WWD Series: Emmanuel de Bayser

-What are you most excited about this season?

I’m very excited to go back and see things in real — to touch the fabrics, to go in the showrooms and after all this time of lockdowns everyone was in sweatpants.

People want to not one hundred percent dress up, but just to have a soft chic, which is the way we want to dress today.

-What trends do you expect to take off?

There is not trend — there is everything there, for all types of women, all types of men, also I see some women buying men’s stuff because we have men and womens together — I think it’s very exciting. 

You will always have a guy that wants to be more classic, a guy who likes fashion, a guy who’s younger and wants to wear oversize t-shirts, the other one wants to have a shirt — so it’s even more about individuality and no trends. 

There is a general feeling of how you want to be, a bit more oversize, a bit more comfortable, soft chic — it’s for men and for women. They’ll have a jacket but it’s not going to be a very tight jacket where you can’t breath, but more likely to be a soft jacket, a bit oversized, like a shirt. 

Trends where everyone has to be in black, that’s completely over. Of course we still have a few brands, like Yohji [Yamamoto] or Rick Owens, they can wear black if they want black, but there is colors, prints, oversize, shorts, there is sporty, a little bit more tailoring — there is everything.

-How have you changed the way you select brands?

Since we had a little bit more time to stay in the stores and keep in touch with our sales staff, and to see also our customers—the local customers were all in Berlin so we had time to call them to see what they wanted, so now the way we look at things is even more customer oriented.

[Before] the press was a bit saying ok, that’s going to be the trend, and I see now there is no real trend of the season, it’s very organic, and the customers are very, very much aware of what they want, the way they want to dress.

It’s much more direct and open — no diktat anymore.

We like to have exchange — the same way we have more exchange with the brand we have more exchange with our customers and that’s really exciting.

-How have your shoppers’ priorities shifted?

The customer base is broader, with all types of customers it’s great. 

We can be much more open in the way we buy because the customer is also very much open and educated in fashion and I think more than ever, fashion people love fashion, young people love fashion, it’s just part of their way of life, completely integrated — when they wake up in the morning, they want to choose their look.

They’re very fashion conscious.