Charles Levai and Kevin Tekinel, co-founders of Paris-based creative agency Maybe, have rapidly become two of the most sought after creative directors working across both traditional and new fashion media. Since founding Maybe in 2019, they’ve crafted some of the industry’s most internet-breaking shows (think that spray-on dress at Coperni) and campaigns (Versace, Hermès, Louis Vuitton, Jacquemus, Miu Miu, Gucci…) while along the way working as, firstly, creative directors of L’Uomo Vogue and, since 2023, as W magazine’s creative directors at-large. Thomas Lenthal, System’s own creative director, sat down with the pair to get their read on the Autumn/Winter 2025 shows and the ever-shifting role of the art director within the sprawling fashion ecosystem.

Thomas Lenthal: Do you still attend shows in Milan?
Charles Levai: We used to do Milan when we were doing the Versace shows.
Kevin Tekinel: We haven’t done it in a while though.
But you seriously do Paris, right?
Charles: We do it seriously to the extent that we work hardcore on three shows during Paris Fashion Week – The Row, Coperni and Hermès – and then we just have three days at the end when we can go to other shows. We just go to the ones that we really like.

Traditionally, art directors weren’t really involved in designing, conceptualizing and putting together shows. And there are still very few art directors involved in shows, which is strange because it makes complete sense. How did you guys start doing this, and why do you think the brands came to you?
Kevin: It was because of Covid because, remember, there were these shows that were not live, so you had to sort of pre-shoot them. It became almost like a full day of shooting, like a campaign to some extent. The brands soon realized that this was different from what show producers were used to doing, because it was a full-on shoot where you could cut things, plan things a bit better and edit them in post-production. I guess Versace was one of the first brands who reached out to us.
Charles: We were working with them on some campaigns in the middle of Covid. So they planned to do this big show with a big set, but then turned it a bit more into a fashion film, with models walking down the runway.
Was this the one with the huge maze…
Charles: Yes, the big gold maze [Versace Autumn/Winter 2021].
Was it done in post [production]?
Kevin: No, no. It was a real structure with three floors, in a warehouse. I think they had the idea already to build this thing – but then when they started building it, they were like, ‘Wait, how are we going to film this? Do we need a director doing it?’ So then they got in touch with us. It was a week before! That was quite fun, and we enjoyed it. It was a different experience. It wasn’t so good for the models though, because they had a full day of working instead of walking a 15-minute show.

And it was that that led to The Row calling you? [Laughs]
Kevin: The Olsens saw it and said right away, ‘Of course, we want exactly that!’ [Laughs] Joking aside, it did lead to other clients. With Coperni though, our involvement was a bit more intimate because we’re friends with the designers, so we would help with the shows because there was very little budget. Everyone was calling their friends. It was just this hodgepodge of everyone getting together to try to achieve something.
Charles: We started to work with The Row when they began to show in Paris [Autumn/Winter 2022]. It was kind of like a direct contact with the designers, it was very easy, we were always discussing the format and so on. It was quite fun. And it’s quite interesting to do it with The Row because it’s a brand with a smaller scale that allows them to do something a bit more out of the box.
Kevin: They knew they wanted to photograph the runway in a specific way that wasn’t the classic way of doing it. There were no outside photographers ever permitted, so from the beginning there was this desire to…

Keep it private?
Kevin: Exactly, and involve a point of view in how it’s captured. I think when you have a desire to have a directional point of view in how you photograph a show, you don’t want to call the usual suspects – you need a photographer that’s more of a fashion or art photographer, not just a runway photographer. Then that may mean getting art directors involved as well. So that’s how it happened, I think.
Charles: When you think about the image of a brand, it’s very much about control – about what you want to release and how you want to present things. So it kind of makes sense to also say, ‘No outside photographers, no runway photographers,’ and just come up with a concept and a way of picturing it that’s exactly the way the brand wants to be perceived.

