Hot off the back of his SS16 collection, founder and designer of sportswear label Pigalle Stéphane Ashpool has landed this year’s ANDAM Grand Prix award, the prestigious French fashion prize. The award consists of a €250,000 grant, €10,000 of Swarovski crystals, and promise of mentorship from Chanel’s President of Fashion Bruno Pavlovsky. When asked how he was going to spend his grant, the designer told Style.com, “I’m going to invest in a proper in-house atelier from which to design, create, communicate, and sell. What you’d call in the past a maison couture, but with a new flavour.”
Ashpool’s SS16 collection, unveiled over Menswear in Paris, embodied an amalgamation of Baudelaire’s brand of 19th-century dandy, 50s Jamaican rudeboys and a present-day basketball player. Modelled by the 12-to-14-year-old boys in the basketball team the designer coaches, the cut of the clothes bore reference to the sport – basketball shorts and vests, oversized shirts and jackets. The off-white fabric was flecked, Pollock-like, with paint. Then there was the mohair – as if Ashpool had taken Kangol's iconic cap, favoured by 80s hip-hop artists and their fans, and created a wardrobe from it, from baby blue berets to button-less cardigans. All in all, it was an ode to the Pigalle Duperré basketball court and the youth that inhabit it.
Check out an exclusive film from Pigalle’s SS16 show below and head here to see the brand's capsule collection for Nike.
