EXCLUSIVE: Christelle Kocher Talks Pucci Collaboration and Taking Her Brand Global

PARIS — Christelle Kocher’s Paris-based brand is gaining an Italian accent. Between her collaboration with Emilio Pucci, set to bow in Milan today, and her recent alliance with entrepreneur Renzo Rosso’s fashion group OTB, the French designer is leveraging her connections across the Alps to propel her Koché brand into a new phase of expansion. Hot on the heels of her prestigious ANDAM Grand Prize and collaborations with Nike and Converse last year, she is the first designer to be invited by Pucci to interpret its rich heritage, as part of a new strategy aimed at fostering creativity and innovation at the house, founded in 1947 in Capri. Kocher, known for her guerrilla-style fashion shows melding sportswear influences with couture-inspired techniques, is no stranger to the brand’s history. “I love reading the biographies of designers and I read about the life of Emilio Pucci years ago,” she said in an interview at her design studio, located on a cul-de-sac in the multicultural district of Ménilmontant in Paris. An aristocrat, Olympic skier and air force pilot, Pucci pioneered a lifestyle approach to fashion. “He was a real character, and I think his approach was very modern. His brand was founded on comfortable jersey clothes, which was very

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