Till We Drop: Jean-Paul Lespagnard @ Galerie des Galeries, Paris

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Galerie des Galeries, located on the first floor of Lafayette in Paris, will soon be celebrating Jean-Paul Lespagnard as fashion designer and as partner of the European Capital of Culture in the city of Mons celebrations (in 2015) with an event entitled "Till We Drop". The exhibition will explore his quirky aesthetic, introducing visitors to the designer's creative process as well.

Born in Liège in 1979, Belgian Lespagnard studied Visual Arts and Fashion Design at the local IFPME, winning with his "Ich will nen Cowboy als Mann" collection in 2008 the Public's Choice and the 1.2.3 Award at the 23rd Hyères International Festival of Fashion and Photography.

Since then he has been creating collections, injecting in them his fascination with art movements, and in particular with Surrealism and Pop Art, combined with his interest in all things tacky ad kitsch, the whole filtered through a passion for irreverence and a strong sense of humour.

As the years passed, Lespagnard also started collaborating with other professionals such as interior designer Alain Gilles, singer Yelle and choreographers Meg Stuart, Pierre Droulers, Gilles Jobin, and Damien Jalet. In 2012 Arte and RTBF dedicated to Lespagnard a documentary.

"Till We Drop" will allow visitors to get a taste of the collaborative projects Lespagnard will unveil next year in Mons.

The title of the event is taken from his eponymous 2014 collection, showcased in September 2013 in Paris, and inspired by Mexico's giant Mayan Riviera hotels, an artificial paradise the designer introduces to visitors through a series of images that portray him dressed as a bee, symbolically flying around tourist locations.

The exhibition will be accompanied by special windows at Galerie Lafayette on the rue de la Chausée d'Antin. To celebrate the event I'm reposting here and interview with Lespagnard I did for Zoot Magazine (Summer 2008 Issue).

Not Just Any Old French Fries: On Jean-Paul Lespagnard’s Exuberant Style

Belgian designer and Hyères Festival double award winner Jean-Paul Lespagnard is ready to inject into the world of fashion a much-needed dose of extravagance and fun through his work as fashion, costume designer and stylist.

Text by Anna Battista

Jacqueline is a statuesque woman who runs a renowned "fritkot", a traditional Belgian chip van. She has many admirers who love her and revel in the golden texture of her crispy French fries. Though there is a hint of glamour in her style, Jacqueline’s main passions are very different from those offered by the sophisticated world of fashion. She is indeed a genuine fan of Danish kitsch singer Gitte Hænning and adores Texas. Her longing for this faraway land is such that she is dreaming of falling madly in love with a cowboy. This is mainly why her dress code borrows from cowboy outfits and rodeo clown costumes, with just a hint of exuberant sexiness that she uses to react to the loneliness and insignificance of her routine-like job.

Somehow this sounds like the perfect plot for a rather entertaining alternative film a là Stephan Elliott, instead, you might be surprised to hear, the Jacqueline character is the fictional inspiration behind the "Ich will nen Cowboy als Mann" (I want a cowboy as a husband – a 1963 Europop anthem by Gitte) collection that won Belgian designer Jean-Paul Lespagnard the Public Award and the French label 1.2.3 Award at the 23rd Hyères Festival International de Mode et de Photographie.

"I started thinking about this character and then I did a bit of research on the Internet about cowboys and I found images of rodeo clowns," Lespagnard explains. "The clowns’ outfits intrigued me as these colourful characters seem to wear the same outfits of the cowboys, but with bigger and more exaggerated silhouettes."

Lespagnard has a predilection for bright colours, extravagant volumes and different materials. Sculpturally puffed sleeves create exaggerated shoulder lines in boleros and jackets, highlighting the slimness of the waist; cowboy chaps or chinks, rather than being designed to protect the legs while on horseback, sensually reveal erogenous zones clad in see-through black organza with a green polka-dot print; traditional denims are reinterpreted, transformed into outlandish flared trousers that emphasise a tall silhouette; short canvas trousers are paired with body stockings in red and white, a direct reference to the rodeo clowns’ outfits but also to the striped cardboard containers that hold French fries; low-cut floor-length dresses with prints of Indians and cowboys are cut out of children’s teepee while mini-skirts paired with boleros are embroidered with funny cowboy-ish cartoon-like characters. The cross-stitched figures on this jacket and skirt ensemble were actually done by patients in a mental hospital.

"I decided to have the needlework done by mentally disordered people in a Belgian clinic while thinking about the story of Jacqueline who wants to crazily fall in love with her cowboy," Lespagnard says. "I wanted to keep this sort of craziness alive in the outfits. I visited the clinic around two years ago and I talked with the doctors about doing this project. The patients were actually very keen on taking part in the project as it represented something different for them."

