Meet the Designer Behind Kim Kardashian and Julia Fox’s Latex Looks – WWD
For Paris-based designer Arthur Avellano, the past year has been quite the ride.
Hailing from Toulouse, a city in southwestern France best known for its aerospace industries, he was slowly rebuilding his latex-centric label after the pandemic when he got a call. “One of the coats was selected by Kanye West for Paris Couture Week, but it ended up not being worn,” recalled Avellano. The American rapper nonetheless purchased the coat and Julia Fox was spotted wearing it at her New York birthday bash in January 2022.
Within months, his high-gloss looks were seen on Kim Kardashian; “Emily in Paris” star Camille Razat, who chose a fire engine red number to attend the AmfAR gala at the Cannes Film Festival that summer, and Katy Perry, who wore a hot pink puffer and matching outfit for her November concert in Tokyo.
Now he is slated to make his debut on the official Paris Fashion Week calendar at 4:30 p.m. on March 7.
Looks from the spring 2023 Avellano show.
Avellano’s foray into latex began began after he read “Fetish: Fashion, Sex & Power” by director and chief curator of The Museum at FIT Valerie Steele, while a student at the Institut Supérieur des Arts et du Design de Toulouse (ISDAT). “What really impressed me was the heavy drape of this material, which you don’t normally see and that people are unfamiliar with,” he said.
Its pull continued and grew during his fashion education at Paris’ Atelier Chardon Savard. Being in a niche where he was practically solo and using a material that required inventing new techniques and fabrications was irresistible.
After graduation, a series of unsuccessful job applications led him to throw caution to the wind and launch his own brand in 2016, bootstrapping a first collection from sketches he’d unsuccessfully submitted to the Hyères fashion festival.
A first runway show for spring 2018 and soon after, a presentation slot on the official Paris men’s schedule, had retailers like H.Lorenzo and Opening Ceremony come calling, drawn to his designs with a menswear slant. Other brands also came to Avellano for his expertise, like Balenciaga, with which he has been collaborating since 2019.
Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit, leaving the emerging label with canceled orders and a surfeit of already-produced hoodies.
A spring 2023 Avellano look.
Over the lockdown, Avellano and business partner Jean-Gabriel Paya, a graffiti artist and composer, curtailed wholesale altogether, focusing on consulting. Beyond being a source of revenue for his own studio, relocated to the Marais in a 1,000-square-foot space, the work provided Avellano with motivation “because it means we have developed a unique know-how that even big houses can’t achieve,” he said. “It’s a real thrill.”
Add to that private clients and performers looking for stage outfits, and business has been doubling year-on-year since Avellano relaunched the brand in 2020 — except in France.
“Other than luxury houses, we have zero French private clients,” he said with a rueful laugh, explaining that up to 90 percent of his private clientele is in the U.S., putting the opening of a studio in Los Angeles on the cards. It would allow him to serve last-minute custom orders for entertainment and cinema. “And we’ve had our work retouched by competitors who end up ruining the item.”
Relaunching e-commerce in early 2021 confirmed that latex is what consumers want from him. “It turns out it’s easier to sell a [latex] dress at 4,000 euros than an 80-euro hoodie,” he quipped.
As a symbol of this new direction, he wiped his slate — and Instagram account — clean ahead of the spring 2022 season.
Now that his name is starting to circulate, he’s attracting new talents and even specialists are coming to him to showcase their latest innovations, like 3D printing, molding or collage. “We realized that our material [latex] was put aside for very long because of its fetishist aura but if you take the time to work it, you realize that you can make widely wearable items — or haute couture.”
This is epitomized by his spring 2023 collection. Shown in a catwalk show in historic nightlife spot Les Bains Douches, it carried the “bourgeois with a twist” aesthetic Avellano imagines — without a scrap of fabric in sight.
Retail prices range from 260 euros for a tank top and 450 euros for a 3D-printed bodysuit up to 1,700 euro for a catsuit and 3,700 euros for an oversized coat. All items are produced on-demand in Paris and the brand holds no inventory.
Tailoring and dresses, now making up a third of the collection, are the bread-and-butter of the brand, said the designer. Footwear is one of the fields that Avellano is eyeing for the future and he’s also in talks with Swarovski to include crystals in further developments.
“People called us a one-trick ‘mono-material’ brand and I found it funny because we are not the only ones [with a specialty]. Plus our [latex] stuff sells. Hoodies didn’t,” he said. Though, “once our name has more weight, maybe people will end up buying our hoodies.”
