Moncler

Moncler is a luxury fashion brand, founded in 1952 by Rene Ramillon and Andre Vincent. The name ‘Moncler’ is an abbreviation of Monestier-de-Clermont, a mountain village near Grenoble, fitting with the brands identity of making outerwear clothing, specifically skiwear. They are now renowned more for their quilted puffer jackets but Moncler originally produced quilted sleeping bags and tents which were designed for extreme weather conditions. Remo Ruffini took over Moncler as the chairman and chief executive in 2003 and has helped establish Moncler as a leading luxury group. Under Ruffini’s leadership the brand has become one of the biggest apparel brands in the world, showing twice yearly at Paris Fashion Week.

Under Ruffini’s creative direction, in 2018 he created the Moncler Genius Project. This project was part of Ruffini’s mission to modernize the brand and making creative collaborations one of its key values. The genius project is all about collaborations so instead of having one creative art director it has multiple creative art directors, each creating their own individual collections. This project incorporates visions from various creatives including Craig Green and Valentino Pierpaolo Piccioli. Split up into 8 fragments, each creative takes the classic Moncler puffer jackets and remakes them in their own style and in doing this Moncler acknowledges the singularity of the customers and the variety of their tastes, tailoring to a wider range of customers.

Richard Quinn

Richard Quinn is one of the designers who is part of the Moncler Genius group. His first debut with the brand was in their third season with his Autumn/Winter 2019 collection at London Fashion Week. Quinns reinterpretation of the Moncler look relied heavily on fifties and sixties shapes and patterns, mainly taking inspiration from vintage ski-wear in the sixties for both collections. He is known for his rich, floral, psychedelic aesthetic which is something he incorporated into the reinterpretation of the outerwear to bring his own style to the brand. In interviews he has cited icons like Twiggy as reference points as well as the mod cons of space age fashion, looking more at the idea of the future from the sixties and what people predicted it would look like, also referring to Stanley Kubrick's seminal 2001: A Space Odyssey in the set design. In order to recreate this aesthetic he used silhouettes that were inspired by couture gowns and opera skirts but reimagined them into a puffer coat, creating pieces that were either full body gowns or jumpsuits in his iconic floral, rich prints.