Expats: American Designers Take Over European Fashion Houses
*Article from Lexington Line’s Autumn/Winter 2021 Issue, pages 26-28
Check out the full issue here.
European fashion houses increasingly scout U.S. designers to lead them forward. For quite some time, London, Milan, and Paris have been hesitant to listen to Western influence. For the most part, Europe has always had a tight grip on the fashion industry, with conglomerates such as The Kering Group and LVMH monopolizing the scene. Fashion designers always seemed to be from one of the major, or adjacent, cities on the European fashion calendar. But in recent times, these houses and brands have undergone an Americanization of sorts. It is becoming more common to hear the name of an American designer behind a major European house.
Kim Jones is an English fashion designer who, as head of Louis Vuitton menswear from 2011 to 2018, completely reshaped concepts like street style. After an incredible run, Louis Vuitton decided to part ways with the designer, and in March of 2018, the brand named Virgil Abloh the new Creative Director for its Menswear line. The new gig was major for Abloh, making him the first Black person to hold the post and one of few Black designers at the helm of a major French fashion house.
Another major fashion switcheroo was the departure of Riccardo Tisci from Givenchy. Although Tisci is of Italian descent, he was at the helm of a major French fashion house for 13 years, overseeing both its womens- and menswear lines, and even producing Givenchy couture. In June of 2020, Matthew Williams, an American fashion designer, was appointed creative director of the house.
And this is far from the end of the list of examples. Recently, the trend seems to lean towards housing American designers at non-American houses. In 2019, for example, Daniel Roseberry, an American designer from Texas, was named creative director of Schiaparelli, after the house's revival in 2014. He quickly solidified his name at the legendary house and is now sending waves throughout the fashion industry to the point where he makes couture under the house's name.
With all of these American names being thrown around, one can only ask: who haven’t we heard of yet? For a long time now, the American fashion industry has been more or less identified by a familiar slate of names: Halston, Bill Blas, Oscar de la Renta, Carolina Herrera, Ralph Lauren, Marc Jacobs, Tom Ford, and so on. The classics. OG’s, if you will—but in the last decade or so, these names have become predictable, and New York Fashion Week has lost some ground to its counterparts in London, Milan and Paris. But up-and-coming American designers are beginning to make their voices heard, and the industry is definitely paying attention.
Christopher John Rogers, for example, has taken the fashion industry by storm. In 2019 he won the CFDA/Vogue fashion fund, which is given to on-the-rise designers so they can continue to fund their collections and projects. Since then, he has been worn by celebrities like Lady Gaga and Beyonce.
Anifa Mvuemba, another star on the rise, is a Nigerian fashion designer who immigrated to the United States when she was three years old to escape war and civil unrest. She revolutionized the industry when she presented a collection using completely digital and like-like models at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
New York-based and operated fashion brand Area is also making huge moves. Half of the team is composed of Becket Fogg, a Kentucky born fashion designer, while his counterpart is of Polish descent. They recently announced to the world that they would now be creating couture collections, a feat that is only technically possible if you have the approval of the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture, a notoriously difficult club to get into.
Another American that was able to break through the haute couture glass ceiling was Kerby Jean-Raymond, of Pyer Moss. Kerby is one of the fashion industry’s leading American names, with his designs being worn by Zendaya and even the Vice President of the United States, Kamala Harris. He recently debuted his first haute couture collection at the Madam CJ Walker estate in upstate New York, where he highlighted inventions through history that were created by Black inventors, engineers, and entrepreneurs.
The Yankee takeover of fashion, and how American fashion operates as a whole, is beginning to become so prevalent that the concept is now being presented to the world at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. American fashion is now being studied and celebrated to the same degree as its European counterparts, a shift that was long overdue and very fought against.
In September of this past year, the Anna Wintour Costume Institute at the Met debuted part one of a two part exhibit series, the first of its kind, entitled In America: A Lexicon of Fashion. Andrew Bolton, British museum curator and current Head Curator of the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute, spearheaded the project and aimed to redefine the vocabulary used to describe American fashion. Bolton explains that “American fashion has traditionally been defined through the language of sportswear and RTW,” also stating that it is often “denied the emotional rhetoric applied to European fashion.” Through the use of sectionalized groups of garments representing umbrella concepts found within American fashion, Bolton hopes to create the opportunity to celebrate the “creativity and ingenuity of designers working within the U.S.”
The exhibit takes inspiration from, and has its roots firmly placed in the work of artist Jesse Jackson, who used a patchwork quilt as a metaphor for the United States. Jackson says that America is less like a blanket and “more like a quilt—many patches, many pieces, many colors, many sizes, all woven and held together by a common thread.”
American designers have long been looked down on by the rest of the fashion industry, but the tides are now changing. These designers are not only solidifying their names here on American soil, but overseas as well. Europe is now looking to the U.S. to outsource its creativity and wow-factor, an idea that might have seemed far-fetched 20 years ago. The glass ceiling of fashion has been shattered into a million pieces and now American designers are using the glass shards to recreate the mosaics of fashion, in their own American vision. One that is as diverse, up-to-date, and progressive as they are.