Lutz Huelle, who nailed his first collaboration with AZ Factory in October, is back for an encore, and a recurrent role helming pre-collections, WWD has learned.

His next product story, to be unveiled next month for the pre-spring 2024 season, also comes with a heightened commitment to sustainability, with the aim of making half the gathering from deadstock materials.

Predicated on “joy,” the gathering is to expand on themes from Huelle’s first effort, which perfectly captured the offhand couture look pioneered by AZ Factory’s late founder Alber Elbaz.

“The primary collaboration with AZ Factory was probably the most fabulous and galvanizing experience, and I’m overjoyed at having the ability to proceed to collaborate with this incredible team,” Huelle told WWD. “The spirit and values of AZ Factory have all the time been an integral a part of my very own work, and I can’t wait to begin working on this next chapter.”

Huelle’s raw-edged tailoring, cocktail dresses, billowing poplin shirts and crisply cut denim pieces are currently selling briskly on the AZ Factory online store, in response to Mauro Grimaldi, a Richemont executive.

“It’s performing thoroughly,” he enthused, noting that the spring 2023 collection was also wholesaled to about 30 top international retailers including Selfridges and Matchesfashion within the U.K., Saks Fifth Avenue within the U.S., 10 Corso Como and Sugar in Italy, Printemps in France, and I.T in China.

Huelle recently made personal appearances for his AZ Factory effort at specialty store Andreas Murkudis in Berlin, and Bongénie Grieder in Geneva, where the designer returns frequently as head of the style and accessories design department at art and design school HEAD.

AZ Factory is a three way partnership between Compagnie Financière Richemont and Elbaz, billed as a creative hub for smart, solutions-driven fashions that care.

To this point, it has clocked eight collaborations with guest “amigos” including Thebe Magugu, Ester Manas, Cyril Bourez, ShelterSuit and Tennessy Thoreson. Molly Molloy and Lucinda Chambers, the duo behind the Colville label, created an AZ Factory range for fall 2023 retailing.

Huelle was the primary seasoned, established talent to work with the creative studio Elbaz had assembled before dying from COVID-19 in April 2021.

Grimaldi, a strategic adviser to Philippe Fortunato, chief executive officer of fashion and accessories maisons at Richemont, said establishing pre-collections, which supply an extended full-price selling window, lays a more solid business foundation for AZ Factory after an initial period of experimentation.

The brand plans to proceed participating in Paris Fashion Weeks, inviting mainly absolute beginners to take a a crack at couture, and a rotating solid of “guest amigos” for the major women’s ready-to-wear runway showcases.

Its studio also continues to end up product stories, with a variety of printed silk pajamas due out this summer.

Grimaldi lauded that Huelle fully embraced the AZ Factory opportunity, which he sees as a “creative exchange” between a guest designer and AZ’s studio and atelier.

“It really resonated with what Alber had in mind — to do fashion that’s practical, and that empowers women in an environment that’s joyful,” Grimaldi said. “The true fantastic thing about this project is that what comes out is something greater than simply the sum of the 2 creative teams.

“We’re a factory; we’re a laboratory,” he continued. “It is a place where you possibly can experiment with latest ideas and you possibly can do something that you simply may not consider in your individual brand.”

Grimaldi stressed that AZ Factory is just not on the lookout for tributes to Elbaz’s design legacy, and due to this fact doesn’t seek for guest talents whose fashions resemble what the Israeli designer became known for at a succession of European houses, including Guy Laroche, Yves Saint Laurent Rive Gauche and Lanvin.

“We expect the very best tribute to Alber is supporting people who find themselves super creative, and at the identical time have values, but not essential clothes, in common with him.”

Grimaldi said he’s unfazed that the guest designer strategy keeps proliferating, with Lanvin the most recent to announce it’s establishing a Lanvin Lab for “creative partnerships.”

The manager noted that the majority European players who invite rotating guest creatives, reminiscent of Jean Paul Gaultier, play the heritage card, whereas “we’re far more into the experimental and
unpredictable side of the curation.

“We aren’t a heritage brand. Alber didn’t have time to create codes,” he explained. “We underline increasingly the identity of being a factory.”

Grimaldi sidestepped questions on the precise duration of the recurrent collaboration with Huelle, characterizing it as open-ended. “Let’s say that it’s so long as either side consider that it’s joyful to do this,” he said with a smile.

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

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