Azzaro appoints Maxime Simoëns as Creative Director

By

Dominique Muret

Translated by
Nicola Mira

Published
Mar 27, 2017

Azzaro has finally chosen: Maxime Simoëns will be its new Creative Director, a post which was vacant since the departure of Arnaud Maillard and Alvaro Castejón in June 2016. The Parisian fashion label has announced in a press release that the 32 year-old designer has taken immediate control of its couture collections, as well as of the men's and women's ready-to-wear lines and accessories.

"Maxime Simoëns will contribute his new, contemporary vision of the Azzaro style," wrote the label, adding that the designer "will showcase his first collection for Azzaro at the Paris Haute Couture Week in July 2017."
 
This is a crucial appointment for the French label, which is currently going through a relaunch. Azzaro was founded in 1967 by Loris Azzaro and acquired in 2006 by the Andorra-based family office Reig Capital Group. This year Azzaro is celebrating its fiftieth anniversary, and has readied for an October 2017 launch a women's ready-to-wear line, integrating its haute couture and menswear ranges.

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Picking Maxime Simoëns seems the ideal move to breathe new creative inspiration into the label, and install it once more at the forefront of fashion. "The work of Maxime Simoëns resonates subtly with some of Loris Azzaro's signature silhouettes. They share a fascination for graphic fluidity, for sharp, sensual architectural cuts, for contrasting opposites and virtuoso stitching," said the General Manager of Azzaro, Gabriel de Linage, in the press release.

Simoëns graduated in 2006 from the School of the Chambre Syndicale de la Couture Parisienne (the Paris couturiers' union chamber), and worked briefly at Gaultier, Elie Saab, Christian Dior and Balenciaga, before being spotted at the 2008 Hyères Fashion Festival. After that, he decided to launch his own couture label, which first featured on the Paris show calendar in 2011.
 
His design aesthetic emphasises structured, architectural cuts, and is distinctive for its motifs and prints. In 2013 the LVMH group took an interest in Simoëns' work, and acquired a stake in his label. The partnership ended in 2015, and Simoëns decided to terminate his womenswear line. In 2016 he was back on the market with M.X Maxime Simoëns, a men's ready-to-wear line featuring a sporty, contemporary wardrobe.