Edmond Luu is the mastermind behind Pièces Uniques, the brand that just won the Pierre Bergé award last July at the annual ANDAM awards ceremony. The one of young Luu is a brand that has been 8 years in the making in low profile mode until this moment, that the industry has given him the opportunity to continue growing at a higher level by providing €100,000 in prize money for its development. Although Pièces Uniques has just jumped into the spotlight, Edmond Luu’s work has been part of the industry for many years. His experience at Christian Dior Parfumes as artistic director of campaigns and as PR has given the designer a 360º vision, tremendously necessary in the contemporary industry for brands, from which not only a good product but also a compelling raison d’être and storytelling are required for them to thrive. Today, we talk to Edmond Luu about the award, his career, his life lessons and, above all, his brand: Pièces Uniques.
HIGHXTAR (H) – Congrats for winning the Pierre Bergé Prize at the ANDAM Awards. How do you feel?
EDMOND LUU (E.L.) – Right now I feel like much more relax. Two weeks before, with fashion week going on, it was really hard and frenetic, with a lot of pressure. But right now I feel really happy. Pressure go down so I can just like finally relax and enjoy this prize, you know?
(H) – Did you expected it?
(E.L.) – No, not exactly actually. The brand who was in front of me was also really big, with really good creatives. So I wasn’t expecting at all that to be like to firstly to be part of the finalists and then then finally win, you know. I wasn’t expecting that at all.
(H) – It must have been overwhelming.
(E.L.) – Yeah, we worked on the brand during so long that it was kind of an honor to have the confirmation and the respect of all this jury who was there and, also the validation of this part of the industry. In my case, coming from the suburbs of Paris, from the streets, it’ a success. But not only for me, it’s also a success for all the people behind me, and also for my city, where I come from. So, yeah, I’m happy to be a part of the faces of tomorrow.
(H) – How many are you working in the brand?
(E.L.) – Actually, it’s very small: Pierre and me. Some people are kind of all around the brand and helping when they can. We also have really good friends, who are our models. It’s just like two people officially, but a big team of creatives who are gravitating around the brand when we need them.
(H) – The price is 100,000€. With the all of the boost that implies for your career this amount of money, what would you like to do with it?
(E.L.) – Right now we actually planning to first of all opening an office because we don’t have any, which is crazy to have won this prize by just working in my room. And I think this is really beautiful too, because this can show to every young people that it’s possible to do stuff, even if you don’t have a big office.
With the money I’d like to create a space where I can express myself as well as a place where I can create creative connections between some people and also with the brand, where I can like build a team and also maybe doing a show in January .
(H) – That’s good news! If you had to talk like about the brand to a person who knows nothing about it, what would you say about Pièces Uniques?
(E.L.) – I would say that Pièces Uniques is a Parisian menswear brand, a designer brand taking inspiration on manga, anime, comics, on fictional universes, a lot of poetry.
The values of the brand is really about family, brotherhood, sharing friends. About the silhouette, is very minimal, with bold shapes and really strong monochromes.
(H) – The logo is like a key.
(E.L.) – The name of the logo is “the key”, but it’s actually representing a P and a U for Pièces Uniques. At the same time, it’s also representing an E for Edmund. And I named this logo “a key” because for me, it’s a beautiful sign showing that this logo will open doors for me more and more. I hope one day maybe, I will do something like a trick, with all these people who are wearing the logo on their zip and things like that to actually open a gift or something, to all our old customers. So yeah, it’s the whole signification: when you open a door you get into a next step, so I want this logo to follow me since the beginning to the end, kind of like a sign of hope.
(H) – You just said that you get a lot of inspiration from manga or comics and science fiction. Are you a big fan of this world?
(E.L.) – I’m a big fan of that. I like manga, I like anime. I’m watching a lot of them, like all the Naruto, Dragon Ball, Bleach, The Slayer, Juju Two Kaizen… We also did like a collaboration with Final Fantasy. So It was a project so meaningful for me because I played this video game when I was seven years old watching my brothers playing video games, so when I did the project it was kind of like a dream come true. This universe and all of this stuff inspired me a lot every time that i’m designing a collection.
This is how I see it. With each collection I’m still like opening a new manga, It’s like a new chapter, a new book. The whole book is like the Pièces Uniques book, but every chapter is like a collection.
