Nestled in the halls of the spectacular Palais Brongniart, the Tranoï showcase is a seasonal rendezvous for attendants of Paris Fashion Week. In the heart of the buzz of the capital’s busy fashion streets, this season Tranoï welcomed over 160 brands and fashion designers, with the collections of Spring/Summer 2023 womenswear on show for guests and attendants, coming once again from the four corners of the globe to admire the new creations.
Speaking to Boris Provost, CEO of Tranoï, the scale of this edition becomes apparent: “It was a really challenging season because we expanded this season, adding a whole extra floor since March,” he explains. “Now we also have the second floor, which means we have 174 brands. The challenge was to increase but to maintain the excellence in curation. I feel we were successful in this, the buyers were satisfied with the selection and the new brands and emerging designers they discovered here.”
Introducing for the first time a partnership with a guest creative director, Christelle Kocher – Creative Director of KOCHÉ – joined the Tranoï family, coming on board to mentor and curate this season’s offerings. “It was the first edition that we did a partnership with a designer of Paris Fashion Week,” explains Provost. “Every season, we would like to collaborate with a designer from the calendar. It’s essential to have a mentor, and she has been amazing. She has been really involved, really generous.”
Split across two floors with several geographical spaces – a special highlight being the Seoul Fashion Week pavilion, with brands LIE, Kumann YHJ, and UL:KIN notably showing their collections in a fashion show – this season took guests on an international journey. Speaking of the Seoul Fashion Week partnership, Provost explains: “The collections of the designers are very different and varied – from prints, to deconstructed elements, all kinds of designers come with us to Paris. These are designers of Seoul Fashion Week, we selected 9 brands to make a pavilion and to host a show with three of the designers.”
This season also included a space curated in partnership with The Creative Africa Nexus program (CANEX) dedicated to designers belonging to the African continent, as well as a hub for Portugal Fashion, and designers DAVII, Nopin and Susana Bettencourt.
“Our positioning is to be the place to discover new brands and new trends,” Provost states. “That’s why we divided the floors, with different spaces. We have a space dedicated to African designers, which is opening up a whole new market of young talented designers, we have a section dedicated to Seoul Fashion Week who have brought 9 designers here. It’s really the space in Paris Fashion Week where you come to discover the new faces of the industry.”
This edition was also particularly important as it marked the first return to normality – or almost – meaning the brands and designers are benefitting from a newly reinvigorated market: “This season of Paris Fashion Week was the first event that has returned as it was since before COVID, with so many showrooms, events, shows back,” Boris Provost explains. “We really noticed it here at at Tranoï on the first day, as we had the Japanese, Korean buyers, the Middle East buyers back. We were really happy to see them as we haven’t seen them in a long time! Tranoï is quite famous in Asia, so we’re still missing the Chinese buyers, but fingers crossed for next season.”
With the prices of materials and international relations fraught with conflict, we wonder how the global paradigm is shifting, notably in an industry dealing with the aftermath of COVID? “Buyers are quite confident this season, more than the designers. They are really positive, they are buying and when they like something and they are convinced, they buy it. Designers are more worried about the problems of prices of fabrics, of the war, of post-COVID. But overall, it’s positive. Every season since COVID is getting better, it’s a matter of going step by step. So let’s see for the next edition. We would love to see the Chinese, Taiwanese and more Japanese clients.”
As we bring our tour of the Palais to a close, we ask Boris Provost what the highlight would be if we should take home one detail of the tradeshow. “I’m a really big fan of the Korean brands here, we have been doing a partnership for two seasons now. We hope to bring more designers next season. We also have really interesting designers in the Resort section, who use amazing textiles, patterns, fabrics.”
A hallmark of design excellence, Tranoï – with the support of the Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode (FHCM) is truly bringing together designers with vast and varied backgrounds. It’s these initiatives and institutions that bring the future of the industry into an optimistic light.
Discover the Spring/Summer 2023 edition of Tranoï here.
words. Patrick Clark
