1/2 - Le Boudoir Numérique met Julien Fournié, the day after his haute couture presentation, unveiled on January 26th. In this first part of his interview, the tech-savvy couturier tells us about the genesis of his Spring-Summer 2021 collection, combining the best of innovation with French craftsmanship. 

By Ludmilla Intravaia 

In this article : 

• Julien Fournié's SS21 collection 

• A trench coat in reflective technical material 

• French know-how 

• The design of the silhouettes on iPad Pro and Procreate

Le Boudoir Numérique: On your website, you present your first Storm collection and its film (see below), unveiled on January 26 on the Paris Haute Couture Week online platform, as a “contemporary enchantment”. What was the genesis of this Spring-Summer 2021 collection? What is its concept? 

Julien Fournié, couturier: We have all suffered a storm, due to the Covid-19 crisis. As we found ourselves locked up, I returned to my family home, where I was able to sleep again in the room I had when I was a young man. There I found myself confronted with my childhood memories. I thus realized that we always tell the same story, but from different angles and that the DNA of the Julien Fournié house came from my dreams as a young man. These are the Hollywood films of the 1950s, fairy tales, Georges Méliès films, my cutouts and tinkerings as a child. These are the colors associated with cinematography. When we watch The Band Wagon or An American in Paris (musical-comedy films by Vincente Minnelli, respectively from 1953 and 1951, AN), we see these Hollywood skies and these endless blues. When I was little, I was fascinated by the skies of Boucher, the master painter of Rococo, and by the azures of the sky before the storm, where shades of pink and gray mingle. I wanted to talk about the arrival of the storm above the rooftops of Paris, where the raindrops beading on the slates reflect the light of the sky. This waking dream started with these magnificent color ranges, azures mixed with pinks, pearl grays with orangeades. My collection is steeped in emotion. 

How are these sources of inspiration transcribed in the clothes of the collection? 

The second step was that I decided to iconize my silhouettes even more than usual and highlight the know-how of my workshop, which is the cut. The clothes are extremely cut out, close to the body but as you can see in my film, women can move around in my dresses. In particular because of the use of the kimono sleeve, with bellows, put forward by the couturier Jacques Fath in the 30s, then taken over by Christian Dior in the 50s. I love that the build is cleaned, without superfluous fabric which would give bulk, the body of the woman being silhouetted to the maximum. The Julien Fournié house is known for its 50s silhouette, with a slim waist, round chest and hips. For this collection, I wanted to slide it slowly towards a 40s silhouette. I added a little bit of shoulders, so we have small rounded paddings which give a stature, and therefore charisma, to the feminine silhouette. This gives us a V-shaped body, split at the waist, for women tall as flowers rods, that remind us of Hollywood actresses like Cyd Charisse and Hedy Lamarr. 

Your collection also includes a garment with reflective properties (see photo above)... 

Yes, it is a trench coat that acts like reflectors, for example in road signs which, at night, reflect the light beams of car headlights. This reflective material is made of polyurethane lacquered with micro glass beads that reflect light. We have seen clothes in this spirit before, but rather in a streetwear style, never with the elegance of haute couture. I wanted to open the film presenting the collection with a Hollywood trench coat, as actresses Veronica Lake or Audrey Hepburn could have worn, but shifting the topic by using a technical material. And these inspirations are brought up to date using craftsmanship. 

What do you mean by that? 

Our house calls on French know-how, with 90% French traceability. This means that all the materials purchased and developed have been made primarily in Lyon, apart from a few from Italy. Our embroidery is 100% French. The plumasserie is signed by Julien Vermeulen, a genius of feather marquetry, an artist in his own right. As a matter of fact, I made a sketch for him on my iPad Pro of a dress from my collection and he reproduced exactly what I had drawn. 

In fact, in the video of your Fall-Winter 2020-2021 collection (see above), one can see you working, sketching silhouettes on a tablet... 

Absolutely. Tradition and innovation are completely linked in the Julien Fournié workshop. We no longer use paper, everything is dematerialized on tablets. Everyone works on their phone or tablet. I use the iPad Pro, since Tim Cook (CEO of Apple, the American consumer electronics company, AN) chose me to represent this tablet in France and in Europe. It all starts with ideation, based on dreams, desires, reminiscences, movies, etc. Once my ideation sphere is ready, I take out my iPad Pro and start sketching my dresses in Procreate (digital painting software, AN). The whole collection is on my iPad Pro. I can then send all the documents to my workshop, to my head seamstress Jacqueline and to all my collaborators by AirDrop (Apple functionality to share content, AN). They thus have access to the drawing of each silhouette but also to the timelapse video of the sketch in progress. In this way, my collaborators are more involved in my ideation system, understand my thought process better and follow my directions more easily. 

You have clients in China, in the Middle East. Do you also involve them in your creation process, by sending them your timelapse sketches? 

As soon as the ideation process begins, I start to think about my clients. I quickly send them the videos of my drawings. So my clients realize all the creative research I do. They can see that at this point I drew a sleeve but that I changed my mind, erased it to go back and draw something else. They discover the accidentality of my drawing stroke in motion, as the creative act unfolds. Another thing is also great: goodbye lawyers, goodbye Soleau envelopes (sealed envelope serving as proof of priority for inventions valid in France, AN). As soon as you start drawing something on the tablet, the time stamp kicks in. If someone steals an idea, the date, the precision of the drawing and all the information relating to your creation is saved in the cloud (remote data storage space, AN). From a legal standpoint, using the iPad Pro is a new way to protect the work of the artist. It was about time that happened. Of course, a painting software and a tablet won't teach you how to draw. But if you are so lucky, like me, to have ideas and know how to draw, they are incomparable tools for creating new universes. It’s like giving a creative person a magic wand. It allows you to redefine the world. 

* Read the second and last part of Julien Fournié's interview on Le Boudoir Numérique : "Technology in fashion will be dematerialized".

* More information on Julien Fournié website.

* The Paris Haute Couture Week Spring - Summer 2021 took place from January 25 to 28, 2021. Its online platform can be accessed here.

* Continue reading on Le Boudoir Numérique:

- Paris Haute Couture Week SS 2021 – Mario Klingemann's artificial intelligence behind the scenes at Valentino

- Paris Haute Couture Week SS 2021 – Lauren Wasser, muse of Yuima Nakazato X Spiber biofabrication

- Paris Haute Couture Week SS21 – Kinetic crowns by Iris van Herpen