Arnaud Vaillant

Arnaud Vaillant is a French fashion designer, executive and co-founder of Coperni. He and Sébastien Meyer built the independent Paris label before suspending it in 2015 to become joint artistic directors of Courrèges womenswear. The appointment gave both men equal formal creative authority, regardless of the public division of labour often used to describe Coperni.

Their Courrèges tenure restored a named seasonal runway programme after the 2011–15 product-led relaunch. From Spring 2016 through Fall 2017, the pair combined category-based merchandising with technical materials and changing presentation formats. Courrèges announced their mutual departure in July 2017, and Coperni later resumed independently.

Vaillant’s wider role links design authorship to company building, communication and the organisation of a contemporary fashion label. At Courrèges, however, he should not be reduced to a business-only counterpart: the collections and public title were joint.

Vaillant’s work with Meyer treats product, image and operating structure as connected. Clear garment categories, restrained silhouette and immediately recognisable technical actions allow the clothes to function across runway, retail and media without relying on extensive decorative coding.

The Courrèges collections used this logic to reactivate jackets, short dresses, rib knits and reflective surfaces through heating systems, three-dimensional printing, welding and adaptable construction. Coperni developed a separate version of the same organisational precision, shaped by independent brand strategy and technology-led public presentation.