And then Coperni is of course more than that…
Charles: They relaunched as Coperni after they left Courrèges, in 2019.
So you’ve done about 12 seasons?
Kevin: The first two seasons there were no shows. So we did a photoshoot with Julien Martinez [Leclerc] – it was a sort of launch campaign. That was how the brand really came out.

I think some of that stuff was quite memorable – obviously the drive-in.
Charles: For them, it’s more about being a young brand – with the reduced budget that comes with that – and just trying to find ways to be noticeable and get reach.
Kevin: Obviously that’s a decision that was made with the designers and people involved. But I think, for better or for worse, the decision was to make noise, as much as you can, and not necessarily just rely on the clothes, but on something that’s bigger maybe than the clothes – spectacle.
Charles: But the end goal was not always to simply become viral or whatever. Because, for example, the Bella show with the spray dress was based on this technology that Sébastien [Meyer, Coperni co-founder], who’s a bit of a geek, had found and was really into. And then we just discussed the format and how to use it, how to show it.
Kevin: Putting it on Bella obviously made a big difference. It added a certain value, for sure. But it wasn’t intended to become viral. We didn’t even think it would necessarily go viral. We just hoped it would work and that the thing wouldn’t fall apart mid-show!

That would have gone viral as well!
Kevin: [Laughs] Yes, maybe. But it was more about their desire to do something outside of the box.

Now it’s expected that each season they come up with something quite…
Kevin: Spectacular. But I think there are going to be some changes, potentially, with that too.
Charles: Because everything is always changing. This industry changes so fast. Everything is always a question of context. And I guess it’s nice to…
Kevin: Evolve.
Charles: And switch things.

From an art director’s perspective, what were the most visually compelling moments of this recent fashion month – whether you were attending shows or not? I assume you’re looking at the shows no matter what, online.
Charles: Before being interested in fashion imagery or photography in general, we do what we do because we’re interested in fashion, in the clothes. So I guess the impact of a show is always linked to the clothes. The new Miu Miu show was really great. In a way, the set was quite minimal, and the clothes you see on the runway are just clothes you can see in a store.
Kevin: Everything was wearable, but the way it was put together…
Charles: …with this idea of a character.
Kevin: And the casting. And yes, the set was super simple, but even the fabric that was chosen was very precise. I think it all comes together with the music and the casting, and the pacing. Miu Miu was impressive and gave you that feeling. Sometimes you go to a show, and you don’t necessarily think about what you’re going to expect, and you leave feeling different from when you came in. Because it gives you a rush, and you’re impressed. In our case, sometimes it makes you excited for the future, and makes you believe there are still exciting things to be done within fashion. Because a lot of the time, we feel like we’ve seen or done it all.
Charles: I think the confetti at the Courrèges show was quite striking visually and quite beautiful. We can never go to Courrèges shows because they’re always an hour before The Row. But this one felt quite uplifting and beautiful in terms of the set and the moment.

So Miu Miu and Courrèges would be your two stand-outs for the season?
Kevin: I’m sure there’s other ones. You went to the Saint Laurent show, Charles?
Charles: Yes, it was a nice show. I was touching the stone [set wall] to see if it was real stone or if it was something else. It was actually real sheets of marble or alabaster or whatever.

It was onyx.
Kevin: It just always seems – from an outside point of view – that everything is so well thought out. The music, the lighting… even how the people in the front row are dressed. Across the board, it’s just seamless.

Do you sense that the current socio-political and economic uncertainty came across in the shows or campaigns this season? How did that compute with fashion? Did you see something that felt like a mirror of the times?
Kevin: Going into the season, I thought there were two general things people were talking about. Obviously, this idea of an economic slowdown…
Charles: …and then the question of war, which wasn’t noticeable to me, necessarily, in the shows. Or at least, I didn’t notice anything that directly echoed that. But I know that some brands and people that we work with were concerned about some things in the clothes or in a show, to make sure it couldn’t create a link with what’s happening in the world right now, especially the war.
Kevin: I think everyone’s much more sensitive – for whatever reason, whether right or wrong – about doing the right thing, having the right message. That’s always in people’s heads when they’re putting on a show. There are these uplifting messages that some designers wanted to inject, looking at things from the brighter side, but I don’t know if it necessarily felt like a response, or even that designers wanted to directly address things. It’s more like avoidance.

