Anne Valérie Hash

Anne Valérie Hash, the French haute couture outsider, has nevertheless succeeded in carving out a delicate and intimate niche for herself at the heart of the elitist star designer universe.

However, the young woman has nothing of a fashionista, nor the mystery of a Karl Lagerfeld, or the folly of a Gaultier. At first sight, she might even be considered boring, which would be a gross underestimation, as behind the soft silhouette hides a woman of character, inventive and intuitive. In her own way, it might be said that Hash has brought to light a new facet of French haut couture, i.e. a conceptual but wearable style, refined and androgynous, that until now had hardly been seen.

Her name may have appeared on the catwalks in 2001, but her story began much earlier. The young Hash, for as long as her mother can remember, had always been a coquette. Early on, she chose her own outfits and wore high heels to junior high school, even if it got her dismissed from class. In fact, Hash was extremely anxious to skip forward to the day when she would dress herself like a grown-up woman.

In addition, in spite of what she considers a mediocre talent for drawing, she continually scribbled the outfits of her dreams in multiple little notebooks. This love for clothing led her to study clothes designing and model-making at l'école Duperré. However, the classes there were not structured enough for this insecure young girl, and after one year, she left for l'école de la Chambre syndicale de la Couture Parisienne where she found the rigor and teaching technique that she needed. She finished her diploma three years later.

Although she may have made many contacts while at school, it was not sufficient to give her the self-confidence she needed. In fact, coming from a modest environment, Hash had trouble finding her place during a time when extravagant stars were à la mode, such as Thierry Mugler or Montana. She decided to take a break and left for the U.S. She stayed one year, audited numerous courses in sociology, art history, etc., and polished up her English.

After returning to France, she accepted the typical small jobs for a young clothes-designing graduate. She passed through the ateliers of Chanel, Dior and Nina Ricci. At Ricci, her potential was recognized and she was encouraged to go solo; however, persuaded that she would not find the right concept, she hesitated.

It was not until 2000 that things clicked. Hash created a square of fabric with magnets at the extremities, and became aware of the esthetic power of deconstruction, and the unusual use of cuts to sublimate the female body (the square of fabric would become the carré Hash). In 2001, no longer afraid, Hash presented her first haute couture collection.

Although the milieu is more accustomed to either completely wild or traditionally chic styles, the pieces presented by Hash, based on masculine clothes reworked, was surprising. The fashion editors fell at her feet in admiration of a dress sewn into a pair of pants (which would become a house classic), and detected in her universe the beginnings of a talent to follow, making Hash the event of the season.

With the approval of her peers, Hash gains confidence in her idea of deconstruction and dives in completely. Her raw material consisted of a masculine wardrobe composed of pleated pants, blazers and white shirts that she would cut up and lay flat in order to treat them as fabrics. In addition, her impeccable technique allowed her to skip the sketching step and go directly to molding her pieces onto a mannequin. The result is perfect destructuring, simultaneously sensual and androgynous.

Having started down the path of originality, the designer continued in this direction by finding her muse, not among the young girls en vogue at the moment, but by walking around the marché Saint Honoré in Paris. There she met an ultra charismatic 10-year-old girl, Lou Lisa Lesage, who would become her fit model and her source of inspiration. The Hash creations are conceived on the body of a child, then enlarged by her dressmakers, conferring a certain fragility to she who wears them, as if she had gotten lost in her parents closet.

In 2003, the world of fashion recognized her talent by giving her the ANDAM Award, a prestigious prize meant to compensate young, promising talent. As time went by, the Hash style became more refined, and the tailoring mastered in order to better form the delicate lingerie-inspired models. The combination was blessed: the maturity of young woman who dared to distance herself from the deconstruction that so strongly defined her beginnings in order to lighten her approach and render it more desirable to women's eyes, came through.

Hash is a woman fulfilled: mother of two and wife of a meat trader who gives into her passion all the while keeping her feet on the ground. In addition, having a family gives Hash new ideas, such as the birth in 2007 of a children's line called Mademoiselle, allowing her to transpose her universe into that of a child.

It has been more than seven years since Hash appeared on the fashion scene. Since then, her creations have crossed frontiers, seducing the buyers of over more than 100 points of sale, as well as actresses such as Nicole Kidman and Cate Blanchett.