Who is Vava Dudu, the fashion pioneer who wanted to stay free?<

Vava Dudu, an icon against the grain

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As soon as we enter the exhibition, a two-headed perfecto welcomes us behind a grid: three collars are cut out of this black leather jacket and a polystyrene head emerges from each side, leaving its center of threading empty “ classic”. In the middle of his sleeves, and not at their end as one might have imagined, are fixed two large white gloves whose index finger evokes, adorned with an eye and hair, the profile of a unicorn. A strange creature, even the guardian of a temple, this first anthropomorphic piece confirms it: Vava Dudu is an out-of-the-box designer who, like a magician, infuses clothing with its potential for incarnation. From the 1990s, her view of the body, expressed by her first accessories and jewellery, distinguished her in the landscape of a calmer, even high fashion, to the point of seducing Jean-Paul Gaultier: in 1997, the French designer invited her to imagine the beaded corsets from her first haute couture collection, when the young woman was just launching her label with her friend Fabrice Lorrain. From then on, Vava Dudu asserted herself as a true pioneer while following her instinct: in 2001, she won the ANDAM prize, passing after Martin Margiela, Viktor&Rolf or Jeremy Scott. Fourteen years before the Vetements label organized its fashion show in the backrooms of a Parisian gay sex club in 2015, the designer had the first idea and organized hers at the Docks, rue Saint-Maur. More than a decade before the mix between couture and streetwear became the prerogative of designers like Virgil Abloh, Demna Gvasalia or Matthew Williams, Vava Dudu spearheaded it, borrowing creativity from the street as much as from the club. and the energy of their silhouettes to marry him to his love of the handmade, from embroidery and stitching to textile painting. The one who confided to the microphone of Arte “preferring the extremes to the middle” even seduces artists like Björk or Lady Gaga, for whom she signed in 2009 the graffiti trench coat worn in the Bad Romance clip.

Numerous and eclectic, Vava Dudu's obsessions constitute her style. Bombers and biker jackets, flashy colors, daring mixes of contrasting prints, asymmetry or even mismatched shoes… so many aesthetic fads that she shares with the mother of punk fashion, Vivienne Westwood, whose irreverent creativity has inspired her since her adolescence and of which she claims to be the heir. At the Hôtel Ragueneau, an entire room of the exhibition is devoted to an accessory particularly appreciated by the designer: the thigh-high boots. Red, silver, black or with colored checks, studded, with Velcro or laces, the models rain down in front of the shiny or scarlet backgrounds of the room like flying beings, all painted and scribbled directly by the artist, who wears them from elsewhere regularly. Throughout the rooms of the exhibition, the 50-year-old disseminates several fragments of herself, like a wig in multicolored braids, placed below this shoe “mobile” like the mirror of her own current hair. The more Vava Dudu progresses in her life and in her art, the more she flourishes at her own pace, obeying nothing but herself – and especially not the clothing industry. At a time of widespread ecological awareness in all houses and labels, unfortunately often coupled with greenwashing, the 50-year-old customizes many existing pieces, spends hours gleaning second-hand clothes and textiles, constantly produces but not in fixed quantities or by collections, only sells its creations to order or in very specific boutiques… so many choices that it adopted two decades ago and that many designers are trying to imitate today. Some even still call on her, such as the former artistic director of the Courrèges house Yolanda Zobel, who in 2019 commissioned her designs transformed into prints for her pieces.