What about the slowdown?
Kevin: I think the slowdown was a big topic going into it, and also the fact that all these changes are coming with all these designers moving around. So everyone was like, ‘Oh, maybe this season is going to be quite boring or it’s going to be underwhelming,’ because everyone’s waiting for the Fall season.
Charles: Just knowing, also early on, that lots of big models were going to take the season off because they didn’t want to engage too much with a house – not knowing what’s coming next.
Kevin: Waiting for the new guard to arrive. But in fact I thought it was quite inspiring. There were good shows, especially in Paris.

I think that’s the general consensus.
Kevin: And that’s more and more what everyone’s seeing – it’s another topic, I guess – how everything is sort of being centred around Paris.
Charles: And how many brands – from London or New York and everywhere else – have moved to Paris? American designers are now being hired by French companies. It’s less and less in New York, I guess.

In terms of campaigns, what visuals resonate with today’s audiences? Is it authenticity? Escapism? Eye candy? Representation? Or something else entirely? Do you have a view on this?
Charles: I think there’s always something about escapism that can attract consumers – or just the viewer – towards a campaign. There’s always something about, ‘This is somewhere I’d like to be.’ But maybe it’s more with perfume campaigns that are destined for a larger audience than fashion campaigns which can sometimes feel a bit more industry-oriented. I guess we see the difference between a fashion campaign and a bag campaign – where you almost feel like it’s talking to slightly different audiences.
Kevin: I think we’ve gone through a cycle where there was a desire – from brands – to just make noise and create a buzz. To have these peak moments on social media where everyone is talking about it for an afternoon, or a day, and then it’s forgotten, and then it’s on to the next one. It was this crazy cycle, just feeding the machine, creating these rushes, almost like a sugar high. I have a feeling that slowly we’re turning the page on that a little bit.
Charles: It’s being toned down.
Kevin: I think it’s going more towards something that feels consistent and a bit more grounded in quality. Or maybe a balance between the two, in terms of the different types of content you create.
Charles: Beauty has been less of a concern in recent times. It was just about coolness or the weird aspect of things. Now beauty, elegance, seems to be a bit more present.

How important is ‘cool’ today? Does ‘cool’ still have commercial power, or is its relevance fading?
Charles: I think to have a bit of coolness never goes out of style. People want to be cool. But what’s cool is always evolving anyway. At some point it was this Y2K aesthetic that was the coolest thing, and then something super minimal and almost austere can also be considered über cool.
Kevin: But it will always be part of the lexicon and part of what we try to aspire to. People aspire to be cool or to look cool. It’s just part of fashion.
Charles: And young demographics are always going to be attracted to coolness.

Do you think some brands have become too reliant on nostalgia or referencing past visuals and visual styles? Or is that inherent to what you do?
Charles: It feels kind of inherent, yes. Because the ‘bla bla bla’ in the industry is that everything has been done before – we know that. And I guess lots of brands are trying to maximize on their heritage a bit more now. This idea of heritage is something that’s more important for the brands themselves, so it goes with referencing themselves in different ways each time.
Kevin: I think it’s something that’s just part of our job. Even if you present ideas to a client – or anyone that we work with – you have to show them a reference. And that reference is going to be… I mean, even if it’s a painting from the 17th century, it’s still referencing something. And we tend to reference fashion photography as well, a lot of times. So the notion of ‘heritage’ is always going to be around, I think, unless you go to a complete AI-type of situation. But even that references something, in a way.

