Paris Fashion Week Unveils Two Rising Labels Championing Memory and Sustainability

Paris Fashion Week Homme, held at the Palais de Tokyo from January 21st to 25th, saw the Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode (FHCM)'s Sphere showroom expand its roster of emerging talent. This season marks the first time two new labels, Gardouch and Rkivecity, have joined the existing six brands already established within the French capital: C.R.É.O.L.E, Cachí, La Cage, Ouest Paris, and Lazoschmidl.

The selection of Gardouch and Rkivecity highlights their unique and compelling creative visions. Gardouch, a French label founded in 2024 by Rémy Guerra – a Gerrit Rietveld Academie graduate – centers around the powerful concept that memories diminish if not actively preserved. The brand’s name itself is derived from a village in south-west France, grounding it in a sense of place and personal history.

Guerra, a multidisciplinary artist, translates his childhood recollections into collections like "Le loup au fond du couloir" and "Jouer à faire semblant." These collections explore themes that resonate with both youthful innocence and adult reflection. His designs – encompassing colourful hats, tops, dungarees, and even tutus – evoke the playful spirit of a birthday party, blending naïve craftsmanship with anachronistic elements and utilizing deadstock materials. He also explores a more minimalist aesthetic with his "Les ombres" line, stripping away colour to reveal the core essence of each garment.

Alongside Gardouch, Rkivecity brings a distinct focus on sustainability and circularity to the Sphere showroom. Designer Ritwirk Khanna, a Fashion Institute of Technology alumnus, developed his design philosophy through an immersion in material histories, vintage clothing, and archival research. This led him to believe that garments inherently carry the marks of time and past experiences.

Khanna’s experience working on textile waste management projects in Gujarat’s Special Economic Zones in India proved pivotal, revealing the immense scale of overconsumption and prompting a career shift. He subsequently founded Rkivecity in the early 2020s, establishing it as a research and design laboratory dedicated to circular fashion practices. The brand employs traditional techniques like boro and raffoo to create zero-waste remanufacturing systems, repairing, reconstructing, and reinterpreting existing materials to breathe new life into them. Ritwirk Khanna’s commitment to these principles was recognized with the top prize at the R|Elan Circular Design Challenge, a United Nations-supported award recognizing innovation in circular design.