Henri Alexander Levy Designs a Personal Collection with Enfants Riches Déprimés

For the latest edition of Paris Fashion Week, the conceptual artist and designer Henri Alexander Levy unearthed the visceral Spring/Summer 2025 collection of Enfants Riches Déprimés (ERD) within Sotheby’s Paris. Levy founded the tremendously personal and provocative brand in 2012, placing an instinctive artistic practice, as well as a profound connection to the subconscious mind, at the tender heart of ERD. In a parallel vein, meticulous attention to form and functionality is of the utmost importance to the masterful creative, as is a potent relationship to antiquity. 

Sotheby’s Paris proved to be an ideal setting for the poignant runway show, which was a labyrinthine patchwork of piercing human emotion and unwavering creative expression. Placed at the nucleus of the presentation was a model in a white uniform confined to a steel cage. Following the ritualistic shaving of their head by a figure in black, the central character joined guests in witnessing a parade of shadowy, carnal garments unfold on the catwalk. Enigmatic models stunned in sharp silhouettes enhanced by inspiration of the past, with a modern and melodic revealing of bare skin. It is on this nuanced stage that Levy opened the deepest recesses of his soul to the audience, the industry, and the world, infusing the highest level of detail and spirit into every unsentimental stitch. Whitewall had the opportunity to sit down with the passionate founder, who imparted the depth of personal drive, desire, and dedication flowing through the lifeblood of ERD. 

WHITEWALL: Looking back, your Autumn/Winter 2024 runway debuted women’s and men’s garments set within a Brutalist parking garage. Can you describe the artistic progression from that show to the Spring/Summer 2025 runway within Sotheby’s Paris? 

HENRI ALEXANDER LEVY: At the time that I was doing the show in the fall, I was already working on designing this singular synthesizer prison cage unit. I was designing that almost as a case study while I was prepping the fall show. Internally, there was a thread between the garage and cages.

Spring, to me, at least the collection that was just shown, is much more painful of a collection to develop than fall. For some reason, spring is much more romantic, it’s more tragic. It feels as if we end up swimming in much deeper waters for spring. I don’t know if it’s almost against my nature to work on spring, but it ends up being a more involved concept. I think there’s a positive result because of it. There are a lot of motifs, layering, and antiquity from the fall season that carried over to spring. 

The Artist’s Practice as a Conceptual Foundation for ERD

WW: What spurred the foundation of the brand in 2012? 

HAL: At the time, I was in school for fine art. I really consider myself an artist first. My art practice has always been the foundation conceptually for the brand. The brand is very much a personal idea—everything regarding the brand is personal to me. I started it because I wanted something that didn’t exist, that spoke specifically to me. I think as time has gone on, that concept has evolved and become more intricate—more singular at times and vaster at times the more I’ve progressed as an artist. 

Truly, everything regarding the brand is connected to my heart, my subconscious, and my pain. With other brands it might be the market, or market trends. Everything regarding the brand, from the name, to the aesthetic, to the music, scenography for the shows, to the photography—any aspect—is very personal to my experience.

Regarding couture and tailoring, I believe in shapes that I want to wear. I don’t feel the need to make an insanely elaborate concoction of shapes that I don’t want to wear out of the house. The conceptual nature of my brand is the feeling and how I present my work. With the collection, I’m very interested in the pants, I want to wear the shirt, I want to wear the jacket. I like tweaking things, and these pieces become parts of characters that I invent in my head. The fit and the proportion . . . the way you feel when you leave your house is incredibly important. 

There is a deep connection to vintage, from the wear, patina, to the fit, and the silhouette. From a design perspective, there’s this hyper-conceptual side, and there’s this other side where wearability is incredibly important to me. 

“Truly, everything regarding the brand is connected to my heart, my subconscious, and my pain,”

Henri Alexander Levy

WW: How do painting, photography, sculpture, and video come into play during your creative process as far as your inspiration and the stories you want to tell? 