It references a very strange well of imagery, seemingly from a tattoo parlour! The aesthetics of AI are very weird. We’re not gonna go there, but…
Charles: It’s off-topic!
Kevin: We’re not very well-versed. We’ve started using a little bit of it.
Charles: Mainly for doing comps quicker.
Kevin: And some video stuff we’ve started exploring, which helps at certain times. Because you’re like, ‘OK, I need a yellow bird to fly through the living room from one window to another.’ Where am I going to find that in a movie? And you can just type that in, and it gives you that.

It’s a tool for presentation purposes.
Kevin: Exactly. We did an AI campaign once with Coperni, they’re kind of tech focused, so it made sense with them. But we’re not crazy about AI.

Whose visual work or opinion in the industry currently inspires you? Who do you think is setting the new visual standard today?
Kevin: Big question. I don’t know if there’s any one specific person who really inspires us.
Or someone who challenges you? It’s been building up for a while, but today – even more so than 10 years ago – you’re being informed in real time of what your competitors are doing.
Kevin: I think you have to look at what’s being done by other people, what’s happening. Sometimes it just validates certain things, or makes you question other things. So it’s important to know. But I feel like there’s this sort of thing in the air that a lot of change is happening with all these fashion houses and designers. I think it’s going to create a new era, a new chapter that’s going to start with the designers and come to us in terms of how we interpret these new collections, new designers, new houses.

And so you’re hoping for a reshuffling of the cards?
Kevin: Yes. And maybe pushing certain changes in how we want to work, how everyone works, how we establish languages within this fashion world – in terms of communication.
Charles: Challenging the usual formats of everything that a house can do.
Kevin: There was this notion at some point, with the beginning of Instagram, that was like, ‘OK, these people are doing these things, so we should do it too.’ And everyone was sort of doing the same things. It would be like, at least two posts a day, a bag campaign like this, and it became something across the board. I think now, with all these changes, there’s maybe a desire to re-evaluate everything and try to be different, more than doing what everyone else is doing. So hopefully that’ll make a difference.

Would you say that there was sufficient knowledge within the houses to actually interpret the numbers on social media?
Kevin: Probably not. I don’t know if there is even now.
Charles: I guess there’s awareness, from potential clients, when you make noise on social media, and when people acknowledge you on social media. Of course it might translate at some point into sales.
Kevin: I remember us asking some of our clients – the head of art or head of communications – ‘OK, for this holiday campaign, we know it had this many views, we know to some extent it was successful, but did that translate into sales?’ And they were like, ‘Oh, no one shared that information with us.’ They didn’t even know themselves.
Charles: The only thing that we know is when we did a digital project during the pandemic, the brand told us that after the campaign launched, a Chinese VIC managed to get one of the stores that was closed in China opened in order to acquire this exotic skin bag.

They hadn’t seen it anywhere else but on social media? One customer!
Kevin: One single customer! Exactly. [Laughs]
Charles: I guess it was easier to know about that one customer because all the stores were closed.

What does visual success look like for a luxury fashion brand today? How do you know when you’ve created something truly impactful – besides selling…
Kevin: The bag? [Laughs]
You get hired for the following season?
Charles: [Laughs] Yes.
Kevin: I think there’s a moment – I don’t know if you’ll agree, but I’m sure you know what I’m talking about – when you create an image: sometimes it all comes together on set, or maybe it’s when you put it in the layout, or maybe when it’s finally out and you see it in a magazine, and you just feel it.
Charles: You feel that you’re proud.
Kevin: You want to show it to people. And when you want to show it to people and you get that reaction, it’s a matter of sometimes just knowing.

