What makes the ANDAM prize particular, past the prize cash?
It’s the one one which brings all the style actors collectively. Everybody’s invested within the end result. ANDAM’s philosophy is actually about France: formalizing a construction, collaborating with French savoir-faire, shining a light-weight on issues which are made in France, which is completely different from different prizes. All of the business gamers are concerned. ANDAM makes it doable for manufacturers to do extra than simply present in Paris; it creates connections throughout the business, with French savoir-faire, and carries the stamp of luxurious, so it elevates the proposition for everybody. For a designer it’s about shifting past the present calendar and upgrading what they need to make. There’s an vitality that rises above a gaggle mentality; it’s a assure for the exceptionality of French trend. Individuals who purchase luxurious need to see newness, agility, one thing that’s past advertising and marketing.
Throwback: in what context did ANDAM take form?
In France, 35 years in the past, the large luxurious teams didn’t but exist, and the enterprise and institutional milieu—the ministries of business and tradition—weren’t taking a look at younger designers. An entire trend ecosystem was taking form, nevertheless it wasn’t actually about rising skills. The DEFI (the French governmental committee for creating and selling French trend) was already there, and Pierre Bergé was its president.
So there I used to be, an artwork historical past grad working for the plastic arts delegation on the ministry of tradition, and straight away I noticed the help that was given to inventive creation in pictures and plastic arts, for skills like Martin Szekely or Philippe Starck, and it struck me that trend, in its up to date dimension, had no entry to the identical instruments. So early on I needed to concentrate on that. I had lots of detractors, however my ambition was to say it is a cultural business, so let’s put these younger designers on the identical stage as creatives in different domains.
The place did trend sit within the cultural panorama?
Symbolically, there was the inauguration of the MAD (Musée des Arts Décoratifs), with the then-minister of tradition Jack Lang, and Alaïa, Mugler, Montana—that entire era turned out. On the time, trend was thought of superfluous, a little bit frivolous, designers needed to shine for his or her creativity, there wasn’t the sort of enterprise dimension it has at the moment. They had been extra concerning the present; they weren’t armed to be managers. After I put collectively my mission, the pitch was: let’s establish at the moment the designers who’re going to wind up in museums tomorrow and provides them entry to all of the monetary and promotional instruments we had on the ministry of tradition.