(H) – You studied advertising, right? I was interested in knowing how your path changed to design and also how this advertising career helped you to develop you as a designer, or develop your brand in a way.
(E.L.) – I think studying advertising and working in an advertising company helped me to something that I think that a lot of young people have to understand today. It’s like, if you’re going to a fashion school, you’re going to get your skills for doing clothes, but if you want to make sure that you can be more and more creative, because at the end you have to sell your clothes. And I think advertising taught me what’s the balance between being creative, being viral and doing good marketing. So, I think it helped me like to sell ideas. It helped me to put value on my products, to put like a lot of deepness and also a lot of storytelling.
(H) – Are you still creative director on Christian Dior Parfumes?
(E.L.) – I left one year and a half ago.
(H) – How long did you work there? Did it help you to develop also your skills as the owner of your own brand?
(E.L.) – I was doing five years as an artistic director for advertising for Dior. So I did all the campaigns like Sauvage, J’adore, Miss Dior, and all the campaigns with makeup with Bella Hadid. I worked on all of that, traveling all around the world, working with best directors and best photographers, so I learned a lot in terms of having a taste of image. This is where I learned everything about archives in terms of advertising, archives about editorial of magazine. All of the knowledge that I had about fashion I learned it over there and also working with all these creatives around the world and with production company had me also to make the movies that I’m doing today.
And the last two years, I was a PR actually for Dior. I worked with my friend Fanny Bourdette-Donon , which is like a big name in the PR world. In Dior it was more about how to build myself in terms of PR image; how I should communicate with people in a more political way, in a more legible way, if that make sense. The first part was like: “oh, okay, you’re a creative director, you know how to create the stuff”. But right now, how do you speak about it? And I think the PR side had me learning the part of convincing the people of what the true story is. In a more personally part, it prepared me to be the person that I have to be in front of the spotlight.
(H) – You started in 2016, right? I imagine that there was a turning point when you just said to yourself: “this is for real, this is going to happen”.
(E.L.) – I think actually when I won the Andam prize, like the Pierre Bergé one. I felt that right now we’re getting serious. Before all of that of course I was serious because if I wasn’t serious, I would not win, but at that moment you realize everything because you see the eyes of your parents, you see the eyes of your friends and everyone is like: “after eight years of work, you have finally got a feedback”.
(H) – When you begin in 2016 until now is like nearly 10 years building your brand. Did you ever thought about surrender or just give up? The industry could be very hard sometimes.
(E.L.) – I think no, because what motivates me a lot is really creating stuff. I think that creating campaigns and creating clothes is something that I really like. And I have to be feed about that every day to love what I’m doing. Every season I have an idea for the next one. I would never have the help of investor, never have the help of anyone, we build everything from zero.
I built the brand buying some Zara jeans, rip them and selling them at 200 euros. So I sold like 10 jeans and I did like 2000 euros and I created the brand with that. So I know how it is to do something from nothing. So even if some season we have some financial issues, as long as my mind is working and I can do stuff, we can just go on.
(H) – What’s your fashion icon or inspiration?
(E.L.) – I don’t know to be honest. I just feel like [00:17:00] the industry is kind of dry these days. I don’t think there’s that much thing, that much exciting stuff. If I should say something, I was at the LV show from Pharrell last time and I really liked the idea of the UNESCO and the idea that they create around. It’s kind of the same vibe of my brand, you know, being the face of tomorrow.
(H) – How did you decide someday that you wanted to build Pièces Uniques? I mean, what was the reason?
(E.L.) – I think it’s because I was drawing a lot of mangas and things like that when I was young and the thing that I was enjoying the most drawing was the clothes and not the face of the characters. So I was like: “Oh yeah, there’s something to do, yeah, why not trying”. I felt like all this fictional clothes could turn into life, and when you creating a brand, you are the perfect master of this universe, so I can just like, control every element that I’m gonna go through: which character is playing this movie, or which character gonna wear this or that. My dream was to create a manga story, but I cannot do that, so I just like creating a story with clothes.
(H) – That’s so cool. And the football jersey, ‘Le Maillot des Rêves’, has been a great success. It sold out in three hours I’ve seen on your instagram, do you like soccer?
(E.L.) – Oh, what is crazy is, like, actually, I am ambassador for GOAT, which is the sponsor of PSG.
