Tea Time Fashion with Franck Sorbier: "Haute couture must be in sync with its era"
How do you choose your models?
I'm looking for elegant girls, who are naturally elegant and who understand the role they will play on D-day. I'm also interested in a new girl who will not have a tick, just by a regular who has proven and that secures me. I ask them more to present a model than to scroll, in any case, at Frank Sorbier there is no podium so real catwalk.
Do you have standard measurements?
We work on wooden mannequins whose measurements are 85-62-92. In recent seasons we realized that girls had trouble filling clothes. I think it's very important for a model to live in a dress, especially since the recent presentations are close to the public. It is also important that the women who attend the collection can imagine themselves in the rooms. The model must make you dream and arouse envy. But to return to the measurements, I admit that I always had a weakness for very large girls with legs that never end, "women Giacometti".
How do you work?
In a limited team at first: 4 people internally assisted by two trainees at the start of the collection, then add 8 more in the home stretch. There are also 2 exteriors for specific achievements, not counting Isabelle and myself who put our hands to work.
How do you choose the place of the parade ?
My approach is that of the meeting, the one with an inhabited place that will be the jewel of my creations. I presented a lot in venues: at the Opéra Comique, at the Théâtre du Palais Royal, at Marigny, at Cirque d'Hiver, at the Lido, in palaces: Le Meurice and the Salon of the Empress of the Great Hotel Scribe. But also in historical places: the Palais Galliera, the Chapel of Fine Arts and open air in the garden of the Fondation Cartier. All these places allowed me to dramatize the presentations and to make these moments moments of exception.
With a "firedown" conjuncture, we have returned to more intimate presentations, where creation has regained its rights. For three seasons, we have been welcomed at Sotheby's by Guillaume Cerutti, as Maryvonne Pinault did at Christie's. These collections are more realistic. You have to dream close up. "Haute Couture must be in step with its times".
How do you work in Haute Couture?
It's a cozy world, where discretion is the order of the day, you never communicate the names of your clients. It is a relationship of trust and intuitu personae. I want to say that "the meeting must take place".
As for the models, there can be a world between a dress presented and that of the customer. This is the real exercise that begins, a discussion on the model or models chosen, on what occasion will the dress be worn? The shoes that could match, the jewels, etc. ?
It is a new creation that is born, not a replica, a new adventure.
The parade is ultimately only a proposition, an advertisement.
Haute Couture makes you dream and for a few days, Paris becomes the center of the world!
What are your relations with the press?
In this business, relations with the press are extremely important ...
From the beginning, I had the chance to meet journalists and editors who followed me, supported and encouraged, it was in 1991. I believe that it is always the case for the new ones that they discover, even if some advertisers have taken power in the pages of magazines.
Each time is the occasion for new encounters, again, it is necessary that the alchemy operates.
Each stage of a career sees the number of friendly looks widening. I have often been filled and rewarded with clever and laudatory articles, I have sometimes been hurt, but the pain has always turned into strength. Create requires perpetual challenge.
The hardest thing is to last beyond the fashion effect. We saw passing stars ...
A collection that works in the press can be a commercial disaster and vice versa.
Today with the Internet, we are witnessing a real revolution, everything goes faster, the reports are more objective, there is a real freedom to talk about heart attacks and also a great thirst for information. It's still independent terrain, but for how long?
To close this chapter, I am happy to say that I am extremely grateful to all those who have, through their interest, helped me to pass the 20 years of fashion, including more than 10 years of haute couture.
You diversify by creating silver metal parts, can you tell us more?
I make portraits from disparate elements of silverware (trays, knife handles, forks, pie shovels, salt shakers ...). I have a fascination for the facies. These works were an opportunity to try a different form of creation and to express another facet of my personality.
But to return to Haute Couture, I also made stage costumes, those of Traviata and Tales of Hoffmann, and also those of the two largest French-speaking stars: Mylène Farmer and Johnny Halliday.
I enjoy eclectic activities, astonish and never get bored.
