Welcome back, Alber Elbaz! Five long years since he parted ways with Lanvin, one of fashion’s most-loved personalities—the man who always talked to women—is starting afresh with AZ Factory, a “solutions-based” design operation dedicated to doing almost everything differently. Headlines: It’s named after the first and last letters in his name; it’s very much at the affordable end of designer clothes; it’s sizes XXS to XXXXL, and it’s now being parcelled out, fired up by Elbaz’s extra talent for entertainment, on Net-a-Porter, Farfetch, and AZFactory.com.
Phew. Getting Elbaz on a Zoom call to talk about how gigantically the world has changed since he took his “gap years” is a massive treat. What happened when he stepped off the runaway train of the fashion system as it was? “I was doing a lot of observation,” he begins, popping up on the screen in his new office on the third floor of the Fondation Cartier in Paris. “I needed to run away. Somehow, I didn’t want to do any more pre-collections, post-collections. I had to question the present, and the future. I had so many questions: the world, women, technology, needs changed…so how is the industry going to change?”
He’s embraced tech; he’s stepped up to environmental-responsibility, he’s taking on body-positivity—all things that seemed like far-off improbabilities in 2016. After taking a good look around—spending his time teaching, reading, visiting Silicon Valley, listening to women friends, researching new fabric technologies, he concluded there’s a place for a totally modernized approach to fashion. “I was thinking: What is the purpose of design today? Thinking, but not being intellectual. How can I help women? I wanted to work on new technology to develop some smart fabrics with factories [to make] beautiful, purposeful, and solution-driven fashion. That is for everyone.”
Manifesto-like, the first offering from AZ Factory is “My Body,” a set of dresses engineered to consider the ergonomics of all shapes and sizes. Its implications are super-modern, practical, empathetic—and (a word which is fashionable everywhere, except much in fashion) kind. “I saw for five years, women I met for lunch how much women were struggling with their weight, and sometimes that was hard to watch,” Elbaz says. “ Even in the ’50s, [fashion said:] ‘This is right, and this is wrong.’ I think that there is no wrong! I took a subject that is taboo, that you almost don’t want to talk about, but I said: Yes I will. We’re not here to transform women; we’re here to hug them.”
His dream, he explains, was “to build a magical dress that was made of knitwear: an anatomical knit. There are areas that are a bit thicker, areas that are finer. I released the tension in the skirt, so you can walk faster, or dance if you wish.” This is typical Elbaz—he thinks about use; multiple, real uses for clothes.
AZ Factory has all the flourishes and colorful quirks his fans will easily recognize from his Lanvin days—the volumes and prints he so fluently dashes off from his pen. But this time, rather than going in the French haute couture party-gown direction, the ideas are sprung from athleticism and servicing real life. “I did 10 dresses, where I used to do three, four hundred pieces,” Elbaz says. “And the inspiration is not coming from Émile Zola; it’s from me walking by the Seine, seeing people running, and thinking, how come people wear these clothes all year round, but fashion has to change four times a year?”
Somehow, it feels more like a democratic, optimistic, American sportswear way of designing, refreshed with a 2020s consciousness of economy and environment. One of the AZ Factory genius treats to come is Elbaz’s Switchwear, his vision of how a woman can leap from “Yoga to Zoom meeting” by simply pulling a posh-looking piece over her workoutwear. It’s practicality, humor, and joyfulness all rolled into one—a kind of equivalent of how Donna Karan made her name with Seven Easy Pieces for women rushing to New York boardrooms in the ’80s, but for the work-from-home generation, now making our daily commutes from bedroom to laptop everywhere.
And better: This is wardrobe efficiency with in-built environmental design features.“Of course!” exclaims Elbaz. “For us, it’s a fact already. You know, when I talk to students, that’s the first thing they ask about. It has to be sustainable today. It has to be eco-friendly. And if you don’t do it, you have a problem.” There’s recycled polyester in the poufy taffeta pieces, and responsibly-produced microfiber leggings and tops using natural dye pigments.
Which is where the “Factory” part in the label comes in. Elbaz has worked with cutting-edge industrial technologists. Developing his own bespoke fabric has made him break the wasteful old fashion-y habit of splurging on multiple options. “I said: Be strict with yourself!” he laughs. “I’ll do one jogging suit in seven colors and a few duchesse skirts in recycled nylon.” It can all be hand washed, too, thus eliminating dry cleaning impacts (and bills), while cutting down on washing machine water and electricity use.
It adds up to a new way of doing things, that’s for sure: a far cry from catwalks and shows, a break with some of the bad old habits of fashion, and a leap to launch purely online. “And everything is 230 to 1,200 euros!” crows Elbaz. That’s not fast-fashion prices, but neither is it crazy costly luxury prices. It’s a new space in between, where something with design integrity and modern thinking is finally happening. Welcome back indeed, Alber Elbaz.
