Jean-Jacques Picart: “The need has become pressing to rethink fashion and to do fashion in a new way”

Jean-Jacques Picart has 45 years of experience as a consultant to young creators, fashion enterprises and luxury fashion houses in creation, communication, development and the image. He launched Christian Lacroix and Hedi Slimane and even supported the candidacy of Riccardo Tisci for creative director of Givenchy. He talks to FashionUnited on recent fashion trends.

The departures of Raf Simons and Alber Elbaz are the two big stories in the fashion news. What do you make of their decisions? Has the job of Artistic Director become too complicated, or is it that the constraints and strategies of the luxury groups are hard to follow or even that it is the end of an era and a system?

I cannot help but feel that these two departures send a strong message, though the reasons for each one are probably completely different. Without forgetting the departure of Alexander Wang from Balenciaga only one month ago! It is clear that times are hard and that the pressure of the current system in fashion requires artistic directors and their teams to find a pace of working and emotional investment that are becoming harder to bear. Faced with a race in collections, limited editions, opening of boutiques, various promotional events, etc., artistic directors are anxious about their personal life in which it has become increasingly complicated to live well.

At the same time, the fashion world is concentrating on our mobile and laptop screens and the whole world is demanding that the trade names satisfy their desires immediately without delay and without Paris and New York, Shanghai and London being out of step. Although we are talking about fashion, there is the same frenetic pace in cinema or music. At the same time, the crises that we are experiencing (financial, economic, commercial and social) are creating an overall context that is competitive and full of anxiety. There is something that does not gel between the recipes for success yesterday and those that need to be invented for tomorrow. We are evidently between two periods: the first one created about 15 years ago which is trying to survive, and a second new world, that is still in its developmental stages and whose outlines are not yet known. The need has become pressing to rethink fashion and to do fashion in a new way.

The manifesto of Li Edelkoort, entitled "Anti-fashion", has even greater resonance following these departures. What do you think of the idea that "the current system of fashion system is completely obsolete"? Do you share these thoughts?

I absolutely concur with what Li Edelkoort says, but I am perhaps less radical than she is. In fashion, things do not change from one day to the next. New trends appear over time and superimpose themselves on previous trends before eliminating them permanently. Today, at a time when it is necessary to encourage the act of buying, it is also necessary to remove the guilt attached to it. The magic formula has become: clear identity + seductive novelty + sustainable use + fair price!

Together with heightened creativity, which was much loved, today managed creativity is garnering the applause. Passion and reason are regulating the pace of Fashion.

What do you think of the decision by Balenciaga to use lesser-known creators in the “star system” by choosing one of the Clothing members as artistic director? Is this risk-taking which illustrates a new trend?

There is a trend giving preference to “false” young talent as they will be the inventors of a new era. But it is all a question of the financial stakes: the more powerful a brand is and generates strong profits, the greater the risk is of getting misled and the heavier the consequences will be…

Lastly, how has your job developed? Can the fashion names be advised in the same way as in the past? What are the new challenges?

I have never seen it as “advising” the names that are my clients. I rather seek to help them in their thinking in order to optimise their decisions and actions. And today, more than ever, I know there is no recipe or magic solution and that the more you play the card of difference, integrity, sincerity and invention, the greater the chance there is to do well.