Designer wants to shed Paris garment district stigma

Accessories from the Paul & Joe spring 2001 collection. Paul & Joe designer Sophie Albou has boutiques in London, Paris, St. Tropez and Sydney, and is looking for a New York location

By Ruth Benoit
Fashion Wire Daily

PARIS, France (FASHION WIRE DAILY) -- Everyone's talking about Paul & Joe, everyone that is, except the French.

The stores have become a must-stop for the British fashion pack, whose editors flock to Paul & Joe's two Paris boutiques during the French collections for the company's latest styles.

British Vogue, ID and The Face have all raved about the collection created by Sophie Albou, Paul & Joe's designer and founder.

But, so far, the snooty French media have shied away from Paul & Joe, even though happening clients like Kristin Scott Thomas, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Ines de la Fressange have been regular clients.

Albou first launched her menswear collection in 1995, before adding women's fashions a year later. But it is the latter that's really taken off, and now she even has boutiques in St. Tropez, London and Sydney. Next up is New York.

An outfit from the spring collection. After just five years, Paul & Joe has nearly $10 million in clothing sales worldwide

On a recent trip to the Big Apple, where she shot the winter ad campaign with photographer Terry Richardson, Albou spent her spare time trying to nail down a lease on a SoHo boutique.

"In the end, it was going to be too expensive, but it got my adrenaline going, and I know my style is right for New York," Albou says.

She should know. Retail volume has been high at Barneys, Neiman Marcus and Scoop, where Paul & Joe make up to three deliveries per season.

Tweed dresses with frilled edges and loud, printed-silk shirts were standouts for winter, while retro-printed shirts with bat-wing sleeves and oversized houndstooth-pattern dresses looked great for spring. And now, after just five years, Paul & Joe sells nearly $10 million in clothing worldwide.

Albou's first job, at age 16, was with Alaia, where she was part of the Azzedine "family." She participated in the daily ritual of cooking lunch and eating around the large wooden table with supermodels or whoever happened to be in the atelier.

She joined her own family business in 1988 as a designer for her parents' specialist shirt company, "Le Garage." After seven years, during which she gave birth to her two sons, Paul and Joe (hence the name of the company), she branched out on her own.

Attention to detail, like the use of ribbons to hide stitching on the inside of a garment, is evident in Paul & Joe fashions

A well-toned, 33-year-old blonde, Albou is refreshingly unpretentious. Her native French is heavy with garmento slang, a dead giveaway that she was born and bred in the bowels of the Paris rag trade district known as the Sentier.

Full of second-generation North African immigrants, the Sentier is cluttered with barrow boys rolling rails of clothing from back-room ateliers to vans. Today, Albou's biggest challenge is trying to shed the stigma of being associated with the Paris garment district.

French fashion critics loathe the Sentier. They complain about copying and poor quality, and distance themselves from the district by dismissing any company with a Sentier connection.

"It's very frustrating for me to be so successful abroad and to be totally ignored here in my home," says Albou, referring to the skimpy French press coverage.

Searching for credibility, she uses quality fabrics, paying attention to details like ribbons that hide stitching on the inside.

But Paul & Joe will need more than well-made trendy clothes to tap into the precious and often prejudiced French fashion establishment.

And Sophie has a plan. She's arming herself with edgy ad campaigns, using top photographers and models to portray the company's image. For fall, Paul & Joe will advertise for the first time in hip local titles like Mixte and Spoon as well as Vogue, ID and The Face in Britain.

If she cracks the French fashion elite, it would be something of a first for a brand to emerge from the Sentier. Only then will Sophie feel she's really made it -- at home.

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