Vetements is by definition a label that does a lot of unusual things, from moving their ready-to-wear shows to Couture Week to designing haute weed grinders to throwing a party in an L.A. parking lot.
Their latest? Relocating from Paris to a smaller city about 400 miles southeast: Zurich, Switzerland.
“Why Zurich?” was the question on every fashion insider’s lips. It seemed like a truly random choice at first. Unless you’ve spent a lot of time in the city, chances are you don’t know much about it, let alone the Swiss fashion scene. To hear Vetements CEO Guram Gvasalia tell it, he and his designer brother, Demna, simply wanted a fresh perspective. “Paris kills creativity,” he said in the Swiss newspaper Tages-Anzeiger, adding that Zurich also has lower taxes and less bureaucracy. But Vetements is hardly the type to make a major decision based on good business alone. So we asked two up-and-coming Zurich designers to tell us about the city, its fashion potential, and why they think Vetements decided to move there.
Julia Seemann, a ready-to-wear designer who has shown her collections in New York on the VFiles runway, as well as in Berlin and London, says Zurich doesn’t have a “fashion scene” as much as a creative scene. “As Zurich is a pretty small city, people from different fields hang out at the same places,” she explained. “More and more people from different creative fields have started working together. For me as a designer, this interdisciplinary exchange is very inspiring.” That’s not just idle talk. Seemann collaborated with Zurich-based artist Ramon Hungerbühler on her most recent collection, and she helped organize the 4x4 Swiss Pop-Up at London Fashion Week, where 40 designers, artists, and musicians showed their work to an international audience. As for Vetements’s move to Zurich, she thinks it’s a chance for the city to gain international attention. “They might have chosen it because of the lower taxes, but I also think they chose Zurich because it’s still kind of untouched when it comes to fashion. It seems contradictory for a big brand to move here, but at the same time, it suits the Vetements strategy—discovering the stranger ‘edges’ of fashion and culture. So Zurich might be the perfect place for them.”
Flavio Zimmermann of the streetwear label The Straight and Narrow has a similar take on Vetements’s attraction to Zurich. “Moving here fits perfectly into Vetements’s anti-fashion concept, because [the city] hasn’t really been related to fashion yet,” he said. “The scene in Zurich is a diverse mix of art, fashion, and subculture, which gives it a unique vibe. The city is not that big, so it doesn’t matter if you go to a fashion show, an art gallery opening, a techno party at a squat, or a magazine launch, you always see the same people. So it’s pretty easy to connect with lots of different minds.” That collaborative spirit is key for the Straight and Narrow, which launched in 2012, as a platform for all the creative people they’re surrounded by. The brand has collaborated with dozens of people, including Seemann, graphic designer Johnny Graf, and fellow Zurich streetwear brand Sports Club, in addition to organizing concerts, parties, and skateboarding events.
Zimmermann also pointed out that Zurich has a unique attitude: “I’ve lived in other cities in Switzerland and was in London for a while, but the people we hang out with in Zurich are very open-minded. Right now, I think it’s a great place for upcoming designers or streetwear brands. In New York or London, the competition of young designers is huge. But here in Switzerland there’s still a lot of space for new stuff, so there’s more opportunities for designers to become a relevant part of the scene.” New grads, take note! Prepare to hear more about the city’s young designers and creative class in the coming seasons, and watch this space for more news on Vetements’s big move.
Source: vogue.com