Each outfit that Lespagnard presented at Hyères was complemented by accessories such as sunglasses, bracelets, earrings and Perspex platform shoes and boots decorated with the ubiquitous pommes frites. "When I’m designing my clothes I think about the whole show," the young designer states. "I try to think about a total look, that is clothes, accessories, make up and the hairdo, every single aspect of the catwalk. I see the outfits and accessories as parts of an entire universe of fashion."

This "total look" approach is what led Lespagnard to work also as stylist, often under the "Hertenkamp" moniker. He has done styling jobs for many magazines, among them also the Belgian lifestyle publications Weekend Knack, Victoire and Nina, Weekend Le Vif/L’Express.

"Everything is connected in my work," he claims. "Sometimes people ask me to do a styling job for a magazine or for advertising and they give me a general theme and I’m free to do anything I want with it, so my decision has an impact on what a model gets to wear, on the sets and all the rest. But there are also times when I happen to be working with people who are very specific about what they want and my job then is just to go out and find the clothes."

Lespagnard’s theatrical Hyères show with its carefully choreographed use of forms and colours was also influenced by his work as designer for theatre and dance companies. He has worked on costumes for Bram de Sutter’s theatre shows, dance companies Voetvolk and Damaged Goods and choreographer Meg Stuart.

"Each job I do influences the other one," Lespagnard states. "Designing influences the costumes for the theatre shows and styling influences my collections." But there is a fundamental difference between working in fashion and working for the stage, "You’re more free, when you work for theatre or dance performances," he explains. "You can basically do whatever you want, you just propose and they say ‘yes’ or ‘no’, but you don’t have to think in commercial terms. One day I’d love to work on film costumes, I’m just waiting for a director to ask, while I dream of collaborating with controversial Italian theatre director Romeo Castellucci."

An admirer of Jean-Charles de Castelbajac, Balenciaga and Albert Elbaz’s work, Lespagnard grew up dreaming of working in the fashion business since he was very young. "When I was a child I wanted to sell ice cream, but then I quickly switched to fashion and stuck with this plan," he recalls. "My father was a truck driver and I was always playing around in his garage, making corsets out of inner tubes for my sisters."

When he grew up Lespagnard studied art at the Ecole Supérieure des Arts Saint-Luc in Liège, and then took evening courses in fashion at the IFPME of Liège. After he finished his studies he did internships at Annemie Verbeke and Anna Sui. He is currently based in Brussels where he works from his colourful studio, a space crammed with furniture and the objects and clothes that inspired his latest collection, though he often travels to Paris as he is working on the drawings for the 1.2.3 collection.

Winning the two main awards at Hyères really changed Lespagnard’s life. Since it was first created in 1985, the Hyères International Fashion and Photography Festival, directed by Jean-Pierre Blanc, has been an observatory on trends and has provided a launching platform for international young designers and photographers.

Throughout the years the festival has showcased at Villa Noailles - a cubist 1920s building designed by French architect Robert Mallet-Stevens - over 300 collections by new fashion designers, among them Viktor & Rolf, Gaspard Yurkievich, Anke Loh, Alexandre Matthieu, Felipe Oliveira Baptista, Romain Kremer, Eric Lebon and Sandra Backlund.

"It was simply amazing, now I have a commercial agent and somebody who will invest money in my collection, it was definitely worth it," Lespagnard enthuses. "I mainly went there for the 1.2.3 Award and I was really happy to win it and to show my creations not only to experts who work in the fashion industry, but also to people who are into fashion as for me it’s important to be able to reach them."

One day Lespagnard would like to have his own shop, but at present there are too many other things on his mind, "I'm working on a collection inspired by Silvester Stallone's films 'Rocky' and 'Cliffhanger'," he reveals. "From mid-August till mid-October I will also be in Berlin working on the costumes for a dance performance by Meg Stuart which will open the Gratz Festival."

Expectations are high for the designer’s forthcoming 1.2.3 collection and for his own future work, but it's easy to foresee that if Lespagnard keeps on being influenced by his Belgian pop and humorous aesthetics, that eclectic combination of Andy Warhol's bright and chromatic images, Jeff Koons' fascination with colours, Jean-Charles de Castelbajac's optimism and Jean Paul Gaultier's inventiveness. It looks like more established fashion designers will have a new and exciting competitor to contend with.

Till We Drop: Jean-Paul Lespagnard, is at the Galerie des Galeries, Galeries Lafayette, 40 BD Haussmann, Paris, France, 29th January - 5th April 2014.

Image credits for this post

1. "Till We Drop" Exhibition Poster