I have a good line from Richard Avedon on art that just struck me. The American talk show host Charlie Rose asked him, ‘Is photography an art?’ and he replied, ‘Do you think a bad painter is an artist just because he operates in the world of painting, which is considered one of the fine arts? Art is not a category. It is the way you’re doing it that makes it art.’ And I thought that was absolutely brilliant. He’s absolutely right. Is a bad painter more of an artist than an amazing photographer just because he is working in fashion photography?
Charles: There are some fashion photographers we work with who I truly see as artists.
Kevin: But since we have this commercial thing within our way of thinking…
Charles: After all, everything we’re doing is about selling clothes.
Kevin: We’re selling dreams, I guess, to some extent…
Charles: In order to sell clothes.
Kevin: The success of an image, or a campaign, or something that you create – like I said, I think you just know it when it happens. And there’s no recipe for it, or else everyone would know how to do it. We’re usually happier with the projects we create when we work with people who are friends, or who we have good relationships with; who we enjoy working with or just spending time with. I think that makes a difference. I think that’s the key to success, maybe, to be able to work with people you like.
Charles: Because it’s such a collaborative thing. Making a fashion image involves so many different crafts from all the people on set. And to have consideration and be interested in all of these crafts, and in the people you’re collaborating with – and doing it with a nice energy – I think it helps the result.
Kevin: Not always.
Charles: No, but I think it really helps.

I can remember shoots where the atmosphere wasn’t so…
Charles: Pleasant? But the outcome–
…was amazing. Then days that were super pleasant but the outcome was… [Laughs]
Kevin: [Laughs] You’re so happy and then you come back and you’re like ‘Ah, OK…’ I think looking back at what we’ve done – and we’ve only been working together for five years or so, not that long – the things we’re proudest of are those we created with the people we liked the most.

How do you stay creatively inspired and avoid visual repetition or burnout? I mean, your output is enormous. The magazine, the campaigns, the shows…
Kevin: It’s probably not the healthiest thing, but our personal lives and our work lives are extremely intertwined, in terms of how we work together and in terms of how we work with other people. So I think that helps. I mean, we don’t have kids, we don’t have to come home and deal with those important things. We’re just in this period where work doesn’t necessarily feel like work.

Besides the fatigue, I was more thinking about you being inspired.
Charles: Yes, especially in the process of doing a campaign – the conceptualization, the moments when you get the ideas, that’s the most draining moment of the process. When we’re on set, it’s easier to know what feels right, what feels good to us. But in the initial creative process, it’s more about questioning ourselves a bit more. And like you said, there’s always this need not to redo things we’ve done before.
Kevin: And it’s true that we don’t always have the time to be like, ‘I wish I could spend an afternoon in the library, looking at books, and watching this movie I barely remember from 20 years ago.’ So we skip through things constantly. It’s not ideal, but I guess it’s a choice.

You’re aware of the risk of repetition?
Charles: Yes, it’s a concern.
Kevin: But there are also demands from our clients where they sometimes want to do things that they’re comfortable with. Sometimes they just want something that’s safe, they want something that’s elegant. So it doesn’t require that much creativity at times. Which is not the most creatively fulfilling thing, of course. So it’s always a question of balance with specific clients. There are things where we find ourselves a bit more, kind of…

Delivering?
Charles: Yes. Ultimately, we are providing a service.

We briefly addressed the issue of the transitional periods of those three big houses – the reboots of Chanel, Dior and Gucci.
Charles: Besides the big ones, the list of brands rebooting next season is insane. It’s never really happened in this industry to have so many changes at once.

I would almost say they were slowing the whole train. They were missing one wheel, and you had to drag this thing.
Charles: It’s very true.
Kevin: I wonder if people had to wake up and be like, ‘We need to make these changes just to give some fuel to the machine’?

Probably a good opportunity. What I find really striking about this is the question: did those big houses at some point think to themselves, ‘Could we do without the designer? It would make our lives more comfortable’?
Charles: Just let the marketing people produce the collections!

