Meet the couple who launched Arttitude.
Both employed at the same Bay Area tech company, Sylvain was head of the design department and Amrita was head of marketing. They invested their time, love, and passion into their first fashion line, Arttitude, a year and a half ago. Their team is presently ever-growing.
The line itself combines art with fashion. The couple envisioned the thrusting of the middle finger as an illustration on their genderless line. Even though the line predominantly is meant for women, now it is unisex.
Some of their line is an absolute gorgeous representation of art and street murals on clothing. Vivid and powerful are two adjectives that come to mind when this fashion line began a year and a half ago.
The couple’s line graced the runway at New York Fashion Week at The Bureau, and I was there.
How did you two fall into fashion? How did Arttitude come to life?
Sylvain: I have a deep interest in fashion and art in general. I moved to the Bay Area in 2011 from Bordeaux, France. I wanted to bring this world of art into a new medium and bridge the gap from the medium of art to the consumer. We tried to recreate the story on garments. It’s a mix of ideas of art and attitude. I have a very wide interest in a multiple facets of art.
You were quoted for saying “Arttiude is redefining luxury, and it’s no longer meant just for galleries. It’s for the streets, skin, and soul.” How does art translate into fashion for you?
Sylvain: You can get a lot of different lines of clothing with styles and graphics but often they don’t carry meaning. These lines set a trend, if anything. The whole idea is to wear the art. We want to bring art from the galleries into the streets so people can consume it.
What type of planning went into your NYFW show this past month at The Bureau?
Amrita: We started working on our theme in June and around the same time there was a trade show in August in Las Vegas. I took on the research in society and in the culture. I take on the logistical side and Sylvain is more the creative force.
The Bureau reached out to us. We were talking to Runway 7 initially. This is the first time we were doing a runway show. We had day jobs, and we realized that this is our passion. We have a lot of other members on our team that were working late nights. It was a really wonderful experience. We are planning to do more shows in the coming future.
What is the difference between the Cova Collection versus IED Collection?
Sylvain: Cova is street artist from Mexico but lives in San Jose in the Bay Area. We worked together to make the collection. Every time we sell something, a portion of the profit goes to support the artist and that helps uplift the artist. This collection is a collaboration between us and him as an artist.
IED Colllection stands for Intermittent Explosive Disorder, which is a mental disorder where you get enraged in a moment and then return to a normal calm state. We thought it was interesting, and we included the empowerment theme with it. The public liked it very much and we wanted to tell our story at New York Fashion Week. There’s an expectation around the woman in society about their behavior, especially here in the United States. What women should do and shouldn’t do. Our line speaks to both women and men but is women-centric. The illustration of the middle finger is common more in Europe than in the United States and represents the empowerment.
How do you plan on bringing Arttitude from the Bay Area to the world stage?
Amrita: We were planning on going to Paris Fashion Week. The plan is to open the website to the public. There a couple of trade and fashion shows in Atlanta, Vegas, and Paris and bring it to the world.
What’s next for the brand?
Amrita: We are brainstorming our next collection. Then, from an operational point of view we are ramping up our internal investments and conversions. We are on a cadence for getting brand awareness out there. The next year we will building on brand equity and sales. We want to take this brand to the next level and hold onto our core mission in the meantime. We manufacture everything out of California. The entire end-to-end customer experience is just something unique, from the box the customer receives to the smell of the product.
What advice can give you up and coming fashion designers?
Amrita: I could talk from the logistics point. It’s a competitive space and creative but it’s very cliquey.
Sylvain: From a fashion angle, I am big fan of McQueen. It’s about having an angle, and in our case, we are doing basics but it’s about doing the basic just right. It should be a reflection of the hard work you put into it.
Visit Arttitude HERE. / Follow: Arttitude on TikTok @artitudelifestyle
