ADRIEN LEBORGNE
ADRIEN LEBORGNE
Though it’s just an hour’s train ride away from Paris, the industrial city of Lille feels a world away from the French capital. Long associated with the textile industry (today, it is home to Vestiaire Collective and European Centre for Innovative Textiles, plus dozens of clothing factories), its squat, red brick buildings and overcast climate are more reminiscent of the U.K. or Belgium. It was here that creative director and fashion designer Adrien Leborgne spent his formative years. Born to a Guadaloupean father and a French mother in 1990, Leborgne spent his childhood with only his mother and two siblings; his older sister, Jessica, acted as a sort of bonus parent.
“She was really my first mentor,” Leborgne explains. “She was the one who pushed me to go to the United States to achieve my Basketball goals and later to go to London to pursue my fashion design learning.” Growing up, Leborgne’s life revolved around basketball, which he started playing at the age of five, and music, an education that was learned in front of the television on MTV and the debut of Youtube. These two interests molded his aesthetic identity and turned his gaze towards the United States.
“I’m constantly digging for new music, new clothing brand, new design for inspiration.”
“Now streetwear is really popular,” Leborgne says, “but in France at the time, no one was dressing like that.” He was obsessed with basketball legends like Kobe Bryant and Dwayne Wade; Pharrell Williams was also a huge source of inspiration. “Well, I couldn’t afford Pharrell’s clothes but I would dress in the same colors,” he says with a smile. But there was also a hesitation that inhibited his freedom of expression. Like many smaller cities in France, there are racist undertones to life in Lille; experiencing the city as a white person is just not the same for a black or brown person, especially in the mid-aughts. Sporting baggy pants, styling hair in braids or wearing a durag are cultural signifiers that are perceived as “other,” and thus undesirable. “People judge a lot in France,” says Leborgne. It was only after returning from Mississippi (he was playing basketball for a team in Jackson) that he started to feel slightly more free to express himself.
Resolved that he didn’t want to play basketball for his entire life, Leborgne started taking fashion classes at a community training center in Lille. It wasn’t an immediate jump - that same societal judgment haunted him, and it took a while before he felt comfortable making even a small step into the fashion world. The first item of clothing he made was a skirt made from deadstock fabric (“Very simple,” he says with a laugh). He had a knack for sewing - he finished his garment before any of his other classmates - and a passion for making clothes began to grow. After a brief stint at Balmain, he left France for London, where he interned with Vivienne Westwood.
“London was a real explosion for me,” Leborgne says. “The first time I walked down the street in London wearing my clothes I really felt like myself.” If he felt any intimidation in the British giant’s studio, it was quickly dismissed. “I was stressed in the beginning because I was working in haute couture,” he explains, “but they included me in the family right away - and they liked my style.” It was here that a second mentor emerged in his life: a talented colleague in her fifties, Bonny TK, who took Leborgne under her wing and “showed me a way of working that I still use today.” Upon returning to France, he moved to Paris and started working with the Russian label Gosha, owned by Comme des Garcons. Then in 2015, he was introduced to Arthur Kar, the owner of the semi-eponymous L’Art de L’Automobile, a high end car dealership specializing in luxury, vintage, and rare cars.
“Unconditional love is what drives me and I’m finally ready to work with myself and run my life around this concept”
Kar wanted to create a fashion line to go along with his brand’s identity, and turned to Leborgne. “Clothes and cars are two different things - but I’ve had the same approach. I’ve never wanted to buy a car just to have a car, or to buy a piece of clothing because it’s clothing. I wanted it because it spoke to me,” he says. A relationship between the two men quickly bloomed, and Leborgne was swiftly brought into the company’s fold as Creative Director. Although ostensibly in charge of clothing, it was an all-hands-on-deck sort of experience that saw Leborgne working across the young company - a metaphorical crash course in an industry famous for its literal ones.
During his tenure with L’Art de L’Automobile, he oversaw collaborations with Porsche, Carhartt (the collection sold out in under ten minutes), and Solomon. Carhartt was a particularly moving experience for Leborgne. “I used to work in the store in Lille, when I came back from the States and needed to make some money,” he explains. To have gone from a temporary sales clerk to a collaborator in a few short years was both a professional and personal coup. And while he didn’t employ haute couture techniques in streetwear, his clothes often had a tongue-in- cheek nod to the automobile industry: keychains on pants, or little buttons sewn onto tags that resembled the spare tire found in the trunk of a car. Wearing so many hats provided a wealth of experience and knowledge. But Leborgne’s favorite thing has always been the creative process itself: the germination of an idea, the whorl of emotions, the archaeological thrill of research and then the actual implementation. Running a business often leaves less and less room for creative output. After seven years working at this position, in an act of psychological serendipity, he decided to focus on his own project and to move on from his previous position. It was a bold move, but a necessary one for Leborgne. “It’s the first time I really chose to put me first, and now I’m working on myself,” he explains.
“I feel like I’m returning to what I was doing when I was twenty”
Creativity demands space. In the fashion world, it’s in short supply. In the past, brands would put out two collections a year; now, it’s not uncommon for new items to be added every month. Everything is flattened to the same urgency and time becomes of the essence. A high-end client wants a car right away, a celebrity wants a specially made garment now. Expectations are sky-high and things move at warp speed. Leborgne is now taking the time to breathe. That includes taking a step back and working on his mental, spiritual and physical health, and turning inwards to focus on his own tastes and creative growth. With so much internal and external space, creativity is flowing and there’s room to listen to his thoughts. “I feel like I’m returning to what I was doing when I was twenty,” he says. “I’m constantly digging for new music, new clothing brand, new design for inspiration.” Leborgne is embarking on his most personal project yet: an organic mentoring space to explore personally meaningful projects, while giving everyone a seat at the table. And while the project is still in its infancy, Leborgne is clear about the underlying force behind it. “Unconditional love is what drives me and I’m finally ready to work with myself to run my life around this concept”, he says.
Photography : Matteo Voisin
Words : Sarah Souli