And also, I’m good friends with Mbappé, Akimi, Jules Koundé and people from the game, so I’m really close to the soccer world. I grew up with soccer all my friends were playing it, but, I’m so bad at it! I wasn’t like a soccer guy that much.
(H) – I feel like you have like a lot of inspirations or like a very rich and varied cultural heritage. Your father is a Cambodian, your mother is Vietnamese, and you were, you were born in France, right?
(E.L.) – I was born in France, but there are Chinese blood.
(H) – You have many different cultural influences. How is growing up like that?
(E.L.) – I think growing up like that is part of my identity. I grew up in the suburbs of Paris, which is where I grew up among Arabs, Africans, with every color and type of people. All of this is makes me who I am today. There’s a lot of french people who are growing up in the suburbs who don’t know exactly who they are. Am I French, am I more Asian or maybe more African? We’re just the new french, you know, which is like how we are right now and we have to see this as a chance of taking inspiration about all of this kind of ethnicities.
So I just feel very happy of this One friend is inviting me to his country in Tunisia, and I’m just enjoying a wedding there. But the other day I’m going to Senegal to eat like a chieb. And then another day I’m going to Asia to see my family, you know? For me this is like the new face of france right now, and it’s giving like a lot of inspiration on everything that I’m doing.
(H) – Jade Stone. I saw it in your latest collection. Do you believe in energies? Are you superstitious?
(E.L.) – I am personally not superstitious, but my parents are. In China, you’re gifting jade stone when you want to wish he luckiness and the happiness to other people. Chinese people call them “the stone of heaven”, actually. It’s just like a really meaningful stone with the one I grew up with and the stone has a big aura in whole Asia. A lot of emperors, and kings and queens were creating a lot of jewelries and also swords and weapons with Jade. A lot of them were believing that the stone was brought from the gods.
I can’t say I trust on the energy because when you are in Islam, you don’t trust on energies.
(H) – Why did you convert to Islam?
(E.L.) – The conversion was like really logical for me. I think that every religion have the same aim and the same goal, but I just think that I choose that one because I grew up with people who got better thanks to the Islam. I love their behaviors and love this brotherhood and also sisterhood in this whole community; travelling all around the world and meeting brothers and sisters from Islam is really beautiful. I also think that the values of Islam are really close to what the values my parents taught me with Buddhism- my parents wouldn’t be happy to hear this-, but it’s just like a next step.
(H) – Was the conversion long ago? Did you have to do anything?
(E.L.) – No. You just have to be with a friend who acts as a witness and say one sentence. That’s it.
(H) – Easy, right? I want also to highlight some of your garments you just launched in your latest collection. I saw a lot of them made from neckties. How this idea come up?
(E.L.) –We wanted to create a camo print out of ties.
One of my best friends was cleaning the stock of his brand, and he was putting all his ties around his neck. When I saw all the ties going on the right of his neck, I thought we should do something like that. And then we came up with the idea with Pierre of creating like a camo out of ties, mixing a military sign with a corporate one and creating a twist, to show that nowadays like a lot of geopolitical decisions are also taken by people who’s wearing ties. It’s kind of a strong and and impactful meaning.
(H) – And what about ‘LE BONNET D’ÂNE’? Apparently is for children when they get punished at the school or something like that. What’s the meaning behind it?
(E.L.) – When you are a kid in France, if you’re doing some bad stuff, the teacher is putting you on the corner of the room and make you wear this. One is like a “donkey”. The hat is just like the donkey ears. For me the donkeys are really beautiful animals, but in schools before it was just a way of humiliating these kids. I wanted to change the message and show that everyone did some bad stuff when they were a kid, and that still could be cool kids.
(H) – Were you a bad kid in the school?
(E.L.) – Not that much, actually. I was reall good student until I met all my best friends at the college.
(H) – Then you become more rebel. And what are your inspirations, your favourite designers nowadays?
(E.L.) – I love the work of Iris Van Herpen. I like also the work of Robert Wun, Peter Do… all the new generation of Asian designers that I really like. My universe is really far from them, but I admire their universe and I still feel like I can find mine also and elevate it to the level where they are.
(H) – Do you see yourself participating on other fashion weeks other than Paris?
(E.L.) – I think for now let’s start with home.
(H) – And what’s next then for the brand? You are going to like build your office, and then?
(E.L.) – I think that this is basically the main step.
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