10th annual Cultures and Creation fashion show

Monfermeil, a suburb to the east of Paris, hosted its tenth Cultures and Creation fashion show on February 7th. The hugely popular event promotes creativity and sharing, helping change perceptions of challenged urban neighborhoods. The LVMH Group has sponsored this unique initiative for the past five years.

Initiated by the Montfermeil municipal government in 2005, the Cultures and Creation fashion show each year demonstrates that the sometimes troubled urban areas around Paris are also an incredible source of talent of creativity.  The 2015 edition most definitely confirmed this energy, drawing a crowd of over 1,000 enthusiastic attendees. They were rewarded by a look at the creations of 50 couturiers – amateurs and budding professionals alike – paraded down the runway on 100 volunteer models, their elegance further enhanced by Guerlain makeup artists.

During the first part of the program, residents of the city presented their home cultures. The stage welcomed people who live in the Montfermeil area whose origins count some 30 different countries, from Morocco to Mali, Portugal to China and Turkey to France. With a blend of fun and grace, this first runway show featured models from 7 to 77, all proud to present their culture.

The theme of the second half of the evening was ecology and technology. The young designers rivaled one another in creativity in four categories: evening wear, streetwear, children’s wear and the Young Talents category, sponsored by LVMH.

The difficult task of selecting the winners fell to the jury, composed of Princess Esther Kamatari, Sylvie Zawadzki (Executive Secretary of the Fédération Française de la Couture), Olivia Douchez (Head of ready-to-wear and haute couture workshops at Givenchy), Anne Gautier (Human Resources Vice President of Guerlain), Florence Rambaud (Head of LVMH Talent Sourcing) and Danny Martin (Kenzo Production and Development Manager). They awarded the LVMH Young Talents Prize to Audiane Cojean, a native of  Montfermeil. The young designer will receive personal creative mentoring from the Group to help her prepare her collection for Fashion Week Berlin this summer.

The jury also singled out Domingos Moreira in the children’s wear category, Ingrid Falk in the evening wear category and Salaha Harb in the streetwear category. They received their prizes from Christian Sanchez, LVMH Group Vice President for Social Development, and Marc-Antoine Jamet, Corporate Secretary of LVMH, who enthusiastically proclaimed: “Tonight the capital of fashion isn’t Paris, it isn’t Milan or New York, it’s Montfermeil!”. The cheering thousand attendees most definitely agreed.