‘A Little Flower’ Branding Humanism
What is a humanist fashion brand? How do you share a message without words? Can a seasonal campaign spread an agenda of unity, liberation and hope?
Emeric Tchatchoua is the Creative Director of 3.Paradis a French-Canadian fashion house founded in 2013 in Montreal and now equally based in Paris. The brand is on the verge of celebrating it’s tenth anniversary. It was at the fifth anniversary that the Paris born Tchatchoua was an LVMH Prize Finalist and last year was elected Menswear Designer of the Year at the Canadian Arts and Crafts Awards. Tchatchoua was raised in Paris with limited prospects, aspirations or role models. He was drawn to a particular escapism in fashion form Asia and the wave of Japanese designers waking up the dusty and sleepy Paris fashion houses during the eighties to nineties. His work takes influences form an eclectic range of global palates; Asian street fashion to African iconography as well as a romantic lens immigrant ‘Rude Boy’ tailoring seen in London.
3.Paradis has recently launched another thought provoking campaign for the Fall/Winter 2022 season. “A Little Flower” collection is at it’s core about social meaning, evolution and growth. The number three in the name is connected to his birthday January 3, as well as three being spiritually connected to the belief and equilibrium of spirit, body and soul. Paradise is goal for everyone. The fashion campaign for this season is aligned with the concepts and ambitions set forth by the designer and the fashion collections.
Tchatchoua’s has a unique perspective of fashion collage linked to narrative. His philosophical ideas and concerns are creation of art, philosophical ideas and peace. Authentic and reared values no doubt for the son of a diplomat for the United Nations who was based in Hong Kong, Singapore and Thailand, and before locating to North America before Tchatchoua became a teenager.
His LVMH nomination and cache yielded a later Rimowa luxury suitcase collaboration with the company last year. LVMH auctioned the suitcases along with those by ten designers for UNICEF in New York. In his collection for Rimowa, the designer celebrated “freedom and the ability to travel again” a successful use of his trademark bird in flight, symbolizing caged birds being allowed to fly free….and perhaps even singing of freedom from oppression.
In the Fall/ Winter campaign the bird iconography is the star. It was strongly featured in both motif lace garments and accessories throughout the campaign a clear and unmistakable branding message. Unity and individualism run throughout the campaign as well.
The images feature both a single-person or pairs even twins, creatively calling to mind the work of celebrated portrait painter Kehinde Wiley’s art exploring his personal narrative as a twin and concepts in collective form and identity. In Tchatchoua’s campaign there is a strong notion of fashion unity and individualism.
Texture and embroidered prints are the standout themes and nuances for the Fall/Winter 2022 collection and are beautifully featured in Brutalist architectural settings. It has been noted that Tchatchoua’s approach to clothing is deeply and personally linked to a wide nonsectarian sense of being, that is inclusive of gender, point of origin and culture. The highly themed season is also a further expansion of “Inner growth, self-emancipation and progress” the pillars of 3.PARADIS ongoing series of collections. The brand continues to explore the iconography of resurrection, change, purity, innocence and freedom to a range of textiles, textures and motif placement which have an elevated the familiar and wearable silhouettes.
3.Paradis opened a high profile footprint of real estate inside La Samaritaine a luxury department store in Paris. He has has had great success with a full sell through of goods.
Patrick Michael Hughes Senior Fashion Editor Men’s Fashion Writer
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Patrick Michael Hughes is a fashion and decorative arts historian. He writes about fashion culture past and present making connections to New York, London and Copenhagen's fashion weeks with an eye toward men's fashion. He joined IRK Magazine as a fashion men's editor during winter of 2017.
He is often cited as a historical source for numerous pieces appearing in the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, CNN, LVMH, Conde Nast, Highsnobiety and others. His fashion career includes years as a fashion reporter/producer of branded content for the New York local news in the hyper digital sector. Patrick's love of travel and terrain enabled him to becoming an experienced cross-country equestrian intensively riding in a number of locations in South America Scandinavia,The United Kingdom and Germany. However, he is not currently riding, but rather speaking internationally to designers, product development teams, marketing teams and ascending designers in the US, Europe and China.
Following his BA in the History of Art from Manhattanville College in Purchase, New York he later completed graduate studios in exhibition design in New York. it was with the nudge and a conversation in regard to a design assignment interviewing Richard Martin curator of the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art he was encouraged to consider shifting his focus to the decorative arts with a concentration in fashion history and curation.
Patrick completed graduate studies 17th and 18th century French Royal interiors and decoration and 18th century French fashion culture at Musée Les Arts Decoratifs-Musée de Louvre in Paris. Upon his return to New York along with other classes and independent studies in American fashion he earned his MA in the History of Decorative Arts and Design from the Parsons/Cooper Hewitt Design Museum program in New York. His final specialist focus was in 19th century English fashion and interiors with distinction in 20th century American fashion history and design.
Currently, he is an Associate Teaching Professor at Parsons School of Design leading fashion history lecture-studios within the School of Art and Design History and Theory,
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