PARIS SUMMER FASHION MASTERCLASS

The Arts of Fashion Foundation innovative Paris 4-week intensive Fashion MasterClass program, is taught in English.
The chosen theme of inspiration for the 2020 Summer session is - ARBORETUM - with a strong focus on graphism, print and embellishment.
As previously, this new session will be hosted at the Paris Decorative Arts Museum - 111, rue de Rivoli Paris 75001 - with final projects to be exhibited at the end of the session and in its Salon des Boiseries.
Les Arts Decoratifs - Metro Palais Royal, Louvre or Pyramides

Every session, a group of no more than 10 selected international fashion students and recent graduates have the unique opportunity to experience the Haute Couture know-how from the prestigious Maison Lesage and Maison Lemarie and Lognon - part of Les Metiers d'Art Chanel - with their creations, and under the Art Direction of a guest creative designer.

Previous Paris MasterClass guests included leading creative designers such as Anthony Vaccarello (2010), Aurore Thibout (2011), Christine Phung and Lucile Puton (2012), Zoe Vermeire (2013), Raphaelle H’Limi and Kenta Matsushige (2014), Long-Nam To (2014/15), Yiyu Chen & Haesung Bong (2015), Stephanie Coudert (2016-17), Gustavo Lins (2018) and Alicia Declerck (2019).

The Arts of Fashion MasterClass program is an excellent opportunity and unique frame to enhance students creative identity and sharpen interest to advancing fashion design, gaining a deeper understanding of the culture of fashion with a consistent personal research, including contemporary fashion draping and the excellence with the craft techniques of embellishment.

PIET MONDRIAN - Blossoming Apple Tree, 1912

THE ARTS OF FASHION FOUNDATION'S 4-WEEK MASTERCLASS - SERIES IS MEANT TO:

- Increase, develop and promote creativity by exposing talented students to different cultural environments, design approaches and new techniques, including the diverse, unique and rich culture of craftmanship from the Parisian Haute Couture.
- Learn and experience first hand from first class renowned highly creative minded and independant fashion designers.
- Give students support and direction to develop their own design DNA while receiving feedback on their portfolios and professional projects including best source of education, senior thesis and international competitions advice.
- Initiate and encourage collaboration and exchange of ideas between professionals, designers and students.
- Allow students to mingle and network with other fashion driven students from all over the world and in Paris.

The MasterClass course studio program is taught in English by a team of fashion and textile designers for a class of 10 students.
(160 hours, over a period of 4 weeks - equivalent to 9 credit hour and consisting of minimum 5-day a week, 9AM-6PM with 1 hour lunch break)

THE CONTENT OF THE PARIS SUMMER MASTERCLASS

The Arts of Fashion Foundation is offering to fashion students and recent graduates another opportunity to work with rising creative designers and explore the exclusive reservoir of Haute Couture through unique collaborations including prestigious Maison Lesage and Maison Lemarie.

The main idea is not only to sharpen participants’ skills, increase their vision and develop their creative potential, but also pushing their design and inventiveness boundaries to the appropriation of the know-how or savoir-faire.
Following the inspiration of the current Paris’ fashion exhibitions and exploring design strategies such as use of unconventional materials, the ideas of transgression and subversion including surrealism and pastiche, selected participants by session will create and design capsule collection around a pre-defined atmosphere, following assignments and specific given theme.

- LAB is a studio course dedicated to design and execute finished garments from the original silhouette with prominent designers as critics. Students develop and define their own concept through the themes given and following their design research.
- COLLAB is a studio course dedicated to explore and experiment textile design techniques from Haute Couture and Savoir Faire including embroidery. Students develop and apply their own textile research for their design project.
- CULTMODE offers a comprehensive survey of the Paris fashion design fields. Through fashion professionals and guests, field trips and exhibitions as well as our collaboration with the Decorative Arts Museum and unique access to their collections and library, students learn the scope, history and dimensions of the Parisian fashion industry and its related fields and current activities.

The Salon des Boiseries from the Decorative Arts Museum hosts the ephemeral exhibition of the work in progress produced by participants the last Thursday of the session (5-9PM) .
A photoshoot is also organised the last Wednesday for portfolio purposes.

