Olivier Theyskens

Olivier Theyskens (born January 4, 1977 in Brussels ) is a Belgian fashion designer .

Life

Theyskens tells of himself that he wanted to become a fashion designer when he was seven and began studying at the École nationale supérieure des arts visuels in Brussels when he was 18 . However, he gave up his studies after two years and instead launched his own fashion brand in Paris in 1997. He did not want to sell the first designs that had been tailored from his grandmother's collected sheets and that picked up on influences from the Gothic scene. However, the singer Madonna had become aware of Theyskens and wore a dark evening dress from his collection on the occasion of the Academy Awards in March 1998 and a canary yellow ball gown to the VH1 Fashion Awards in October of the same year , which brought Theyskens immense publicity.

Until 2001, Theyskens, who had little interest in the commercial side of the fashion business, created collections under his own name and showed them at the Paris Fashion Weeks. Then he lost - also in the wake of the economic downturn after 9/11 - the financial support of a French investor and had to close his company in early 2002. For a short time he created theatrical costumes for the Brussels Opera House .

Theyskens worked as chief designer for Rochas women's fashion in Paris from 2002 to 2006 , after Rochas was looking for a designer who would rejuvenate the collections. In 2006 he received the International Award from the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) for his work at Rochas . The designs, which were highly praised by the professional world , were not particularly successful commercially, partly due to extremely high sales prices due to haute couture- like processing. Therefore the owner of Rochas, Procter & Gamble , ended the collaboration with Theyskens in 2006 and closed the Rochas fashion division.

In November 2006, Theyskens moved to the French fashion company Nina Ricci , where he worked as chief designer until 2009. Here, too, the press praised his designs; however, there was no significant increase in sales. In March 2009 Theyskens was released early by the owner of Nina Ricci, the Spanish perfume and fashion group Puig. Critics accused Theyskens of focusing too much on high-quality and therefore high-priced details in his fashion and that he had little interest in commercially profitable items such as accessories .

In 2010, the CEO of the US-Japanese fashion company Theory Theyskens invited to a collaboration collection for women called Theyskens's Theory . The collection turned out to be so successful that Theyskens was hired by Theory in November 2011 as artistic director for the entire women's and men's collections by Theory and as chief designer of Theyskens's Theory women's line. In June 2014 Theyskens left his job at Theory.

In 2011 the CFDA accepted Theyskens into its ranks.

At the end of 2014, Theyskens began rebuilding his own fashion company. In September 2016, he presented his first women's collection since 2001 under his own name at Paris Fashion Week .

Prizes and awards (selection)

• 2006: International Award from the Council of Fashion Designers of America

Web links

• Olivier Theyskens website

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Voguepedia: Olivier Theyskens ( Memento of the original from November 25, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , vogue.com, accessed: December 8, 2012 
2. ↑ Designer ABC: Theyskens, Olivier , faz.net, accessed: December 8, 2012
3. ↑ Theyskens becomes the new Artistic Director of the New York label Theory and takes over the overall responsibility for the design with immediate effect  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , vogue.de, October 26, 2010