Eco Fashion World

We first met Chris Ambraisse, founder and designer of A&K Classics at the Ethical Fashion Show in Paris in October 2008. Style wise, he already stood out by presenting both women and men’s clothes that were sleek and urban in black white and greys with the occasional touch of bright color. Then we started talking to him and discovered his incredible story: Chris is the only designer who creates fashionable clothes that are adapted to both disabled and able-bodied people. According to the World Health Organization , the world population counts around 750 million disabled people or 11,2% of humanity. For these people, everyday actions that we take for granted often pose a sizable challenge, dressing is one of them, and dressing in a way that reflects their personality and individuality is almost impossible! We caught up with Chris Ambraisse this month to learn more about his unique story.

Eco Fashion World: Can you tell us a bit about how you got started in fashion in the first place?

Chris Ambraisse: I started sowing at a very young age, when I was a kid, my mother taught me how to patch up my socks and mend ripped clothing. Then I learned to knit in home-ec in school. I guess I was always a natural sartorialist, I always cared about how I dressed and played fashion police with my friends on the street. But I never thought that it could be a career for me, I wasn’t that good in school. Then when I was about 16-years-old, I met a design student who told me about fashion school, and that I should give it a try. That was a real eye opener, it got me stared on drawing. I applied to fashion schools and for grants and scholarships since I couldn’t afford it myself. I managed to get in and make it through the four years by doing side jobs and getting a bit of help from foundations. When I graduated in 2003, it felt like a huge achievement, it was a real struggle but I learned a lot.

EFW: How was A&K Classics born?

CA: After fashion school I was doing freelance work and didn’t have any intention of creating my own brand. Then one day, as I was sketching on the subway (something I do often), a young woman in a wheelchair approached me and we started talking about fashion. She told me how much she loved it but that it was incredibly difficult to find fashionable clothes for disabled people, they either have to get regular clothes customized (which changes their look) or settle for one of two brands that makes practical but very boring specialized garments. She told me that I should design a collection for disabled people! So I went home and just by curiosity, stared looking into what she said. The more research I did, the more interested I became, I started meeting more disabled people, contacted associations, began sketching… Next thing you know, I had hundreds of sketches and decided to apply for funding. I had no idea if it was going to work but I thought that if I didn’t try, I’d regret it later. So I sent over 50 applications for financing to public and private funds, banks, you name it… Amazingly, I did get a first grant for 23 000€ from the European Social Fund! That’s how A&K Classics was born.

EFW: How did you go about setting up your brand from there?

CA: We used this financing to create a first collection. It was a huge learning process. I had one employee and a few interns, we worked very hard, but when we sent the patterns to production they were all wrong, I had left that up to the interns, which is a mistake I won’t do again! We had to redo everything. The clothes were produced (and still are) by a women’s social reinsertion association called Femmes Actives. At that time, I hadn’t heard much about eco fabrics so I just sourced at the main tradeshows, and by doing research for the functionalities that I wanted. We presented our first show of 30 models – which is a lot for a first collection – in May 2007 with both able-bodied and disabled models on the runway, and it was an instant success. We had a lot of media attention and people loved the designs. 

Based on this first success we were able to get more grants for the second collection. By then, I discovered the use of reclaimed fabrics because one of our interns had a family member at Cacharel who told us about dead stock that they were ready to throw out, so we got this fabric for free. Since then, I’ve been looking for and using reclaimed fabric whenever I can, it’s just a matter of persistence, we write to a multitude of fashion brands (high street, couture and everything in between), always follow up and send thank you notes and reports even when they’re not requested to create good relationships with them. We presented the second collection in a fashion show at the Paris City Hall in June 2008 in front of 600 people including several designers and celebrities. Since then we keep rolling, we’re now working on our third collection.

EFW: What are your design inspirations and how would you describe your style?

CA: I come up with my designs from my own imagination but I admire many great designer and artists. From Christian Lacroix, I love the colors, from Courrèges and Paco Rabanne I like the futuristic side, Yoshi Yamamoto for the mix of comfort and style. My favorite painter is Dali, for his quirky and twisted imagination. 

My style is about “mutation” and fun. I want to make clothes that have a real esthetic value but that are a valuable part of the owner’s life, making it more comfortable and more playful. Whether it’s for disabled people to dress themselves on their own, taking pride in their independence and in their look when they go out into the world, or for able-bodied people who can use the same devices of scratches and zips that are built into the clothes to wear them in different ways or to adapt them to the temperature. As much thought and research goes into the functionality of the clothes as into their esthetics. We look at the way people move and wear their clothes, we do tests with both disabled and able-bodied people: “where can we put an opening that won’t get in the way but can make the garment multifunctional?”

EFW: So what’s next for A&K Classics?

CA: We’re growing so in the next few months we’re moving out of my home office and into a studio with a showroom. We’ll be stocked in two retail stores and launching an online shop by the end of the year. 

In terms of design, we’ll keep pushing the envelope of multi-functionality and esthetics as I talked about before. I’m also starting to work with some organic materials for the third collection in addition to the reclaimed and recycled fabric. Recently we were contacted by Lanvin www.lanvin.com, who are interested in donating materials to us, and maybe more… 

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