HAL: I’ll start the new collection by just painting and drawing. Painting informs my color palette. I use variations on the same color palette every season. That’s another thread through the brand. I’ll play with different versions of a red, a black, a blue—but they all live in the same world. 

A lot of my time is also spent as a graphicist. Countless hours in each collection are spent making an assemblage, a collage, or a book that goes along with the collection. 

This season I nailed those bloodied ballet slippers in the box that I put in the front of the window, and I made a series of hanging, tied ballet slippers in boxes. Those pieces had something to do with the emotion of the collection. The cages had something to do with the sentiment behind the collection. 

The collection doesn’t necessarily even make sense to me until three weeks before—but somehow the worlds come together. 

“I’ll start the new collection by just painting and drawing,”

Henri Alexander Levy

Harnessing a Pure Connection to the Subconscious

WW: What kind of spirit and outlook defines the ultimate Enfants Riches Déprimés hero and heroine? 

HAL: There’s a very true, pure spirit, which I’m becoming incredibly attracted to. There’s a pure self underneath the facade surrounding the politics and the nonsense of this industry. Inside, as an artist, there’s a real pure self. 

I have to search deep within myself for that during the development of the collection. In other people, when I see that, I’m incredibly attracted to it, where there’s no thought or regard for how you seem to be on the outside. There’s a real truth to personality. I think that’s what I’m incredibly attracted to whether we’re talking about casting or working with others. 

We did a photo shoot yesterday with the French actor Denis Lavant. His spirit was so true. I was incredibly attracted to his aura as an enigma. No thought for what we thought of him, but incredibly pure in his nature. I’m attracted to a wide variety of characters, but for this reason, when I feel they’re truly themselves. Even if I see certain insecurities, I relate to those insecurities. 

To really be into something for yourself, is something special. The deeper you go in that wormhole, you become this entirely different creature. One thing leads you to another thing. 

I’m very attracted to this connection with the subconscious. I think that’s what I’m trying to attain every season. That’s where the collection becomes special and different, once you’ve dropped your guard enough to let the subconscious come in. And I can see it in other people as well. 

“That’s where the collection becomes special and different, once you’ve dropped your guard enough to let the subconscious come in,”

Henri Alexander Levy

WW: Do you have a practice to attain this level of the subconscious? 

HAL: Honestly, I run in the morning sometimes, almost to beat the demon out of me. It seems like it’s helpful. Before that, years ago, I was using other ways to cheat access into my subconscious. There are times I also must be patient. Not every day in the studio it’s going to be the day you want it to be. You must be mindful that you’re not choking the project. When you leave the project, that’s when you realize the project is good, or that you need to make a major change. The fashion calendar forces you to choke a little bit. Sometimes the lack of time can actually force incredibly special things to happen. You’re not weighing your decisions so much—you’re just deciding. 

WW: Where do you continue to find inspiration today? 

HAL: I think it comes to you when you’re not looking for it. I’m always watching movies, listening to music, and finding books. Travel is a very important piece of inspiration. It’s incredibly important regarding the collection. I’ll be in a small book and coffee shop in Mexico City. At one point I’ll find myself incredibly interested in Goya. Then things will switch, and I’ll be watching Haneke films. Or I’ll find myself incredibly interested in furniture and architecture for a few weeks. You have to let that inspiration come to you. I also think that the more you work, the more direct and refined your vision becomes, but also the more direct and refined your taste becomes. I just start swimming deeper and deeper into the abyss. 

I always have a big concern in the back of my head before I’m debuting a collection: I need to be obsessed. When I’m waking up and I’m obsessed with little ideas in my head, I know that I feel good about the production of the overall vision and giving 100 percent of myself to the project. You almost must take out the idea—it needs to become irrelevant if anyone else would be obsessed with it. I make sure the work is fulfilling personal desire, not commercial. Commercial will always sort itself out if you’re personally satisfied.