In Conversation With...Armand Hadida | Modem Mag

M. Armand Hadida, Creative Director of Tranoï and Founder of L’Eclaireur, discusses the evolution of Tranoï and menswear as the future of fashion, prior to the trade-shows’ first edition in New York.

Modem: Tranoï has already conquered Paris with six trade-shows per year. Why did you decide to launch an additional one in New York?
Armand Hadida:We have to live in the here and now. Time goes by very fast and we have duties: not only duties towards our exhibitors at Tranoï, but also a duty towards ourselves — the duty to evolve. We need to push boundaries, and to give our exhibitors the opportunity to have an international visibility outside of Europe, in markets that are still promising. This is of course means that we have to take into account additional costs, but it’s important for us to make this effort, and to thereby follow the industry’s ongoing evolution. I always like to say that the crisis doesn’t exist on its own, it is the backwardness that creates the crisis, and being late is precisely what damages the economy of our fashion industry; design and distribution included.

Modem: What can we expect for Tranoï’s first New York edition, in terms of artistic direction?
Armand Hadida: The artistic direction of Tranoï New York goes hand in hand with our DNA, it is a continuity of what we have already done in the past, and what we represent in Paris, which is giving an intimate feeling to the trade-show format, with an equally human and professional dimension. We want to exhibit a wide range of products, not collections or trends. Buyers today — and I’m speaking of my own experience — are looking for outstanding products, not just for a multitude of collections.

Modem: What makes Tranoï New York different from the other trade-shows in the city?
Armand Hadida: Tranoï has an identity of its own, and is therefore completely different from other trade-shows in the US, which are focused on masses, with a quite diluted artistic direction. We want to put our our buyers at ease by offering a lighter, clearer and more convenient work atmosphere at Tranoï. We have therefore exported our work tools from Paris to New York, furniture included, in order to provide our exhibitors and buyers in New York with the same high quality work conditions than in Paris. Again, this way of working requires more efforts, but its our duty and we will respect it.

Modem: What are the current challenges of designers who want to make it in the fashion industry nowadays — what would you recommend to a brand showcasing at Tranoï?
Armand Hadida: They have to think and produce differently, to channel their energies, and do adapt to the industry’s full-speed evolution, by allowing buyers to divide their annual budget by 4 instead of 2, in order to boost the offer in their shops — all these elements are essential business techniques, a designer cannot survive without them anymore. In this sense, we want to help our exhibitors to understand the industry’s new rules and to adapt to this new dynamics. This is why we created Tranoï Preview in the first place, to support people who have already understood this great change.

Modem: Tranoï Homme just finished its January edition. How do you see the current evolution of menswear within the fashion industry, in comparison to womenswear?
Armand Hadida: I’m convinced that menswear will remain the fastest growing market — and I’ve been saying this for over 25 years already. The menswear market is still a blank page, it needs to be explored. Womenswear is already saturated and an endless repetition of former trends, while menswear still needs to find its expression— there is a creativity to it, that is very new and fresh. We must enrich this creativity and invent new forms to express ourselves.

Tranoï New York is taking place from February 21st to 23rd, at The Tunnel, New York.

More information on: www.tranoi.com