Fashion Success

Alexandre de Betak is the biggest name in events that you’ve never heard of. Well-known in the fashion world, however, the 38-year-old Frenchman is the go-to fashion show producer for clients such as Christian Dior, Victoria’s Secret and Victor & Rolf, and also counts Jennifer Lopez and Gwen Stefani among his clients.

Starting as a fashion photographer in Spain, de Betak moved into PR for an aspiring designer, and soon began producing and designing events, opening his own firm based in New York, Bureau Betak, in 1993.

Today, Betak would say he didn’t “end up” a fashion show producer: he’s still taking on new challenges, such as designing furniture; a restaurant in Paris, Black Calvados; and even a chandelier that’s a life-size silhouette of supermodel Gisele Bündchen for Swarovski Crystal.

So what makes this Renaissance event producer tick? We gave him a call on one of his rare days home in Paris to find out.

Event Solutions: What is an event producer’s most important quality? Why?

AB: In my case, it’s probably a mix of not taking things too seriously, of not stressing too much, because the worst enemy of that job is probably stress in general.
It’s also versatility mixed with personality. What I try to do is adapt to different clients, but adapt with a ton of personality. Even though my work is for very different [fashion] houses and it’s done very differently, it’s still done in a personal way.

You have to have a split ego: you need a lot of self confidence, but also a lot of acceptance. When you do something for somebody else, it’s somebody else’s. In my case, my creative way to deal with it is to do as many personal, creative things as I can so I don’t feel frustrated. It doesn’t mean you don’t have ego; you need to know how to deal with it. I don’t believe you can have a very strong personal stamp on anything you do and not have an ego.

ES: What’s the biggest challenge you’ve ever had as an event producer?

AB: I don’t think an event is ever isolated. An event should be part of the history and identity of a [client]. The challenge is to establish an identity and a memory for that house or designer, and do it in a personal way.
Once that’s done, the next challenge is to stay newsworthy and keep on moving people with that same identity — but with something new every time.

ES: On what event do you think you broke the most creative ground?

AB: That’s hard — I would sound very pretentious! [Laughs] There are things I’m proud of — and it would be trying hard not to sound pretentious to say that I wasn’t. But very honestly, probably what I’m most proud of is the extreme differences between most of the events I’ve ever done.

ES: How do you make sure your shows stay fresh year after year?

AB: I do have a little bit of a calculated strategy when it comes to staying in keeping with the identity I try to establish in the very beginning. But then when it comes to staying fresh within that identity, I don’t think it’s a strategy. It becomes a subjective, personal interpretation of what you’ve lived in the past three or six months within the world of what you invented for that client — or the world you think people understand of that client.
The approach of any long-term job is the mix of what you’ve established as the client’s identity, but always making sure that the identity you believe in for that client is more powerful than the trend of the moment.

ES: Designing Black Calvados was a departure from what you normally do. How did you approach it?

AB: When I was offered [the job], I wanted to be quite light-handed from a designer’s point of view. I was trying to be honest about what I like when it comes to going to a restaurant: I don’t like “trendy” restaurants, to be incredibly honest. I usually like very low-key, real, “not trying” places.

With Black Calvados, my goal was to create a mood and an atmosphere that I would be happy to be in. It’s still kind of subtle and hopefully not too “designed,” even though it took a lot of work! [Laughs]

ES: What have you seen lately that has inspired you?

AB: Right now I’m trying to finish designing an event for H&M and Kylie Minogue in Shanghai. I’ve spent a little bit of time recently in China and Beijing and Hong Kong, and what attracted me the most was the influence of the Chinese Revolution. I believe that if you’re going to go to China, from a Western point of view, you’ve got to assimilate all the recent history. Obviously, today’s point of view on the Chinese Revolution is different from previous generations’, and that’s what it should reflect.

Another thing that influenced me recently was Miami [Beach] Art Basel in December. I went, and loved it, and it was great, and a success, etc., but in a sense it was so visually overwhelming that all I wanted was kind of a “blank nothing” after that. So I went to Switzerland to the snow for a holiday, and I got a blank nothing, and that influenced me a lot. Ultimately, the white cape of snow on the entire mountain was probably the most inspiring of everything.

ES: Talk about your creative process.

AB: I don’t really have a recipe for that except for the fact of not having one. My main office is in New York, but I won’t spend too much time in it. I have another office in Paris, where I don’t spend too much time, either. Then I have an office at home in Paris, and at home in New York, and then ultimately I end up working kind of anywhere. So if there were a recipe, it would be not doing the same thing every day in the same place.

Also, whenever I do a business trip for a day or two, I’ll try to make sure there’s free time so I can do things that weren’t part of the plan — and usually it’s the one thing that’s not part of the plan that influences you the most.

ES: You’ve been a photographer, PR rep, fashion show producer, interior designer, furniture designer, artistic director — what’s next?

AB: I’m not sure. Hopefully a lot. I’m busy, but I’m not tired.

I think today every medium is open to everybody. To keep renewing yourself, you should renew the medium. In my case, I’ve done quite a few fashion shows, a few productions, a few designs, etc., and I’ll take any chance tomorrow. If you come up to me as a client and you need help interpreting what your identity is, and if that help means inventing a cooking method, why not?

Ultimately, I believe that designing and producing events, which works very well for the fashion industry, could work for many worlds other than the one I’m in. The same way we do a fashion show, we could produce a major political, historical or corporate event. And that’s what I’ve never done. It doesn’t mean it’s what is next for me, but it probably means that that’s what I’d love to be asked about.

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