The 2021 LVMH Prize: Charles de Vilmorin

Over the last few years, everyone in fashion has been trying to understand how the industry is evolving for the next generation, implicitly calling into question the value of couture. There might not be a better person to ruminate on that topic than Charles de Vilmorin, the young couturier with his own namesake label who was also recently appointed the creative director of Rochas. At twenty-four years old, de Vilmorin is the next generation. He sees fashion through the same eyes as his youthful audience, creating pieces that are as playful as they are inventive, and is positioned to make couture relevant to a new generation.

Seemingly out of nowhere, de Vilmorin launched his label in 2020 after graduating from the École de la Chambre Syndicale de la Couture Parisienne, beginning with a ready-to-wear line decorated with his own colorful, psychedelic prints. He quickly received attention and support from the likes of Alessandro Michele (who included de Vilmorin in his GucciFest) and Jean Paul Gaultier (who sponsored him for Paris Couture Week) and extended his æsthetic to a saturated, hand-painted Spring 2021 couture collection, an exclamation mark on the start to his career in high fashion.

De Vilmorin's couture collections have drawn the most attention for their colorful, whimsical nature, but he's also been establishing his ready-to-wear offerings to make his creations accessible. "In my vision, the ready-to-wear and the couture parts of a brand have the same importance," he explains. "It's very important to show dreamy pieces with a story, with a video, with a show—like a mise en scène—but also to show pieces people can wear and go in the street with, to build something with the two extremes." Rather than focus on the two facets separately, de Vilmorin creates a universe and builds it out by bringing them together. "A crazy dress or a more simple shirt is the same work but not the same goal," he elaborates. "We don't [only] care about the pieces, the most important is to tell a story and concretize the story with the pieces."

For Fall 2021, that story took a twist. Following his vibrant collections that derived from his colorful painting style, he went the opposite direction with an almost all-black couture show. "I think color is full of messages," he says, acknowledging his love for using expressive hues in his work. However, it was beginning to become constricting. "For the press and media, I was the boy who made colors, and it's beautiful but it's not really me. And I don't want to be 'the designer who makes colors.' This collection was a good moment to show a totally different part of my work." The result feels like a rendition of a Tim Burton character, with accoutrements of feathers and eyepatches that add to the drama. "I wanted something more brute, and more like lines when you draw on the white paper with a black pen," he adds. "Straight to the point, you cannot lie with black; when you are in monochrome like this you see all the details. With patterns and colors, we can cheat or hide some things."

This palette (or lack thereof) is not de Vilmorin's only new design experiment. Earlier this year he was chosen as Rochas's new designer, with fans of the brand eagerly anticipating the reveal of his first collection this fall. "Rochas is a totally [different] story than my brand," he says, noting that the house is based in Italy versus his own brand in Paris, helping him separate the two approaches in his mind. "For Rochas the woman is a bit more elegant, more sophisticated, a bit more classical," he describes. "My role is to make this woman less classical and more actual and more fresh. I can't wait to show. It's more classical, but with a little punk aspect because I want to make it a bit more dangerous."

Between the LVMH Prize, Rochas, and his own label's Fall 2021 ready-to-wear line—which will incorporate the corresponding fabrics and black palette from the couture show—de Vilmorin is about to become a far more prominent name, and his brand might serve as a guide to couture's evolution for a new generation. "For me, couture is not about technique or price, it's more about the talent and the talent of the atelier, the people who are working on the piece," he says. "The most important is sincerity. We don't need a lot of money or experience to make couture. The most important is your heart and your soul and your messages and what you want to say and to show to make the future beautiful."

For more information, please visit CharlesdeVilmorin.fr. See the full portfolio of the 2021 LVMH Prize finalists here. Read this story and many more in print by preordering our Fall 2021 issue here.