EXCLUSIVE: AZ Factory Welcomes Thebe Magugu as First ‘Amigo’
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Fulfilling Alber Elbaz’s dream of a new kind of fashion company with arms open to like-minded creativity, AZ Factory has unveiled a go-forward strategy based on serial guest talents and freewheeling projects.
Unveiling the plan exclusively to WWD, the company said South African designer Thebe Magugu would be its first “amigo” to design a “product story” for the brand. It is to be unveiled in late March or early April to the trade, with his first product drop landing in June on the AZ Factory online store, Net-a-porter, Farfetch and select wholesale partners.
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“It’s not about collaborations. It’s about real creative partners who believe in the founder’s vision and spirit,” said Philippe Fortunato, chief executive officer of Fashion & Accessories Maisons at Compagnie Financiere Richemont, which established AZ Factory as a joint venture with Elbaz in 2019.
Fortunato explained that the intention is to invite talents with great ideas, and ones who need “support and help” at a critical juncture in their careers, analogous in some ways to fashion prizes, only offering an entire ecosystem — a design studio, atelier, marketing muscle and communications channels — and not only cash and mentoring.
“We want to make sure that whomever we invite has great talent, is fully embracing the vision that Alber has set, along with the values… and who will use all the facilities that we have internally to make sure that that product is unique and different, but very much in line with the creative motto of the person and AZ Factory,” he said. “We are really bringing education to the young designers we will be nurturing and developing further.”
He noted that “when Thebe came here, he became part of the team.”
Fortunato, who was joined in the interview by his strategic adviser Mauro Grimaldi, noted that its first project is described as Thebe Magugu “with” AZ Factory rather than “for” AZ Factory, a subtle but vital distinction for someone like Ebaz, who chose his words very carefully and mapped out a brand manifesto based on “smart fashion that cares” and “beautiful, fun, practical and solutions-driven” clothes and accessories.
These phrases appear in an unorthodox press release AZ Factory is to dispatch as early as Friday, describing “a collective laboratory and factory, a place that nurtures creativity, emotion and playful storytelling around core values of love, trust, and respect.”
Magugu never met Elbaz, who died at age 59 in April 2021 of COVID-19, but was selected by AZ Factory to be among the 44 designers who created Elbaz-inspired looks for the “Love Brings Love” tribute show staged during Paris Fashion Week last October, and now the subject of an exhibition opening Saturday at the Palais Galliera in Paris.
In a happy coincidence which seemed to confirm the soundness of its choice for a first “amigo,” the Palais Galliera museum, unaware of AZ Factory’s strategy, chose Magugu’s outfit from the tribute show — a white dress, sashed in blue and set off with a dramatic feathered hat — for the promotional posters and other key visuals.
Giovanni Giannoni/WWD
Serendipity seems to abound at AZ Factory. Out of the blue, the Design Museum Holon — located in the Israeli city where Elbaz is buried and his family is based — recently rang AZ Factory with an invitation to host the “Love Brings Love” exhibition next. It is to open in the Ron Arad-designed institution in September.
Asked about timelines and the frequency of new guest amigos at AZ Factory, Fortunato described an open-ended process, suggesting that incoming talents could bring projects connected to fabric innovation, entertainment or technology.
“It’s really open to many options, and trades, or crafts, or guilds in our industries, the first one is a designer, but it’s open to everything,” he said. “We already have three or four concrete projects in the bag. Mauro has been extremely active since he arrived, and that was his brief. We wanted the collective work to be nourished.”
He declined to identify the upcoming projects, reverting to Elbaz’s vision of resetting the way fashion operates by experimenting and trying new things.
AZ Factory unveiled its first fashions, centered around smart fabrics, in January 2021 alongside a business model hinged on projects rather than collections, and with storytelling, problem-solving and entertainment embedded in design, distribution and communications.
Magugu rose to prominence in 2019 as the first African designer to win the LVMH Prize for Young Designers, and has presented his collections during Paris Fashion Week since February 2020.
SEE ALSO:
Alber Elbaz Pivots to Tech, Fashion Entertainment
All the Looks from AZ Factory Tribute Show to Alber Elbaz
Alber Elbaz Tribute Show to Get Museum Treatment
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