BoF VOICES 2024: Global Culture and Creativity

OXFORDSHIRE, United Kingdom — When star designer Alessandro Michele was appointed creative director at Valentino earlier this year, he was reunited with Jacopo Venturini: the brand’s chief executive was formerly chief merchandising officer at Gucci, where he translated Michele’s creative vision into highly saleable product, helping to drive explosive sales growth.

A fruitful partnership between designer and chief executive is critical to the success of a luxury fashion house and the strength of the relationship between Michele and Venturini, who have been friends for almost ten years, was on display when they took the stage Thursday at BoF VOICES 2024. “Our relationship is based on trust and respect,” said Venturini, speaking alongside Michele in a conversation that examined creativity, business and, above all, the importance of freedom.

Creativity Starts with Freedom

“With Alessandro’s enormous creativity, he was the right person to connect the heritage with a new vision at Valentino,” said Venturini, who, along with Michele, sees the house as deeply personal: not a megabrand, but a maison where the spirit of the founder remains strong. “Valentino is a place with a special soul,” said Michele. “You must care about this house, it is a real home.”

Michele’s work can be divisive, however, and the designer not only confronted this but, in one of the conversation’s key points, turned it into a lesson on the importance of freedom to creativity. “I think I polarise the audience in some ways; there are people who hate me in a very strong and aggressive way,” Michele said. “Some people feel aggressive in front of the freedom of someone else … I’m happy with myself because I am free.” Finishing the thought Venturini said Michele’s work embodied “genius creativity that starts with real freedom … He has eyes that open the eyes of someone else.”

Looking ahead to his first-ever haute couture show, traditionally a venue for unfettered fashion expression, Michele said the experience would be like “putting the most exotic plant in my garden.”

Collaborations Build Brands

On founder David Allemann and Skims co-founder Jens Grede spoke about a different sort of collaboration.

For both brands, developing a disruptive, sought-after product was the first step. In On’s case, the founders cut a garden hose to sample the first ‘cloud tech’ shoe sole. For Skims’ shapewear, “We already started developing fabric years before we launched,” said Grede. “It’s all about product and innovation.”

But each brand can attribute a healthy portion of their success to their celebrity partners.

On famously flipped the switch on traditional sports endorsements – rather than pay tennis star Roger Federer to wear their shoes, they invited him to join as a minority investor.

“Roger asked how he can get involved,” recounts Allemann. “I told him we are small and don’t do big endorsements – so why don’t you give us your money?”

Skims, of course, has founder and creative director Kim Kardashian.

“Without Kim’s creative direction we couldn’t have built the brand. Without her social following, we couldn’t have done it in the speed that we did,” said Grede. On Thursday, Grede unveiled a collaboration between Dolce & Gabbana and Skims.

Since their founding, both brands have bolstered their growth through strategic sports partnerships.

“Sports is the new fashion. It’s the big public moment,” said Allemann. “We are so divided now, sports is a great unifying platform,” added Grede.

Addressing IPO rumours, Grede said: “At some point Skims deserves to be a public company. But not right now. Allemann offered the following advice: “Take going public as a stepping stone. Be really close to the needs of consumers.”

Faster, Better Online Shopping

Ruth Diaz, Head of Amazon Fashion Europe, and BoF’s Head of Content Robin Mellery-Pratt spoke about innovating online shopping at the speed of light.

To catch the eye of online shoppers, who have short attention spans and are often multitasking, Diaz outlined how Amazon has featured livestreams – like of the recently revived Victoria’s Secret fashion show – to allow shoppers to purchase products as they are virtually attending shows.

“We amplify the product and at the same time, you can buy and get it into your house,” said Diaz.

“My vision is to offer all customers of all ages whatever they are looking for,” she said. AI, a key topic of this year’s VOICES, was launched on Amazon through their virtual shopping assistant ‘Rufus’. “I asked Rufus, ‘What should I wear to VOICES,’ and he directed me to this preloved Victoria Beckham dress,” said Diaz.

Identity and Otherness

Connection was an underlying theme of English artist Es Devlin’s most recent exhibition, “‘Congregation,” where she displayed portraits of 50 Londoners from immigrant backgrounds inside St. Mary le Strand church in London.

“I wanted to encounter layers of separation between me and others,” said Devlin.

In conversation with Devlin, British writer Ekow Eshun explained how he explores themes of identity through otherness in his recent non-fiction book “The Strangers,” which centres on five black male protagonists, including Malcolm X.

“The book features an intimate portrait of each man. It was originally meant to be a history of hip hop but then I realised, it’s really a book about me,” Eshun said. “I’m more raw after writing this book because I had to open myself up to living, to pain.”

Painting as an Escape

Pakistani-American painter Salman Toor also explores his identity through his art. Toor’s subjects are mainly queer brown men in domestic settings, and though his allegorical scenes are fictional, they are rooted in memories of his childhood in Pakistan, as a gay boy growing up in a conservative household.

“I was frequently bullied. Painting was my way of escaping,” he said.

His New York life inspired a repeat motif in his paintings, which he calls “fag puddles”- piles of laundry, with something fabulous but also exhausted about them. Other favourites in Toor’s paintings are the colour green and costumes. “That’s my connection to fashion,” said Toor, “I always loved silhouettes and pleats.”

Recently, Toor’s work was featured at the Bourse de Commerce in Paris. Though his art has recently fetched as much as $1.5 million at auction, he said his success came only in the last few years of a 20-year career as a painter.

“Success came suddenly,” he said. It’s also not inevitable; in addition to displaying two acclaimed paintings on the VOICES stage, he showed what he described as a failed work currently stashed against a wall in his apartment. “I paint spontaneously – whatever comes out of my mind. Sometimes it’s magical, sometimes it’s a disaster”

Luxury Interiors Through Selective Access

“Why is design the new luxury?” Jesse Lee, founder of Basic Space and Design Miami, a design fair and online marketplace, asked Benjamin Paulin, founder of interior design and furniture company Paulin, Paulin, Paulin.

Lee described fashion as overly commoditised; items and brands that were once difficult to find are now easily discovered and purchased online. Paulin’s furniture and design work isn’t so easily obtained.

“Nowadays everybody can buy luxury. In our case luxury is about access, we have no retailer or wholesaler. We work like a gallery. We need to be sure where the pieces are going, who is collecting them,” said Paulin.

In-person showrooms and retail experiences are intertwined with luxury. So much, that Paulin’s personal Los Angeles home – where he lives with his wife and daughters – is his showroom.

“We want you to see items in a place where they are actually used and alive,” he said.