Is there life after advertising? During the Fashion Week, the Financial Times sent me off to interview the new owners of Swinging Sixties fashion house Courrèges. And who should I find but Frédéric Torloting and Jacques Bungert, formerly co-presidents of La Young, who acquired the brand in early 2011. Apparently, their ambition had always been to own a company, rather than just work for one. Fred told me: «What's challenging in this situation is that there's absolutely no brief. In fact, you have to write the brief. And you have to be extremely exigent.»
But an advertising background has its advantages. Rather than spending too long fussing over seams and zippers - which they leave to an expert team of designers -, the duo have concentrated on identifying the codes of the brand and adapting them to the 21st century. They've already designed a bottle for Evian, opened an online store and launched a music platform (courregesmusic.com) in association with DJ Agoria and BETC Music. They're going to launch fragrances, accessories and maybe an electric car (Courrèges was talking about purity back in 1968). Rather than a fashion label, Courrèges is being repositioned as an ideas factory. You can take the men out of advertising, but it's hard to take advertising out of the men. And in this case, that may be a very good thing.
