Cecilia Bönström on creating the Parisian Cool Girl

Open­ing image: Alexan­dre Tabaste

Words Leelou Reboh

Cecil­ia Bön­ström, for­mer Cre­ative Direc­tor of Zadig&Voltaire, vis­it­ed Isti­tu­to Marango­ni Lon­don on the 15th of May to reflect on her 20-year career design­ing for the French label.

Last week, I had the plea­sure to inter­view Cecil­ia Bön­ström, for­mer Cre­ative Direc­tor at Zadig&Voltaire, and attend her talk at Isti­tu­to Marango­ni Lon­don. Zadig&Voltaire was the It-brand of my teens — I remem­ber in admi­ra­tion the most styl­ish girls at school always seemed to be wear­ing the sig­na­ture silk camisoles and car­ry the icon­ic clutch adorned by the label’s emblem­at­ic angel wings- so meet­ing Bön­ström felt like get­ting a VIP seat at the cool girls’ table. Step­ping into the tiny office space my ques­tions in hand, try­ing not to act too much like a fan girl, I was stunned by the youth­ful ener­gy of the Scan­di­na­vian mod­el-turned-design­er. The 53-year old is as effort­less­ly chic as the brand for which she designed for two decades of her career. Bön­ström is the embod­i­ment of the Zadig woman she forged and fond­ly rem­i­nisces about as ‘free, her head filled with music’. Loy­al to the dress code she pio­neered, she’s wear­ing black skin­ny jeans, a white t‑shirt, a slight­ly over­sized blaz­er, and fringed heeled booties — and she looks like she’s left from her boyfriend’s place in a hur­ry to make it on time for her talk on Fash­ion Street. Her hair is messy, like a true French girl too cool to care, and her wel­com­ing demeanour makes me for­get about my ini­tial apprehension.

Image by Renée Rodenkirchen

If Bön­ström can now con­fi­dent­ly talk about her career and the impres­sive work she’s accom­plished at the helm of Zadig&Voltaire, she reminds me that it didn’t hap­pen in a day. Join­ing the label in 2003 as an assis­tant with­out hav­ing a fash­ion school edu­ca­tion, and leav­ing behind her suc­cess­ful mod­el­ling career in search of more chal­leng­ing endeav­ours, it only took Bön­ström three years before she was appoint­ed as Head of Design. ‘It took me almost ten more years just to study the brand’s his­to­ry, and to under­stand the past and its roots to hon­our it,’ she explains. ‘Only then did I put my own per­son­al style in it’. The design­er left the label three months ago, but her cre­ativ­i­ty will for­ev­er be imprint­ed with­in its iden­ti­ty. Wrinkly leather trousers, bag­gy t‑shirts that look like they have been bor­rowed from a boyfriend after a long night, and most impor­tant­ly Le Cecil­ia bag, these are some of the ele­ments one will find in a Zadig&Voltaire store that are quin­tes­sen­tial­ly ‘Cecil­ia Bön­ström’, and her per­son­al emprunte — as she likes to describe it in French — on the brand. Her lega­cy is one of fear­less­ness, and a touch of clas­sic Scan­di­na­vian struc­ture. By adding in more mas­cu­line ele­ments to the Zadig&Voltaire iden­ti­ty, like pair­ing flow­ery dress­es with chunky car­go boots or sharp­en­ing the tai­lor­ing of the blaz­ers, Bön­ström built upon the vision of the brand founder Thier­ry Gilli­er — one of ‘a beau­ti­ful woman, non-sophis­ti­cat­ed, and non­cha­lant chic’ — to cre­ate her own of a pow­er­ful and inde­pen­dent rock star bewil­der­ing those whom she encoun­ters in her freedom. 

