Stylist-turned-designer Adrien Sauvage unveiled a collection of sharply-cut suits for the modern man. He puts a fresh spin on men's suiting by casting and personally photographing some of art and music's finest as models for his debut collection. The black-and-white project, called "This is Not a Suit," (TNS) released in 2010, sets the stage for his first collection of suits that mix modern styles with Saville Row-level cuts. The promotional campaign surrounding the collection features inspired ways of using different types of media such as photography and film to advertise and promote the pieces. As an experienced tailor, the young upstart's transformation from styling made a natural progression to designing, with the impeccably-conceived collection speaking for itself. Like many new labels, Sauvage's motivation was simply that he and his clients couldn't get the choice or quality of cut and style they desired. With this first collection, Sauvage focuses on fit, offering two styles—a sport jacket and two double-breasted jackets—for the country, as well as a day and evening suit.
Adrien also explores the Suit and what it suggests through his journey in the field of portraiture called the "Captain and Native" series. In each case, Adrien invites subjects to wear garments from his collection and encourages them to express who they are while wearing a suit with no directorial interference. His aim was to capture his designs in motion in different settings and worn by different types of people. Having established the loose parameters of the experience, it is left up to each subject to decide what to wear; diverse as they are; from the collection. There was no discrimination of ethnicity, social standing or age – all walks of life were encouraged to be involved, from graffiti artists, retired basketball pros (Natives) to fashion icons and celebrities (Captains). The expertly-shot photographs not only beautifully show off the collection, they also excellently challenge the traditional connotations of 'the suit' and Sauvage's choice of the Venice Beach location in Southern California for the "Natives" series demonstrates his wish to turn the traditional idea of the suit on its head.
Currently, Adrien's new spring/summer 2011 collection is entitled Black Volta. It might sound like a blaxploitation flick but it's actually the name of a river in West Africa which flows through Sauvage's homeland of Ghana, which he revisited for the first time in eleven years in order to shoot his friends and family wearing his new range. The clothes are confident, not least because that's what you need to be in order to wear jackets in oversized "digital" dogtooth and kente (a fabric made from interwoven silk and cotton strips and indigenous to Ghana and the Ivory Coast), but the more timid among you can always start small with a tie in the latter. Either way, his collection from the motherland has never looked so good.
Currently, Adrien's new spring/summer 2011 collection is entitled Black Volta. It might sound like a blaxploitation flick but it's actually the name of a river in West Africa which flows through Sauvage's homeland of Ghana, which he revisited for the first time in eleven years in order to shoot his friends and family wearing his new range. The clothes are confident, not least because that's what you need to be in order to wear jackets in oversized "digital" dogtooth and kente (a fabric made from interwoven silk and cotton strips and indigenous to Ghana and the Ivory Coast), but the more timid among you can always start small with a tie in the latter. Either way, his collection from the motherland has never looked so good.
Not only are the collections themselves fresh and sleek without straying too far from traditionalism, but additionally the "This is not a Suit" promotional campaign echoes the creativity of the collection and demonstrates the modern methods and types of media available to designers these days to advertise their ranges and concepts. Adrien Sauvage is a young multi talented designer and artist who aims to show the global community that a Suit is not just a suit; it is a way of life- Slam Dunk!!
Amaka Onyioha