The American in Paris showroom has a new home on Rue Pierre Charron just off the Champs-Élysées – a street symbolic to Franco-American history.

The light-filled space with wide, open salons allowed for the 2018 CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund designers – Batsheva’s Batsheva Hay, Bode’s Emily Adams Bode, Christian Cowan, Hunting Season’s Danielle Corona, Jonathan Cohen, Matthew Adams Dolan, Luar’s Raul Lopez, Kerby Jean-Raymond of Pyer Moss, Rebecca de Ravenel, and Scosha’s Scosha Woolridge – to create unique environments for showcasing their designs.

The state of the fashion business is an important topic among the 10 designers who enjoy the camaraderie during the three-day showroom.

“I have always loved the way fashion can evolve the most as well as the quickest reacting to cultural experiences whether its climate change, diversity or sustainability,” Cohen, Fashion Fund runner-up, said. “We keep an open mind to evolve. I think we are seeing that in fashion right now.”

Luar’s Lopez noted, “It’s time to go back to the library and stop only referencing social media platforms like Instagram and Tumblr.”

Jean-Raymond, the 2018 Fashion Fund winner, suggested that fashion needs to re-evaluate its sales cycles and take a more thoughtful and meaningful approach. “Fashion right now is too fast,” he said. “We should consider how much product and pollution we put out into the world…[taking] longer to create meaningful work and things people actually want would create less waste.”

His collection deals with “re-patriotsm” themes by “re-writing traditionally white stories which left out the black story and re-writing those back into the American story.”

The designer is scouting a new home in Paris said he wants “to bring my part of the story by showing people who look like me and have similar backgrounds and I hope that other designers do that for their people.”

Emily Adams Bode celebrates diversity and practices inclusion through storytelling. “I work with close friends from all over the world to tell their family histories,” she said, “and present collections that share and preserve these cultural stories.”

In their down time, the participating designers all planned to do some vintage shopping, in the Marais and Les Puces de Clignancourt. Rebecca de Ravenel, who used to lived in Paris, was hoping to find an old favorite haunt called Ragtime. “It’s where I really learned about vintage clothing.”

On Sunday morning, the designers visited the the Musée Yves Saint Laurent, and they hoped to make it to the Calder and Van Gogh exhibits currently on show in Paris.

Lopez had a tip for anyone wanting to catch Versailles in time crunch. “Go to the front of the line and tell the guard that you are a professional designer and you can skip the line,” he said.  “It’s just like the old days of working the door at a New York City nightclub.”

Spoken like a true New Yorker – in Paris.

Get to know each Americans in Paris designer in our digital brochure here.

Special thanks to Klarna, the leading global payments provider that increases purchasing power for shoppers by allowing them to use various checkout methods and pay over time, for sponsoring Americans in Paris. By supporting the initiative, Klarna continues its dedication to the fashion industry – assisting both consumers and retailers.