When you see this, you understand that this is a really important parameter – who’s missing at the top? Otherwise, how do you create magic? There’s almost been an acknowledgment of the necessity to have someone brilliant.
Charles: Exactly. You do need someone brilliant. And there were so many designers who, because of certain contexts, ended up staying for very few seasons at a house. It’s such a shame, because it’s through time that you can establish something really strong, and it’s nice when something becomes a real chapter of a house’s history. It’s a bit tiring to see all these designers staying so little [time] at some houses. I just hope lots of the new appointments are going to be great, and that we’re going to be happy to see these positions take shape.

I feel there’s a measure of enthusiasm around it.
Charles: There’s excitement about next season, for sure – lots of beloved designers are changing roles. There’s this question of how different it’s actually going to be, and what the new vision is going to be with these new parameters.

It impacts everything. That’s really something to look forward to.
Kevin: Not just the collections, but also, like we were saying at the beginning, how they’re going to show their collections. What kind of shows they’re going to do. Will it be a big spectacle? I think something else that happened this season was that shows became smaller and more intimate. I haven’t been to many, but people have been talking about it. Like at Tom Ford, everything was a bit more intimate, scaled back, and made more about the clothes. So I’m curious to see how these big houses are going to react to this. Who’s going to take the biggest space? Or will it be smaller and more intimate?

That brings me to another question. It seems like no one has really cracked the code to filming a fashion show in a really convincing manner. You go to a show, you feel engaged, it’s powerful – and then it doesn’t seem to translate on the phone screen. It’s so strange as it’s been quite a while now…
Kevin: I don’t know if it’s even been fully addressed. But is it even possible? I wonder. We’ve felt this ourselves – like, we’d talk with Sara [Moonves] from W about a show, and we’d watch it on our phones while working, and the reactions we had were not necessarily aligned. Being in that room, you have a different perception from what you see on your phone, for sure. Even though sometimes you can see the clothes better on your phone because you get to see the details of the bags and the shoes in the close-up shots. But there’s something about being in that room, the presence of all these people and the soundtrack, and the way the models walk… That’s hard to translate. And I don’t know if it needs to necessarily be something that has to be fully translated to everyone.
It’s strange that, in this day and age, the show is still this major moment in fashion, even though it seems somehow outdated for what it’s supposed to perform more globally. But it’s still approached as a performance, with an audience.
Kevin: Exactly – the same way it was when they first started.
From 70 years ago, maybe even a 100 years ago, and it’s still more or less the same format.
Charles: But now it’s really become a communication tool, which was less the case when this format was created.

It didn’t change the way you would record it. At some point, you’d see shows with lots of cameras doing all sorts of things.
Kevin: When we started working with The Row, there was never video – only pictures. Then one season we said, ‘Oh, let’s just put one camera at one angle, filming the girls as they walk into the main room, that’s it.’
Charles: It was a super minimal team. Shot on film, one point of view. No cuts.
Kevin: No close-ups, no music. And weirdly, watching that video, we always feel like it’s totally captivating. You capture the real pace of the girls, because they arrive on screen one-by-one, and you’re not cutting away to anything else.
Charles: It’s the real point of view of a guest in the room.
Kevin: You can’t zoom in with your eyes, you can’t go to the other room they’re walking through. So it felt like really watching a show.
Charles: It was just a document.
Kevin: I guess they did that in the 1980s, where there was just one camera. When you look at footage of the early Prada shows, I think there was one camera recording it. And you see the flashes of the photographers.

That was exciting to look at. What’s more exciting than that?
Kevin: Yes, I guess now it feels exciting again because we’re going back to referencing things.
Charles: And The Row video was more about documenting a moment, rather than trying to create something overly produced – just pure documentation.
Kevin: But we enjoy the spectrum. I mean, when you think about the Saint Laurent show during Covid that they shot in Iceland, where the girls were walking in front of that crazy frozen landscape, with the wind, and a drone flying after them. I’d never seen anything like that in the context of a fashion show.
Charles: It was more like one of these fantasy shows that couldn’t happen in real life with an audience.

