Coperni Is Rewriting The Rules Of French Fashion – Zoe Report
Tue 22 Jun
A look behind Paris’ buzziest brand.
Arnaud Vaillant is taking me on a Zoom tour of Coperni’s offices, located in the centre of Paris. “We do everything here, we prepare all the shows, all the collections,” he explains as he wizzes the camera past racks of clothing top-lit by a glass-paned rooftop. He points to a staircase that leads to the atelier, and sits down, his slime green shirt the sole pop of colour against the white walls behind him. Vaillant — who is CEO and co-founder of the Parisian label alongside his partner and creative director Sébastien Meyer — has spent the last year holed up in the place most others long abandoned: the office.
“We stopped a year ago at the beginning of Covid, but then during the second and third containments we went to work because it’s impossible you know … you have to touch the fabrics, you have to do the fittings.” Through the last year, Vaillant and Meyer have turned to the office as their own form of escape. While usually, it’s a far-flung trip, perfect meal, or some other novelty that inspires creative minds to make something new, instead, driving ambition and the thought of new collections became a way to find peace amidst a disrupted reality.
Fascinated by the way technology and fashion intersect, the duo have explored new frontiers over the last year — using an antibacterial fabric in their Spring/Summer 2021 collection, working with apple leather, and using QR codes to give a behind the scenes look at how an item was made in the collection. “We always try to find innovation, in a humble way of course,” he explains. “We’re not at Nike, we don’t have a huge budget for development.”
They’ve also been forced to think outside of the box in how they present their collections. “During the first confinement [in September] we did the highest [elevation] show ever in Paris on the rooftop of Montparnasse. We had only 100 people invited.” In March, when crowds weren’t allowed in shows, they hosted a drive-in event instead, with models weaving their way between parked cars.