Dear Shaded Viewers,
Last month I had the pleasure of meeting Renaud Pellegrino at his Paris showroom and I learned so many interesting things about his history. For instance, he was born in Cannes, maybe that accounts for the cinematic look of his leather goods? He was trained at the early age of 14 by a neighbour craftsman and it was then that his interest in detail was born. He moved from the iconic land of international cinema, Cannes, to Paris where he thought at the age of 20, he had to catch up with lost time. From his tiny room he could see the tip of the Eiffel Tower, I wonder if he lived near me as I can see the tip of the Eiffel tower too from my bedroom window. At any rate he spent his nights Chez Castel, went to museums and led a fairly wild youth chasing the madness of Paris at that time.
He met Helene Rochas and after his second encounter with her she suggested that he show his drawings to Yves Saint Laurent and he designed the leather goods for YSL for the next 8 years. The first bag for YSL was called Ava. Between designing for Carita and then YSL Pellegrino decided it was time to design for himself and in 1983 he opened his own boutique where he spent hours in his atelier sewing strands of beads onto a bag, imagining all kinds of constructions and invisible clasps. His first bag, in the shape of a cardinal’s hat was baptised “The Cardinal” and remains in the collection to this day. His boutique is Pellegrino Paris on 8 avenue Victor Hugo in the 16eme and he distributes around the world to stores such as Bergdorf Goodman, Etoile Group, Hankyu, Printemps Paris, and Les Suites to name just a few.
For Fall/Winter 2020 Pellegrino imagines a woman strolling down 5th avenue carrying an embroidered bag with the jewellery catching all the city lights. Pellegrino constructs each of his pieces as an object using materials such as satins, velvets, with crystals and embroideries with Swarovski crystals and semi-precious stones. Straps are made with mesh and metal and fully embroidered with crystals which are hand placed over satin pochettes.
In a season where vintage is being celebrated, Pellegrino re-introduces two of his vintage styles from the 70’s and the 80’s including the one which was the first bag that he did for Yves Saint Laurent. The other is the iconic Cardinal style which this edition he has re-vamped with studs.
When I was in the studio my eye caught the images on the mantle with his bag in Absolutely Fabulous in a scene with Jean Paul Gaultier and the once in a lifetime portrait for Elle.fr which featured all of the designer greats of the time. Renaud Pellegrino is proudly among them.
8 Avenue Victor Hugo, 75116 Paris