A certificate of participation is delivered to students according to full attendance of the fashion masterclass and work. The Arts of Fashion Foundation certificate of achievement is given only to students who completed all the requirement and which work is exhibited.

The goal of the Arts of Fashion Foundation abroad MasterClass Program series is to further develop and promote creativity in fashion, exchange of ideas, give fashion students access to the best possible sources of fashion education - including the diverse, unique and rich culture of craftmanship from the Parisian Haute Couture tradition - and to fund development of other creative and educational projects.

DECORATIVE ARTS - PARIS

The Decorative Arts is a private organization governed by the law of 1901 on not-for-profit associations and recognized as being in the public interest. It originated in 1882, in the wake of the Universal Exhibitions, when a group of collectors banded together with the idea of promoting the applied arts and developing links between industry and culture, design and production. The Decorative Arts manages four national museums: the Decoratives Arts Museum, the Fashion and Textiles Museum, the Advertisement Museum and the Nissim de Camondo Museum. Safeguarding the collections, promoting culture, providing art education and professional training, and supporting design is the mission of the Decorative Arts. www.lesartsdecoratifs.fr

MAISON LESAGE - PARIS

The story began in 1858, when Charles Frederick Worth opened his haute couture fashion house in Paris, and started making use of the prodigious talent of the embroiderer Albert Michonet, whose studio was purchased by Albert and Marie-Louise Lesage in 1924. Following the death of his father in 1949, François Lesage took over the management of the company at the young age of 20. For 50 years, he combined the skills of a traditional craft with meeting the pioneering requirements of the new generation of fashion designers including Karl Lagerfeld, but also Yves Saint Laurent, Christian Lacroix, Jean-Paul Gaultier, and John Galliano. Francois Lesage died on December 1, 2011, at the age of 82. He had already sold the House to Chanel SA in a bid to ensure the continued survival and saving the precious parisian know-how of the haute couture. www.lesage-paris.fr

MAISON LEMARIE - PARIS

The house of Lemarié, bought by Chanel in 1997, holds onto its roots. Established in 1880 by André Lemarié’s grandmother , the “creation of feathers for finery” developed with success and the company became, over the years, the primary feather worker in France. Founded in a competitive environment (in 1900 there were more than three hundred feather workers in Paris), it developed to become a benchmark in its field, if not the only feather workers in France. Its longevity is due to the exceptional knowledge of those who work there: the delicate work with feathers which are dyed, refined, curled and pounded and of which there is a remarkable collection, hidden in boxes as old as the company itself. The flower work which takes place, creates the famous camellias of which twenty thousand are delivered to Chanel every year, in tweed, fur, satin and, even occasionally, in plastic or cardboard. Each of these demanding hours of work depending on the complicated nature of the design. Lemarié also demonstrates its talents in tailoring; delivering smocking, inserts and ruffles to the top fashion names: naturally Chanel, followed by faithful customers which include Dior, Balenciaga, Valentino and Givenchy. www.lemarie-paris.fr

ATELIER LOGNON - PARIS

The pleated in Haute Couture has remained an exceptional and unique Art work and since four generations for Gerard Lognon. This mysterious embellishment technic - which particular effect of pattern is obtained by pleating - was kept secret for a long time. From Madeleine Vionnet to Issey Miyake, every designer has at one time or another explored its own infinity of pleating. Most of the 3000 molds for pleats were designed and made by Gerard Lognon’s grand father: Georges. This Parisian workshop has become another unique Haute Couture craftmanship spot where still meets greatest designers from Dior and Hermes to name only a few luxury brands. As Maison Lesage - Paris, the Atelier Lognon has been bought by Chanel in July 2013 and is today part of Maison Lemarie.

The Arts of Fashion Foundation is a San Francisco-based 501(c)(3), public, non-profit organization, linking both academics and professionals alike and is dedicated in fostering international cultural exchange through the creation of a variety of educational programs meant to facilitate critical thinking and advance the field of fashion among artists, designers, scholars and students.The primary focus of the foundation is the continuous support of creativity and design process in fashion and the arts linked to it.