AZ Factory has chosen a seasoned fashion talent — Lutz Huelle — for its next product story, and is giving it a runway showcase on Oct. 3 during Paris Fashion Week.

Meaning Huelle may have a double-header within the French capital: His eponymous label Lutz is on the calendar for a digital unveiling on Sept. 30 at 6:30 p.m., and by appointment.

Disclosing its next guest “amigo” exclusively to WWD, AZ Factory said Huelle’s collection could be titled “F for Friendship” as a riff on the brand name — founder Alber Elbaz’s name starts and ends with the letters that bookend the alphabet — and an ode to certainly one of the brand’s core values.

“Though he had met our founder just once and needs he’d got to know him higher, Lutz recognizes of their shared DNA a typical want to make people feel comfortable, comfy,” the home said in an announcement, keeping other details under wraps.

His collection for AZ Factory is anticipated to go on sale in February 2023.

A three way partnership between Compagnie Financière Richemont and Albaz, AZ Factory recently indicated it will widen the profile of its guest creatives to incorporate well-known and established talents.

Huelle and partner David Ballu founded the Lutz brand in Paris in 2000 and it has been a mainstay of the Paris calendar. Over time Huelle has also consulted for brands including S’Max Mara, Brioni and Delpozo.

AZ’s first collaborators within the wake of the founder’s passing in April 2021 were Thebe Magugu and Esther Manas, young designers in need of support and help at a critical juncture of their development.

A Central Saint Martins graduate, Huelle cut his teeth at Maison Martin Margiela, which he joined in 1995 and where he became answerable for the event of its knitwear and Artisanal lines. He won France’s prestigious ANDAM fashion awards in 2000 and 2002.

His approach to fashion is usually described as “decontextualization” — reworking a classic wardrobe, via structure, volume and identity. For instance, a trenchcoat is likely to be draped and transformed right into a dress, a sweatshirt right into a coat, or a towel into a night dress.

In accordance with AZ Factory, Huelle was a pioneer in mixing and matching genres and sorts of garments and Lutz “has turn into an integral a part of the style landscape.”

Richemont has been fine-tuning and elaborating the strategy and business model at AZ Factory, which retains Elbaz’s central idea of “smart fashions that care” launched via product “stories” fairly than collections.

It recently said guest creators would also include recent graduates and high-potential students, plus left-field creatives in a roundabout way related to fashion, corresponding to DJs.

All will find advantages analogous in some ways to fashion prizes, only offering a whole ecosystem — a design studio, atelier, marketing muscle and communications channels — and all of the team members Elbaz recruited before his passing in April 2021.