Victor Glemaud
He’s been in the fashion industry since his teens. So why did it take this prodigy so long to create his own menswear line? It’s not easy perfecting a look.
One of the biggest differences between Paris and New York, at least when it comes to street fashions, is that in New York one can be heckled, whereas in most cases the French just squint, drag on their cigarettes, and mince on by. This rule, however, does not always apply, as New York–based men’s knitwear designer Victor Glemaud discovered recently while pounding the rues of the City of Light in high-waisted stonewashed jeans, a tight red knit turtleneck, and bright green socks. “People always look at me for some reason,” the 31-year-old Glemaud says as a gaggle of girls giggle by him on the Rue de Bac. “Perhaps it’s because today I’m wearing ‘mom jeans.’ ” The rest of Glemaud’s ensemble he describes as both “a new silhouette” and “very Melrose Place.” It is, in fact, the Haiti-born designer’s penchant for new silhouettes that has carved this former Paco Rabanne design assistant and KCD publicist a niche in the knitwear industry. The company that Glemaud launched in the summer of 2006 began humbly enough: He cut up some of his father’s old sweaters to form his trademark double cardigan, eventually producing a collection of seven looks, which he called “7 Days of Victor.” A confidant of Vogue fashion editor Virginia Smith and her husband, Gap brand design head Patrick Robinson, since his teens, Glemaud has been a fashion veteran for nearly a decade. While still an intern at Robinson’s own company in the late ’90s, he remembers, “I would work with Patrick during the day, go to school at night, and go out ’til the wee hours. I never slept. It was fantastic.” Today, Glemaud still pulls double duty—he is also P.R. director at Tommy Hilfiger. But staying small is Glemaud’s mode of operation. “I like having my specialty,” he says. “To be good at just one thing is a novelty.”
