulevard Beaumarchais in Paris and in multi-brand shops at different locations around the world, but our retailers are scattered and we need to structure our export market. The award will surely help us develop our sales figures to stabilise our activity but also to hire. It will especially let us speak out with greater strength and spread our message encouraging a bigger sustainable fashion scene to get things moving in the sector.