Zadig & Voltaire’s “Chic-Destroyed” Fall 2019 Collection Features a Collaboration With the NBA

“Chic-destroyed” is how creative director Cecilia Brönström described her work for Zadig & Voltaire this season. Models stomped hard down the runway at The Tunnel, the iconic New York club-turned-event-space. Their heeled cowboy boots meant business, but their relaxed tuxedos — paired with jeans — suggested a cool nonchalance. These are the fun people at the party, the unstuffy ones who can chat with anyone, dance to anything, and seem to create good vibes all on their own. Michael Jackson was a source of inspiration this season — his smoothness and cool apparent in Brönström’s tailoring — and everything came together when the song “Thriller” came on to close the show.

This season also saw the debut of a collaboration with the NBA. The logos of the Los Angeles Lakers, the Chicago Bulls, and the Memphis Grizzlies were knitted into sweaters and stitched on jackets, elevating sports merch to contemporary fashion. Unlike usual sports fare, Brönström didn’t just slap iconography on a t-shirt. Instead emblems were integrated into the wares, including a particularly interesting sweater that featured the Lakers logo disrupted by dangling threads.

The DAILY caught up with Brönström after the show to find out more about the collection.

How did music influence your show this season?
We have an image of being rock, but it’s not because we have a guitar in our hand and are dressed only in black. We rock because women are really free to be who they are. We wear color at Zadig, and we have a cool attitude towards life. Personally, my taste has always been pop, and now rhythm and soul, and Michael Jackson. I love Michael Jackson. It’s the kind of music that makes you want to dance and be happy. He was on my moodboard starting this collection…images of him wearing sequin sweaters and bow ties and beautiful black trousers. I needed that music because it was about him, [but] maybe not from the beginning, because it shouldn’t be a first degree [reference]. We started with another song called “I Feel Lighter”…I needed a song to give a groovy, cool feeling to the girls. But Michael Jackson and “Thriller” — without the voice, just the sound — was so important to me.

Tell me about adding in elements like the cowboy boots and the slip-dresses with the tuxedos!
It’s really, very strong DNA of Zadig, the silk, laces dresses, and the tuxedos. The cowboy boots you saw today are an ancient model called “Cara” boots. We made them higher and worked on the leather and the embellishment with the sequins to give a stronger look. I really wanted to what is the Zadig and Voltaire woman about. It’s masculine and feminine. It’s chic-and-destroy. I do tailoring, extremely sharp with Italian wool and straight lines. And the lace is so soft, and feminine. These fabrics, and collisions of masculine and feminine identity is very important when I create a collection.

This is such an iconic venue. What is your experience with clubbing?
Oh yeah! I started when I was 16 in Paris! I was a model shooting with Oliviero Toscani the next morning at 7 after dancing at Bains-Douches all night. But as I didn’t drink or smoke, I could do that. Clubbing is amazing and I’ve been going to Montana at boulevard Saint-Germain for a while. Now it just got sold to André Balazs of The Mercer, so I’m not going to go to Montana anymore… we’ll see what will turn that in to. Now I prefer to go to private parties — nightclubs less and less — to have fun with my friends in private parties. Dancing, music is the best Prozac ever.

Tell me more about the NBA collection. Do you watch basketball? Do you have a favorite team?
I don’t have a favorite team. I admire when you become to excellent in something, so having that ball glued to your hand and dribbling, I’m so impressed by these guys. I love fashion, but I am so a fan of sports. Any sport, actually. It’s just an organic meeting between the NBA teams and my team. They gave me the vision to express myself, what is my vision of sportswear and the sports world and to express that in a much more sophisticated way… It was very fun and important to mix fashions with the sports world. We’re going to do a second collaboration for next season, so I can’t wait to go back to Paris in the studio and try to work even further on these emblems.

Are you athletic and competitive?
I am not competitive, but I’m very athletic. This morning I went to my pilates class, and I do a lot of sports in Paris. I need to feel that I’m in good shape. I think it’s very important because I want to wear clothes — I love clothes. And when you feel great with your body, you love clothes even more. It’s linked. But I’m not competitive, I never compare myself to other people.

See the rest of the Fall 2019 collection below.

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