I was exiting Centre Pompidou when quite by chance I ran into Giovanni Romano. the commercial for Lucas Meyer-Leclère and the owner of the ITHAKI Showroom in Paris. Giovanni asked me to stop by the ITHAKI the following week and I suggested since we were close to the showroom why not do it now. I was enchanted by the collection of Lucas Meyer-Leclère and a few minutes after I had started looking through the pieces, Lucas passed by and that is how this interview took place.
Lucas Meyer Leclere, aka LML Studio, is a French fashion designer, Haute couturier and although he does not choose to call himself an artist, he certainly is. He was born in Burgundy in Dijon and moved to Saint Martins when he was 17 to study woman’s wear. Then while he was still a student, he got a position at Chanel to create fabrics. He dropped out of school and worked at Chanel for four years. Afterwards he worked for different designers always creating textiles. With Chanel as a reference, fabric mills sponsored him when he when he returned to finish at Central Saint Martins. After school he got a job doing textile accessories for Jimmy Choo. In 2017 he moved to Berlin to focus on art, boys, and fashion. In summers he is working in his atelier in St. Mary’s Church close to Alexanderplatz, in the winter, since there is no heating, he sets up in gallery spaces.
For the time being Lucas considers his brand quite confidential as he only works on existing pieces that he alters and/or paints on. One of the many benefits from working at Chanel was that Karl Lagerfeld generously gave him clothes from Chanel, suits from Dior and prototypes from Berluti. “It is interesting to have a ‘flou’ aspect on something tailored.” He prefers the term ‘re-tailored’ to upcycling as he compares upcycling to putting a fifth wheel on a skateboard. His work is a reflection on the construction of a garment and the textiles. Sustainability is not usually a word used when talking about luxury however by intervening on luxury garments with an artisanal touch and the savoir-faire of haute couture, Lucas feels that he is helping the big Houses with sustainability.
In contrast to what we usually think about with the construction of a couture piece, the hidden details that give the garments their structure, Lucas’ pieces deconstruct the garments and strip them of their inners. Horsehair interfacing is ripped out. Funnily enough by doing this ‘striptease’ the focus is then on the actual structure. He laughs when he thinks of the look of horror that would most likely appear on the faces of the best tailors on Saville Row. In the end what remains is the skeleton and the fine hand stitching.
Back when he was 11, he was already deconstructing and re-constructing old costumes and clothes of his brother. “The idea is to make clothes that are exciting and rich but not necessarily conservative.’ By reacting to existing pieces, he feels he can be far more creative. “The collection doesn’t have a theme; it is a growing ‘corpus’ with things that excite me and resonate with me.”
As for technique he does not want the garments to be like canvases or drawings he does on paper. First, he paints on a support then applies the paint to fabric by smudging it on. He worked for a mill in Italy and knows how to make things on a screen and repeat them while still managing to keep them unique. He wants his clients to be pleased, happy and inspired.
The collection is designed for “men who want and women who like and vice versa and non-binary people that feel like dressing up. All the pieces are washable because he cannot see the point of dry cleaning a white shirt with paint on it. He also laughingly says he makes pieces that are meant to be worn, danced in, lived in, and gotten dirty. And the good thing is if you spill tomato sauce on a shirt no one is going to see the difference.
Diane Pernet
Credits for Mr Lucas Leclère
Photographer : Wolfgang Amadeo @wolfgangamadeo
Models : Eugene Omondi @eugene.omondii
Lucas Rowing @lucas.pgd
Luc Bruyère @lucky__love__