You could almost imagine that as the solution. But then again, I get it. It all needs to be packed into one week, or so they say… For some reason, everyone must come to Paris. Everyone must be present here for it to count.
Charles: Yes, and then it’s an industry where everyone is so concerned about travel anyway. As a replacement, or as a solution, to build a spectacle around fashion that wouldn’t be a fashion show – that was one example. During Covid, some of us really thought, ‘Ah, well this will be the opportunity to figure out a new format.’ Personally, I thought things were really going to change. I thought that with the concern around travel, that pre-show and cruise shows were going to stop. There was not going to be this constant travelling to crazy places all the time. But it stayed the same.
Kevin: But whenever we speak with designers, they’re like, ‘Oh, should we not do a show this season?’ And instinctively, you’re like, well, this person tried it and it didn’t really work. If you stop being in that circle, in that system, it’s hard to keep the momentum, or retain some kind of value. It’s not easy.
Charles: When it’s fashion week everything is shown within the context of the runway. And if you don’t have a show, there’s less correlation.
Kevin: You’re just no longer part of the conversation.
The only one who managed to extract himself from the calendar was Alaïa.
Kevin: He would still do shows.
But outside the calendar. It’s such a different size, a fraction of the size.
Kevin: Yes, you’re right.

Back to the shows – the other one everyone was raving about was Duran Lantink.
Kevin: I think it had quite an impact.
Charles: It’s true. Like other young designers, you can feel the craft in what he does. And of course, it’s fun and it’s a new proposition. A new version of what’s strange, or different, or cool today that we haven’t seen much in the past few years. It just feels a bit different, with a point of view. And it seems well done, which isn’t always the case with young designers.
Kevin: I think the clothes are well executed. I think he really has an eye for putting things that don’t necessarily go well together but work somehow, in terms of prints, colours, and shapes. And I think he knows how to make noise. It’s not a political message.
Charles: This one, though – you could see the underlining of a political message. Opening with a girl with a torso and closing the show with breasts – in the context of today, what’s happening in the US right now, it felt a bit political.
Kevin: At the same time, I don’t know if that’s really what he was going for.
Charles: But it’s easy to link the two.

Do you have fond memories of specific shows you’ve seen over the years?
Kevin: I’ve sort of ‘infiltrated’ shows in the past that were fun. In particular, the Marc Jacobs for Vuitton train show [Autumn/Winter 2012]. I knew a PR guy who knew someone, who told me to come at a specific time to a specific door where he just let me in. That was fun – and the show was epic. Just seeing a real train arriving in the room, that was crazy. I was mesmerized. I was happy to be there, to say the least.

It seems like those days are gone, no?
Kevin: Of infiltrating?
No, I mean the mega production.
Kevin: I guess so. I mean, they’re still extremely expensive productions. And there are other deals being made with celebrities that cost so much money.
Charles: There used to be more stories or themes for collections, an era when it was more…
Kevin: …playful, maybe. I think it was also what Karl was doing at Chanel that was influencing everyone. Every season was bigger and bigger, so other people were keeping up.
Charles: Going back to what you said, with the houses at the head of the train changing right now, and everyone’s waiting to see how that changes things.
Kevin: I do still think it would be fun if one of the big guys decided to go all in – do something really spectacular. It doesn’t seem quite as current at the moment, but Balenciaga did a few things, like the one with the world going into the water [Autumn/Winter 2020].
Charles: And the snowstorm [Autumn/Winter 2022]. Even in terms of set design, when you think about the first Vuitton show that was done with Philippe Parreno [Spring/Summer 2023], with this giant structure in the middle of the Louvre’s Cour Carrée – it was a different way to tell a story, it was pretty insane in scale. An artist like Parreno, who we all go to see, for instance, going to his exhibitions, seeing his work on a giant scale – it’s impressive. I guess it’s less of a story the way it used to be. Maybe it was a bit more literal before, which can also be nice. We’ll see.
Kevin: To be continued…