CARVEN APPOINTS SERGE RUFFIEUX AS CREATIVE DIRECTOR
Paris, January 18th, 2017
Carven announces the appointment of Serge Ruffieux as Creative Director of the house, effective February 1st, 2017.
Serge will oversee the Carven women’s ready-to-wear, accessories and footwear collections, showing his first collection for the house during the Resort 2018 season. The Spring/Summer 2018 collection will be revealed on the official schedule during Paris Fashion Week in October 2017.
Serge brings extensive design expertise to the role, including close to a decade spent at Christian Dior as head designer of the women’s ready-to-wear and haute couture studios, and as co-artistic director between 2015 and 2016. His previous role includes time spent as right hand to the late French designer Sonia Rykiel.
Working closely with CEO Sophie de Rougemont, Serge will oversee a new stage of growth and development of the house.
Sophie de Rougemont noted: “It is with great pleasure that I welcome Serge Ruffieux as the new creative director of Carven. His innate sense of modernity married to his impeccable and exacting couture techniques are in absolute synchronicity with Carven’s fabled heritage of Parisian chic and effortless elegance.”
Serge Ruffieux said, “I am thrilled to embrace my new creative role at Carven, feeling a real affinity for Madame Carven and her vision of fashion. I look forward and am very honored to be leading the creative direction of the House as it enters a new chapter.”
About CARVEN
“A Carven collection is like an armful of flowers. All the beautiful, young girls want to bury their nose in it!” –Curzio Malaparte
The house of Carven was established in Paris by Marie-Louise Carven in 1945, beginning its life as a modest, Post-War fashion house catering to the French elite. Born Carmen de Tommaso, the 5’1” designer abandoned her birth name to create her very own Parisian identity, merging her Christian name with that of her aunt Josey Boiriven to create ‘Carven’, despite her distinguished marriage to Philippe Mallet -the younger brother of architect Robert Mallet-Stevens.
Her small stature inspired Madame Carven tocreate a wardrobe for petite ladies that, alongside her deft, feminine hand with the modest textiles of the time like cotton gingham and broderie anglaise, would become key elements in one of the world’s first democratic ready-to-wear wardrobes.
Later, Madame Carven’s adventurous spirit was instrumental in her aesthetic revolution, as exotic textiles such as African wax cloth and Indonesian batik procured on her travels joined more traditional European fabrics like the signature green and white striped cloth made famous by a summery sundress named ‘ma griffe’.
It would become the name of her first perfume. Furthering her pursuit of accessible luxury and democratic design, Madame Carven staged fashion shows throughout France and across the globe. She retired in 1993, but it wasn’t until 2009 that young French designer Guillaume Henry began to revitalise the image of the house, attracting a new global clientele with his return to Carven’s youthful, Parisian allure. A comprehensive archive of Madame Carven’s work is housed by the prestigious Musée Galliera, who celebrated the designer’s life in a retrospective exhibition that same year.
About Serge Ruffieux
Born in 1974, Swiss-Italian fashion designer Serge Ruffieux was educated in Switzerland and receivedhis diploma of fashion design with honours from HEAD Haute Ecole d’Art et de Design, Geneva in 1997. His design experience includes time spent in the ateliers of Christian Dior, Sonia Rykiel and Moschino. Serge lives and works in Paris, France.
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