If you’re on trend, you are in trouble: Patou's Guillaume Henry

French brand Patou is among the most recent to open a space inside the new luxury department store Galeries Lafayette in Mumbai. The clothes, from coats to T-shirts, are chic and effortless, but they are far more colourful and playful than one would expect from a Parisian brand.

That wasn’t the case when Jean Patou founded it in 1914. At the time, it offered haute couture with freer silhouettes, unlike its competitors such as Chanel, which were influenced more by traditional styles. After Patou’s death, the house saw some of the greatest names of fashion at its helm: Karl Lagerfeld, Jean Paul Gaultier and Christian Lacroix. After Lacroix left in 1986 to start his own brand, the Patou house ceased its activity, till the French conglomerate LVMH acquired it in 2018. “I still call it a project,” says Guillaume Henry, the Patou creative director since its relaunch. “It’s been a sleeping beauty for a long time.”

In an interview, Henry tells Lounge about Patou’s entry into the Indian market and why he doesn’t try to please cool people. Edited excerpts:

What makes you so interested in India?

This is not my first time in India; Patou’s embroidery is done here. From a design perspective, it’s always been a place full of enthusiasm, joy and fantasy. That’s what also drives my work as a creative director. So, when I work for a brand, I first want to seduce the people that I know can be connected to the work I do. I also have a long relationship with Galeries Lafayette, so that was another reason.

How long an association is that?

I didn’t know what I wanted to do in life until the day I saw a show by (Christian) Lacroix show on TV. I must have been 10 or 11. So I told my parents, “Be ready, I’ll be a big designer in Paris one day”. When you don’t know anything about the fashion industry, it seems very easy. And then I arrived in Paris at the age of 15 in the early 2000s and created my own brand. The first people to buy my stuff back in the day (2001) were Galeries Lafayette in Paris. Soon, I had to close the brand for many reasons, including how 11 September (attacks in the US in 2001) made the market super flat. So, then I started designing for different brands, including Paula Ke (2003-06), and the first one to buy it was the Galeries Lafayette. And then I was designing Nina Ricci (2015-18) and again they were very supportive. Patou also has a store in Paris’ Galeries Lafayette.

Not many people are familiar with the Patou brand, especially in India. How will you work on creating that brand recognition?

It’s easy to understand and recognise a Chanel even after 100 years because they’ve had a single family owning the design language. Patou has had many owners. It was also only haute couture, which means really few clients. And after Lacroix left the brand in 1986, it was silent till 2018. So, I still call Patou a project, because we are still discovering markets, people and clients.

Isn’t that a challenge considering how crowded the fashion market is?

The market is full, Patou or not. You’re asking me the question today, but I asked this question to myself seven years ago. I saw how many brands are created every single day. I mean, it’s fantastic because it means that there’s a real dynamic to it. When I was in fashion school (Institut Français de la Mode), there were only 13 students in my course. This year, they had 700. The fashion industry is growing because there’s new clientele. But is there enough new clientele for so many brands? I don’t know.

When we started in 2018, the (Parisian) fashion landscape was grey, blue and black and very uniform-like. I wanted to do ready-to-wear full of joy and enthusiasm with balloon skirts, balloon sleeves. We wanted to offer something a little feminine and fun, but nothing funny. When you talk about femininity, people turn it into something cute. I’m not into cute. I like the idea of feeling, when a garment is flattering, charming, appealing… all those words that are a little old school. Patou used to be a couture brand, and I want to keep that couture touch.

How do you do that?

When I’m thinking of couture, I’m thinking of three dimensions. It has to look nice from the front, the profile and the back. It has to look nice outside and inside. And it should talk to every sense. It’s not only the look, but it’s the touch. It’s even the noise. I love the noise of fabrics. During interviews, people ask me which actor I would like to dress. I want to dress my friends because they want to look cool and beautiful but they’ve got work, kids and they also want to party at night. They don’t have time to prepare themselves for hours in the bathroom. Fashion shouldn’t be complicated; it should be easy and simple.

How do you keep up with trends when designing a collection?

When you’re on trend, you’re in trouble. A trend is killed by another trend in six months’ time. As far as recognising Patou is concerned, that will take time. A signature is something that you have to repeat and repeat for people to get it.

You can also be recognisable by being strong in terms of shape or fabric, like having a crazy shoulder or a crazy crinkled fabric. When you do things that are a little extreme, I’m not sure the clientele is going to return the second time.

We don’t want to be ordinary, but we don’t want to be extraordinary either. True fashion that lasts is in the middle. I don’t try to please cool people. It’s also why all my inspiration is from the 1920s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, because there was no real ready-to-wear then. People were always wearing the same styles they had in their closet. Those shapes don’t look bizarre. I’m 100% into bizarre fashion, but that’s not what I do. Good fashion is not just that sells but also one that stays alive forever. I’m not only dressing fashion monsters. I dress fashion enthusiasts. I’m not only trying to dress a model-sized woman. Fashion tends to hide the woman. I much prefer when fashion reveals the woman.