Christelle Kocher just won the ANDAM Prize. With it she receives $280,000 and a year’s worth of mentoring from Renzo Rosso. Martin Margiela picked up the first ANDAM Prize in 1989, and given that this was its 30th anniversary year, the elusive designer agreed to participate on the jury. Kocher has a long list of projects that the ANDAM money will help fund, but the real prize would be a private meeting with Margiela, whose approach to both clothing design and runway shows she finds inspirational. She said that she’s requested one.
Unlike Margiela, whose label was acquired before he walked away from fashion, Kocher remains independent, but they have in common an adherence to the artisanal. “I’m passionate about bringing craft to sportswear,” the designer said in her 20th arrondissement atelier, a space she and her team of 15 are quickly growing out of. A good example of that passion was the bucket hat pavéd in up to six different type of feathers for embellishments. Another was the patchwork tracksuits she made from authentic sports team jerseys and other fabric scraps. “Rive Koché we call them,” she said, pointing out that they’re “really almost couture.” (Rive Gauche is the name couturier Yves Saint Laurent gave his category-defining ready-to-wear collection in the late 1960s.)
The ANDAM exposure comes at a strategic time. Kocher used Resort to develop her menswear offering—there was about 20 looks for guys in the new lineup—and otherwise codify the things she does best. You won’t find a better slip dress anywhere this season. The silhouette has become almost banal as there’s such a surfeit of them out there. Spliced from meters and meters of polka dots, crinkled silk, and lace, Kocher’s is pretty and edgy and inventive all at once.