Cecil­ia Bön­ström car­ry­ing the ‘Cecil­ia’ bag via Insta­gram @ceciliabonstrom

The achieve­ment she is the proud­est of, how­ev­er, isn’t the unmis­take­able Zadig&Voltaire dégaine she so care­ful­ly craft­ed, but the rela­tion­ships the design­er has cul­ti­vat­ed with the mem­bers of her team over the years. ‘I’ve actu­al­ly con­vinced the team to trust and believe in me, even if I didn’t come from a fash­ion school back­ground’, she says, ‘I came in to learn and be an assis­tant, and I suc­ceed­ed in impos­ing my taste and my vision.’ As cre­ative design­er, Bön­ström hasn’t only sought trust with those she worked with, but also with the Zadig&Voltaire cus­tomers. Although the busi­ness aspect of fash­ion is glossed over more often than not, there is more to being a design­er than cre­ativ­i­ty today. Clothes must sell for a label to thrive, and Bön­ström remind­ed the stu­dents of the Isti­tu­to Marango­ni Lon­don of it. ‘You need to cre­ate some­thing that is desir­able and that looks good on a hang­er,’ she insists, a more busi­ness-inclined men­tal­i­ty that the design­er has applied to every step of her jour­ney at Zadig&Voltaire. ‘My obses­sion was nev­er to design for plea­sure, but for real life, and the real women that I see walk­ing in the street,’ she explains.

To sat­is­fy her clien­tele and stand out from her com­peti­tors, Bön­ström under­stood that she need­ed more than beau­ti­ful designs. Peo­ple also bought into what she stood for as the Cre­ative Direc­tor of a brand. As con­sumers grow more con­scious of their pur­chas­ing habits, it was impor­tant for Zadig&Voltaire to take its own stand as an impor­tant fash­ion play­er, a step towards sus­tain­abil­i­ty spear­head­ed by Bön­ström dur­ing her time at the com­pa­ny. The secret to why Zadig&Voltaire is capa­ble of con­duct­ing 80% of its oper­a­tions sus­tain­ably today is the result of a long col­lab­o­ra­tion process between the com­pa­ny and its pro­duc­tion chain. ‘It’s not only up to me as a design­er. Our sup­pli­ers need to indus­tri­al­ly be capa­ble to change their pro­duc­tion habits, use less chem­i­cals, have bet­ter con­di­tions for their employ­ees,’ she points out. A green­er approach she encour­ages the design­ers of tomor­row to adopt as soon as they start their own com­pa­nies, as it will always be eas­i­er to start the right way than try­ing to do dam­age con­trol once the machine is ready and run­ning. ‘It’s impor­tant to be hon­est with your­self first and not take on more than you are capa­ble off,’ Bön­ström stress­es. ‘I think young design­ers today are com­ing into this pro­fes­sion with a lot more set out in terms of sus­tain­abil­i­ty, so they can only do bet­ter than what I did,’ she continues.

Bön­ström in the Zadig&Voltaire stu­dio via Insta­gram @ceciliabonstrom

Bön­ström has turned the page on fash­ion design in the mean­time, but it doesn’t mean she is ready to retire ful­ly from the indus­try just yet. Now city-hop­ping to vis­it some of the top-ranked fash­ion schools in the world, she hopes to inspire stu­dents and pro­vide them with some guid­ance to nav­i­gate the treach­er­ous indus­try they are about to enter. If she has one advice for the young design­ers striv­ing to one day open their own label, it is to stay focused and to avoid com­par­i­son. ‘Trust your instinct, and don’t look at what oth­er peo­ple are doing,’ she says, ‘that is real­ly the key, because there are so many ways you can express your­self cre­ative­ly.’ After all, fash­ion remains a life-long dream for many that should bring them joy and ful­fil­ment, and allow for their cre­ativ­i­ty to flour­ish above all else.

Cecil­ia Bön­ström with the stu­dents of Isti­tu­to Marango­ni London

Many thanks to Cecil­ia Bön­ström for her time and insights on the indus­try, and to WhiteHair.Co for the invi­ta­tion! Fol­low Isti­tu­to Marango­ni on Insta­gram @istitutomarangoni_london to stay up to date on the lat­est talks organ­ised by the university.