Julien Fournié for Torrente

Pascal Millet for Carven

Paris, Apr 27, 2004/ FW/ --- Haute couture is such a hit and miss kind of business. Yet, it is the heart, the nerve and the soul of fashion industry. To do haute couture well, you can’t pretend or fake your way through it. It requires talent, skill, creativity and a fierce dose of courage. You either have it or you don’t.

Three French designers have it all. They are Pascal Millet of Carven, Julien Founié at Torrente Haute Couture and the emerging couturier, Eymeric François. Together, they are the three tigers of haute couture!

These three men are all as exceptional as they are different. They all come from different backgrounds. They all have different work experiences. And they each have a special notion of what couture really is about. They see its present as its future.

They have each graciously accepted FASHION WINDOWS’ invitation to participate in a very special series, conceived to expose to the public eye their creative processes. This series of articles will lead our readers through each designer’s very different and unique way of conceptualising a collection and how he brings it to the runway.

The series will naturally reach fruition during the July 2004 haute couture season fashion shows in Paris.

The intimate interviews will grant our readers the opportunity to enter into the world of a couturier and to act as a voyeur to something grand in the makings. Ultimately, they will become intimately acquainted with these extraordinary forces in haute couture. In addition, our readers will get a sneak preview into what these designers will be sending onto the July catwalks.

“I’m very excited about it”, says Atlanta resident, Kenyatte Lyles. We see so much of it on television without really understanding or seeing how it comes together. I’ll be waiting for each article.

Pascal Millet represents the current haute couture establishment. Before becoming the couturier at Carven, he worked along side some of today’s biggest and most exciting names including John Galliano and Alexander McQueen. When opportunity came knocking at his door, Millet left Givenchy and installed himself at Carven. Since that time, the house has been enjoying a true renaissance and much popularity with the American haute couture clientele and stars, a feat many feared impossible.

Julien Fournié was a creative member of the haute couture atelier of the superstar designer and couturier, Jean-Paul Gaultier. After dazzling all of Paris with his two ready-to-wear collections and an haute couture collection, Fournié is preparing his next attack in his ambitions to take Torrente Haute Couture to new heights.

Eymeric François is a loner. He has a unique strategy. All his collections auto-finance themselves, which is really unusual in today’s world of haute couture. However, it only proves that the young man’s talent is very real. The sales speak louder than words! As his talent speaks volumes for itself. Great things are expected of this young man.