Why A.P.C.'s Jean Touitou Thinks the Fashion Industry Must Change Its Ways

This week renowned designer Jean Touitou, known as the mastermind behind beloved men’s and women’s fashion house A.P.C., launches his 2016 spring/summer “Five Dresses” collection (view gallery above), a capsule dedicated to the classic black dress. “I had a sudden longing to create black dresses using the bias cut technique… this technique gives them a characteristic drape and gracefulness, [and] I wanted to prove to myself that I could do it, because this approach is quite complex,” remarks Touitou. Vogue caught up with the Tunisian-French creative director to gain insight on the new capsule and to check in on the designer’s forthcoming projects. Among topics like fashion’s unpredictable internet future of e-commerce, his dealings with Kanye West, and the differences between French and American glamour, Touitou also touches on the longstanding incompatibility between the business-oriented and the creative-minded. How can the fashion industry continue to thrive when the analytical-minded business people fail to respect the artistic thought process of the creatives, and vice versa? Read our favorite excerpts from the interview below, and head over to Vogue to read the piece in full.

Was there a muse behind this collection?
I don’t do muses. There was a memory aspect to it. I had pictures of my mother as a young girl in Tunis, acting in a Greek play. She loved beautiful things. I discovered the engineering of couture when I realized there was a chain inside the hem of her Chanel jacket. I wasn’t always fascinated by fashion, but I became fascinated by that. And part of it came from watching the women around me. A couple of years ago, when my wife needed a dress for Kanye’s wedding, we went to an Italian house and the dress she liked, which was all over the media, was only ever made in three. The London store would have had to FedEx it to Paris. And I thought, this is the state of fashion now: virtual and expensive.

On the concepts of American glamour vs. French glamour:
There’s nothing like the American woman’s sense of glamour. It’s something Parisians don’t have. French girls have that sense of being perfectly imperfect. They cultivate it—the wrong shoe, clean hair left undone. French girls may have more chic, but American women have something that’s more glam. American women have this vast checklist—the hair, the nails, feet, shoes, check, check, check. I’m not talking Hollywood. I’m talking about everyday glamour. Young Americans have that more than young French women.

What’s your take on the current state of fashion?
There’s a global reorganization because it could not continue as is. Designers are exhausted, writers are exhausted, and industry people don’t understand anything anymore. We have to redefine what fashion is, to start with. What is fashion now, at the end of the day? Big shows, front rows, perfume, and bags. As we say in French, the rest is literature. The ones who are selling clothes in what’s considered to be “fashion” are the fast-fashion people. The way things are now, it has to stop. When I see people on Instagram doing New York, London, Milan, Paris, and then they are lucky enough to be invited to see a Cruise collection somewhere—they become like fishermen who are always at sea. They never see their family because of the fashion circus. It’s a very basic topic, but it’s a topic.

What do you think of the Hedi Slimane rumors?
Who knows what will happen? Hedi Slimane created something. He knew where he was going. He took Saint Laurent from $300 million to $1 billion. Boom. He did an incredible business job. He’s clever. He’s a hot property. He can do whatever he wants now.

You say that the fashion industry doesn’t understand creative people.
The industry has no clue how to manage creative people. They don’t understand creativity. Sometimes they have no culture, either. The business got itself into trouble by trying to sell “luxury” to a wide audience, with no culture. Luxury should be in bed with culture, period. You can’t just think in terms of who is a star and who is not. [Luxury is] too in your face right now. Next we’ll be hanging gold bricks around our necks. Fashion industry leaders should be like good gallery owners: They should know how to treat the artist. When it works, it works very well. Same thing with the music business: good producer, good talent. But in fashion I don’t think they understand each other. If the creatives see the business people as stupid or square, then it doesn’t work. And if business people are addicted to margins and view creatives as crazy artists, it doesn’t work, either. So they have to respect each other. It doesn’t mean the dialogue is always peaceful. But that’s the key to riding that bicycle.

How do see yourself in the fashion landscape?
I don’t take myself for a visionary: You wake up, you look for beauty, you try to do nice things. I do have a vision, but seriously, I have one hell of a team. We have a certain take on beauty that we can deliver for A.P.C., Vanessa Seward and now Outdoor Voices, the ath-leisure brand we’ve invested in. We’re small compared with the major players, but I think we’re rather unique. Pretty soon there won’t be any other independent brands left. I guess maybe I have the talent of being a producer.

Speaking of music and fashion, are you working with Kanye?
We’ll be carrying pieces from Kanye’s second Yeezy collection this fall in Paris, New York, and L.A. [in stores in July]. I think they’re really good, and I’m not the only one. Kanye can be a caricature of himself, and he has the self-irony to know that. He has no problem with it. But he is trying hard. He’s sincere. He really loves it. I appreciate his effort to make clothes, not just to make noise in fashion. Anyone with power can make noise in fashion. He has a similar vision of beauty to mine, only the words are bigger: He wants to spread dopeness and redesign the whole planet.

What do you think fashion will look like 10 years from now?
I don’t know if there will be a game-changer. The ones that don’t have a clue will continue to make expensive bags. I’m still obsessed with beautiful, affordable luxury, because if you don’t sell, you perish. I’m going to keep creating my own little sensation in my own little world. If you go massive, you give up your freedom. We know everything the big guys do, we know the language; we’re just not going to go there. I have a few more ideas. But it will never be more than five dresses. Maybe three. You don’t need more.