When Paris-based Finnish designer Jenny Hytönen thinks about the future, she doesn't imagine it as a blank slate or a sanitized space age.
“I see it as layers of time,” he said Monday at the presentation of his AZ Factory couture collection.
So for her turn as guest couture designer at AZ Factory, she mentioned two moments from late founder Alber Elbaz that she felt resonated with this perspective: the capes found in his fall 2009 collection and the details of the spring 2015 metal bar.
Translated through the prism of the creative, delicate and brutal vernacular, which captivated the jury of the Hyères 2022 festival, it resulted in airy organza dresses layered over vests made with metal hoops; military shearling garments tied together into a majestic cape, or an off-the-shoulder garment bristling with thousands of beads.
Wild but polished, his work evoked a post-apocalyptic red carpet, due to Hytönen's interest in the post-punk and cyberpunk movements, moments in which a younger generation traumatized by conflict “started creating all this crazy stuff,” according to she.
He drew admiring glances from a crowd that included the press; fellow designers, including current and former AZ Factory “friends” such as Lutz Huelle, Tennessy Thoreson and Lora Sonney, and a bevy of VIPs such as actresses Camille Lelouch and British singer-songwriter Celeste.
This alone means that Hytönen's collection hit the nail on the head in the AZ Factory universe, in the opinion of Richemont executive Mauro Grimaldi.
He recalled that one of the brand's goals was to help each of the creatives it works with “take the next step” and, in the case of the younger generation, create their professional ecosystem.
“It's time for the big conglomerates to support independent designers,” he said. “We should get away from this approach of taking young blood and then [discarding them].”
Backstage, Hytönen really praised the experience of working with the AZ Factory studio, especially absorbing his memories of working with Elbaz. He had helped him cement the direction he wanted, even if he didn't have specific plans yet.
“I want to create things that take time,” he said. “In this world where everything has to happen [immediately]I think it's punk and a statement in itself.” So was her AZ Factory collection.
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