Confetti moments

At Courrèges, artistic director Nicolas Di Felice is marrying radical thinking, raving and reinterpreted minimalist codes to give the French fashion house a contemporary new dynamism

- HANNAH TINDLE

It's been six decades since 40 Rue François was selected by André Courrèges as the Paris HQ for his namesake brand.

Its current artistic director, Nicolas Di Felice, joined in 2020. 'When I got here, there was a sign at the entrance to these offices – really quite tiny in size, like this,' says Di Felice, pinching a few inches of air between his thumb and forefinger. 'But it was the first thing I noticed. It had been placed there by Coqueline Barrière, André Courrèges' wife. It read: "Never copy the past". And for as long as I have this position, this is a message I will carry with me in all that I do.'

Led by this raison d'être, the Belgian-born designer has altered the trajectory of Courrèges, transforming the storied house in just five years from a once overlooked legacy label into a name firmly cemented in fashion's zeitgeist. The minimalist codes established by André Courrèges during the 1960s – including technical fabrication, geometric silhouettes and ultrashort hemlines – are now reinterpreted by Di Felice for a new generation. It was a letter outlining this vision, candidly written on a single sheet of paper and addressed to the Courrèges family, that would secure him the job, with the designer making his runway debut for A/W21. 'I had been watching a lot of archival videos of André Courrèges speaking about his work, being interviewed on TV, and so on,' says Di Felice. 'He spoke so clearly, so directly about geometry and simplicity of form. His sketches would depict women in motion, really wearing his clothes... Walking, running, as though you could see the wind in their hair. It was his obsession, to make clothes that allowed freedom. And this was my starting point.'