The 1990s Are Back — and So Is Martine Sitbon
After French entrepreneurs Arik and Laurent Bitton sold their fashion chain Iro in 2019, they began brainstorming their next business.
At the top of their dream list of possibilities was working with Martine Sitbon, a fashion hero of the 1990s, their formative style decade, and Laurent Bitton mentioned this wish casually to Iro’s longtime financial adviser.
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Turns out there were fewer than six degrees of separation: Said adviser also worked for the brother of Sitbon’s partner, Marc Ascoli, and so the parties connected quickly.
Sitbon confessed she was not actively looking to return to fashion, partly because she had long ago lost the rights to her name, but she agreed to meet the Bittons straight away.
“I found their approach very interesting,” Sitbon related, expressing admiration for the “high contemporary” positioning of the Iro chain, and their idea to position Sitbon’s latest comeback, dubbed Rev, at the accessible end of the designer spectrum.
“I never imagined we could arrive at such prices with such quality,” she marveled in an interview.
Sitbon collaborated closely with Arik Bitton on the debut fall 2023 collection, jointly selecting archival styles from the late ’90s to reinterpret for today, including dresses and tops with dolman sleeves. Yet she also allowed the brothers to put their own spin on her design ethos and it skews a little bit dressier and a shade sexier.
“I found it interesting to let them pursue their vision,” Sitbon said in the design office in Paris she shares with Ascoli, a prominent art director and executive creative director of Harper’s Bazaar Italia. “They worked in a way to make everything timeless.…When you see the clothes, they don’t seem retro.”
Indeed, Sitbon herself was open about being inspired by the 1930s and occasionally the ’70s, but was also adept at blurring any time stamp.
She paraded 30 looks in a black-curtained space under a glass-roof rotunda reminiscent of a mirror ball. Were it a nightclub, the girls dressed in Rev — with their lanky hair, colored hose, shiny heels and delicate, slightly off-kilter clothes — would turn the most heads.
Sitbon fans will recognize the fluttering sleeves, the falling-off-the-shoulder cuts, the burnout velvets and the intricate metallic embroideries. There was also terrific tailoring to leave at the coat check: handsome woolen coats and mannish blazers in soigné fabrics.
To be sure, the designer brought her vast experience to the Rev project, including an appreciation for fine fabrics and an exacting approach to cut, calibrating clothes to fit well while telegraphing a cool attitude.
Having done collections on and off since 1986 under her own name and the Rue du Mail label, Sitbon is best known for her graphic prints and a style that blends rock ’n’ roll with feminine romance. She also famously designed for Chloé from 1987 to 1992, and later briefly for Byblos.
Many of the models from the ’90s, who incarnated Sitbon’s collections, are also having a renaissance, including the likes of Shalom Harlow and Amy Wasson.
“Martine was really the reference in that period,” Laurent Bitton said in an interview at Rev’s sleek Milan showroom, designed by British architect John Pawson. And he said she continues to “drink in what’s happening with current generations.”
“She’s very authentic. She’s very approachable. She’s very focused. She’s open and she listens,” he said.
Bitton settled on the name Rev because “rêves in French means ‘dreams,'” he said. But it’s also open to interpretation, which is why there’s an underscore after the “v” to let consumers fill in the blanks: revival, revolution, revenge. Or why not revving up?
Produced entirely in Europe, about 40 percent in Italy, the collection is priced a shade under designer opening prices, with dresses in a Japanese crepe starting at 650 euros and leather jackets running up to 2,900 euros, and an average price around 800 to 900 euros. The debut collection includes select shoe, handbag and jewelry styles.
Bitton said he and Sitbon are planning two collections a year, with distribution via an in-house e-store, with preorders starting right after fashion week, plus wholesale accounts. The executive flagged immediate interest from the likes of Dover Street Market, Antonioli and Maxfield.
He said he could eventually envision retail stores for Rev in key fashion capitals, perhaps in a couple of years.
The Bitton brothers founded Iro in 2004 and went on to open stores in capitals including Paris, London, New York, Madrid, Rome and Copenhagen.
Launch Gallery: Rev by Martine Sitbon RTW Fall 2023
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