Introduction
Gilles Elalouf was a fashion entrepreneur and the business co-founder of Y/Project. His earlier career included the Boston Consulting Group, Publicis and Second Stage Pharma before he established the Paris label with designer Yohan Serfaty in 2010. Serfaty provided the original design authorship; Elalouf developed the company and commercial structure.
Elalouf became legal manager of Y/Project’s operating company, IN-CARNATION, on 16 September 2012. After Serfaty’s death in 2013, he preserved the business and led the search that brought Glenn Martens into creative leadership. During Martens’s tenure the house expanded its women’s programme, wholesale network, product categories and international platform while remaining independent of a major fashion group.
A November 2023 restructuring converted IN-CARNATION from an SARL into an SAS and appointed Elalouf company president. He died on 9 June 2024 after a long illness. His death removed the label’s statutory president and central business continuity-holder during the financial and leadership crisis that preceded receivership and closure.
Design ethos
Elalouf’s contribution was institutional, not collection design. He maintained the legal company, wholesale operation and studio conditions around successive creative leaders, allowing an exacting independent label to grow without recasting business authority as personal fashion authorship.
His operating method combined continuity with delegated creative control. He kept Y/Project active after Serfaty’s death, consulted the Paris fashion establishment during the successor search and supported Martens through a gradual transformation of the house, major awards, category expansion and international presentations.
The limits of that model became visible in the final period. Revenue and critical attention coexisted with low cash and heavy short-term obligations, leaving the company exposed to a costly wholesale production cycle. Elalouf’s death did not alone cause the collapse, but it removed the executive figure around whom the independent structure had been organised.
Disclaimer
Career history
2024
Gilles Elalouf died on 9 June 2024 after a long illness. AED Partners was appointed IN-CARNATION’s president and a directoire member later that month; the change did not establish a new creative owner or successor.
2012
Yohan Serfaty ceased as IN-CARNATION’s registered legal manager on 16 September 2012, and Gilles Elalouf assumed the position. Serfaty continued to design and present Y/Project collections until his death, so the filing records a governance transfer rather than a creative departure.
2010
Gilles Elalouf co-founded Y/Project as its business and executive partner. He became legal manager of IN-CARNATION in September 2012, maintained the company after Serfaty’s death and later served as company president until his own death in June 2024.
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