She harbours a deep love of history but she’s not afraid to shake up the future. Today she is credited for her intellectual, boyish take on Chloé’s bohemian roots since taking over as creative director in 2017
Natacha Ramsay-Levi wanted to be a historian. She remembers marching against racism through the streets of Paris with her journalist father in the Eighties and how that experience led her to study African history and colonialism later in college to better understand the context of what she was fighting for. “I’ve always believed the best way to evolve is to learn from our past,” she says, her thick French accent piercing through the phone. “To me, there’s always been a link between history and fashion.”
The first thing Ramsay-Levi did when she was appointed creative director of Chloé in 2017—after 15 years as the protégé of Louis Vuitton artistic director of women’s collections Nicolas Ghesquière—was to excavate. Today she is credited for her intellectual, boyish take on Chloé’s bohemian roots, successfully filling the shoes of her formidable predecessors, including Stella McCartney, Phoebe Philo and Clare Waight Keller.
But first, Ramsay-Levi dug deep into the label’s roots, discovering the history of its founder, designer Gaby Aghion, who became one of the pioneers of ready-to-wear in the 1950s, when luxury houses were still primarily producing haute couture. Avant-garde and progressive, Aghion became the North Star for the 40-year-old Ramsay-Levi, guiding her as she crafted her own voice for the house.
“Growing up, my family saw fashion as something elitist, related to advertising and consumerism, not art,” she says. “So when I joined fashion, I wanted it to be about something that mattered, to open a discussion.”