At the end of Thursday, Première Vision Paris, Fashion fair, revealed Florence Rousson, managing director of the fashion division of the GL Event trade fair organizer, the name of the new unit that combines all fashion measurements of the company: The Creative Pole.
With her taking office as CEO of Première Vision, Rousson initiated profound changes in the management of the events organized by GL Events, which include Première Vision, Tranoï and Fashion Source. After completing certain partnerships and a realignment of the PR, the time has now come to show new strategic directions.
Première Vision opens for Beauty
The February edition of the Première Vision, which was dedicated to the spring/summer collections in 2026, emphasized the craft in a special way. In the inspiration forum, the work of selected artisans and artisans were presented together with the exhibitors of the “Exceptional materials” area. In addition, the trends of the season could be seen there.
The Atelier Soy Como Soy, based in Germany, invited to rediscover the Swiss art of straw tank. The Freiamt region in the canton of Aargau is known for its unique wicker work, which has been reinterpreted by the hat maker Christiane Englsberger. It supplemented traditional techniques for innovative approaches, which corresponded to her works in a special way with the substances shown in the inspiration forum.
Focus on craft
Another example was Mathilde Héron’s works. The young French woman, finalist of the Festival de Hyères 2023, reinterprets traditional weaving techniques with an environmentally conscious approach by using dormant materials, convinces that “ethics can be compatible with prestige and luxury when choosing materials”.
For the February edition 2025 Première Vision commissioned the young artist with the design of an installation that illustrates the ‘Re-Fresh trend’ of the FS26 season. “Re-Fresh stands for the desire to refresh the mind, just as you update a page on the Internet,” explains Lucie Jeannot, fashion project manager (PV), to fashionunited. “But it is also the need for cooling that is imposed on climate change. The picture of the season is much icy and less carefree. It tends to more bluish landscapes than the topic of the beach and tropics. “
Mathilde Héron expresses her wish to refresh the existing textile heritage through exclusive and sometimes monumental works.
In addition, various lectures in the program underlined the request of the fair. “We didn’t talk about craft a few years ago,” says Jean-Pierre Blanc, founder of the Festival de Hyères, during the lecture ‘The new creative registers of the craft’. “But ecological responsibility put it in the spotlight and designer: Inside, prompted to deal with it.”
“We often talk about our products, little about our history,” adds Adeline Sapin, creative director of Solstis embroidery. Nevertheless, she admits that this craft is largely thanks to the “big fashion houses”, which for some of their history Craftsmanship have built up while generally known that their economic reality is based on other sectors such as perfumes and leather goods.
The new creative pole wants to go into the needs of global brands
Exactly on this economic reality and the resulting needs, the new strategy of GL Events was based on its creative pole. “Behind this idea of the craft is the desire to show outstanding professions that wear our creative industries. At the same time, there is a logic to appreciate expertise that goes beyond the craft and offering solutions for fashion brands that are looking for new growth opportunities, ”explained Florence Rousson.
The first examined business solution was the Beauty area. “The idea was to work this beauty concept around inspiration forums based on the fact that our core business is the color. The concept of the pigment is in the color, which can inspire a line of lipsticks or nail polish. ”
Did that mean that the fair would open to other sectors than textiles? “No,” clarified the managing director. “We won’t be a cosmetic fair, but we could welcome some White label companies. It was about putting the fashion company at the center of the considerations, thinking newly and specifying our offer in terms of fabrics, but also leather goods, shoes and beauty. We wanted to create presentation and community areas to make the fair more lively. ”
Another development approach that GL Events suggested was the use of a database with 440,000 names. “We wanted to identify topics based on the needs of companies – what data do you lack? What do you need? – and with partners: work inside to organize surveys and create annual reports. ”
Smart Creations: The sector in the upswing
Although the decision to focus on the craft was useful, Première Vision was not allowed to be reduced to this niche market. The proof of this was the start-ups that flourished in the area of smart creations. Here the offer concentrated on Deadstock – a sector that was now an integral part of the fair – and on new materials.
An example of this was Pelinova, developed by Recyc Leather. This material combined remaining pieces made of recycled leather with Tencel fibers from the Austrian company Lenzing and was covered with a thin layer of ten percent polyurethane. It offered the double advantage of being both environmentally friendly and more animal -friendly, since no new animals were used for its production.
As a highly topical topic, Première Vision launched start-ups that developed solutions with artificial intelligence. From assistants for the creation of collections such as Refabric to new trend research companies that were based on data from social media, such as Heuritech, to companies such as Greenly, the brands helped to calculate their CO₂ footprint-it was very likely that this was very likely Start-ups would inspire the new generation of fashion designers.
Above all, those who were not afraid of AI, because “it is the future” – a sentence that was so often heard that he could not be attributed to any person. It was obvious that the know-how of these “3.0 engineers” could one day be the focus of a future edition of Première Vision. But that was a different story.
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