This year Julien Fournié officially participated in the Paris Fashion Week Haute Couture for the first time. He has already shown his collections in its frameworks as a guest, but not as an official member. The Ministry of Industry has finally approved his permanent membership in the official calendar. The first collection in this noble status, called First Kinetics, he presented at the Oratory of Louvre.

 The collection was inspired by the kinetic art, one of the movements, established in 1960th of XX century. The collection is an hommage to such great artists as Alexander Colder, Jesus-Rafael Soto and Raymond Moretti. Working with the time, space, rhythm and movement, they were creating live, voluminous сompositions, frequently built on the optical illusions.

 

 The optical illusions, that are provoked by the forms in movement is actually a key element of Fournié current Haute Couture collection. One could say, that the real material the designer works with is the time. When the body is on the move, the liberated energy makes fabric alive, it is transforming all the time. When the models walk in Julien Fournié’s dresses, a fabric seems to interact with a body, foresee its choreography and guess the forms it will take, just like it has an artificial intelligence.

He gains this effect by a delicate work with the fabrics and the colors.

Light, streamy organza, chaffron, silk, tweed perfectly sculpt a silhouette, while the contrast between the dark colors which absorb the light and the bright ones which reflect it creates a three-dimensional illusion. The accessories, inspired by the works of Alexander Colder just reinforce this effect.

 

 It is his experiments with 3D, that make his clothes look so futuristic. At the same time, his architectural approach allows the silhouettes to stay strict and precise. His dresses perfectly outline the women’s bodies, sculpting the busts and stretching the legs.

 Julien Fournié works on his clothing as a medieval alchemist. He uses the secret knowledge of physics, chemistry and geometry in order to find a formula of a perfect beauty. Once completing his studies in medicine, he preserved the passion to extract science and technologies into his creative work. Fournié turned his studio into a laboratory, where he experiments, mixing fabrics, textures and colors. Being fascinated by the 3D design possibilities, 2011 Fournié together with Dassault Systémes created FashionLab, a technology incubator at the crossroad of the fashion word and 3D design.

Julien Fournié’s fashion is a high-technological elegance. Using the strict, constructivists forms he manages to liberate the body, to make the movement free and airy, to submit the geometry. The materials, which cherish a silhouette of women’s bodies, loudly manifest their liberation.  

By Maksym Teteruk

Photo courtesy of Julien Fournié