Show organiser WSN launches emerging label programme with Istituto Marangoni

By

Anaïs Lerévérend

Translated by
Nicola Mira

Published
Sep 5, 2019

French show organiser WSN (which runs the Who's Next - Première Classe shows) is once again talent-spotting for young fashion designers, this time with a slightly different approach. From 2014 to 2017, WSN staged the ‘Future of Fashion Program’, which monitored the evolution of selected designers over several editions of the trade event, to eventually pick a winner. The new formula is instead called ‘Lab Scene’: WSN will select a number of winning applicants and then mentor them for a year, helping them to grow. To implement this approach, WSN has decided to team up with the Istituto Marangoni fashion academy.

WSN will launch its new mentorship programme at the forthcoming edition of the Who’s Next show in Paris (from September 6 to 9). A dedicated website will receive applications from emerging fashion designers whose labels have been launched from between one and seven years ago, with a minimum of two collections to their credit, that are willing to take part in a programme whose objective is to organise and kickstart their commercial development, helped by WSN experts.

The deadline for applications is October 31, and WSN will pick 10 finalists from among the applicants. In December, the shortlist will be whittled down to three names by a jury of industry professionals, composed of Anissa Draa (e-commerce buyer at Le Printemps), Barnabé Hardy (creative director of menswear at Isabel Marant), Guillaume Donsante (of the M Metropolitan agency), Jean-Jacques Picart (former consultant to fashion and luxury brands), Maud Landre (visual merchandiser at Chanel), Olivier Klein (buyer at La Connexion Mode) and Stéphanie Brissay (photoshoot stylist and consultant).

WSN will support the winners for a year, helping them commercialise their collections, while Istituto Marangoni will assist them with facilities like a photography studio, archives and event venues, and will also hold five masterclasses for them, focused on the management strategies of a creative label.

To put the winners’ collections and commercial organisations to the test, they will be invited to take part in two editions of Who's Next, in January and the following September, and to one edition of Première Classe, at the end of September 2020, during Paris Fashion Week.