Première Vision: Desolina Suter

Desolina Suter has spent her career between France and Italy, at the forefront of the fashion and textile industry. A graduate of the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs in Paris and founder of Uragano Studio, a creative direction agency based in Milan, she took over as Fashion Director of Première Vision in January 2021. Suter anticipates tomorrow's trends, materials, and consumer habits, with an increasing focus on sustainability.

“I wrote a letter to Mr. Armani.”

Suter is a pioneering spirit. A graduate of the Arts Décoratifs in Paris, she began her career in the world of home furnishings at Habitat. Still keeping one foot in France and the other in Italy, her passion for design and creation led her to contact a legend, Giorgio Armani. “I wrote a letter to Mr. Armani to launch the Home range.” She stayed with Armani for almost five years, the line was launched, and shops opened all over the world. This led to her establishing her own Milan-based agency, Uragano Studio, dedicated to fashion, home and decoration. She then met Première Vision and became fashion correspondent for Italy.

“Trends are a lot of information and tiny bits of intuition, not something you simply make up.”

Her role as fashion correspondent for Italy for nearly 15 years enabled her to gather information from players of the Italian market, feeding into the Première Vision international workshop. Première Vision is a key player in the textile industry, bringing together fabric manufacturers, industrialists, and designers. With over 1,300 exhibitors each season, its choice of materials is based on an extraordinary process of coordination.

At Première Vision, Suter and her team work ahead of the show to anticipate market needs. They coordinate seasonal themes and develop new communication channels to better target how information reaches the wider world. Fashion spokespeople from every country (Spain, Germany, Italy, etc.) gather information, trends and innovations. They then sit around the table to analyse the similarities, the links and differences between the different cultures ahead of the next showroom.

"Fabric is a medium that involves so many hands and so much expertise." 

Suter insists on the importance of "telling new stories and proposing alternative means of consumption to lead people towards other modes."  Première Vision creates a real synergy between exhibitors, encouraging collaboration and mutual enrichment. She emphasises the importance of this collaborative approach: “Fabric is a medium on which there are so many hands working, from choosing the yarns to spinning, weaving and finishing. It's a complex process that requires harmonious cooperation.”

“Many efforts are being made towards sustainability, with new and alternative fabrics.”

The fashion industry is evolving with an increasing focus on sustainability and the search for alternative materials. “There's always innovation at each edition,” says Suter. We're seeing more and more use of alternative fibres and natural materials. A space for unused stock has also been thought up, so that everyone can serve themselves. “Each exhibitor will be able to provide young brands and designers with leftovers from their collections.” Ecology is integrated into the creativity of the collections; it's all about being aware of a global approach "that doesn't prevent any highly creative approach to the collections.”  

Première Vision, more than just a trade show, promotes collections, creates synergies between industry players, and helps to shape the future of fashion and textiles. Suter embodies this vision thanks to a career dedicated to exploring the avant-garde and anticipating tomorrow's trends.