Musing: Marvin Desroc
Fashion Designer, Paris France
MARVIN DESROC
Fashion Designer, Paris France
My earliest memory of Marvin Desroc is from the spring of 2021. I was working as a fit model at the Gucci design office in Rome, where he was part of the men’s design team. I remember strolling past Marvin while he was enjoying his lunch under the warm Roman sun. We made eye contact and smiled at each other as he waved to the other fit models I was with. I remember this moment so vividly because we had already been following each other on social media, and I make it a point to acknowledge and mentally note any and all Black people I come across living abroad.
Marvin was born in Martinique to parents of Caribbean heritage from Martinique and Dominica, and he was raised in Paris. Needless to say, he has a multicultural background that continues to shape his creative worldview. His upbringing gave him a distinct perspective on identity, style, and culture—reflected in both his personal presence and design work.
Some time passed before we had the opportunity to truly connect over dinner with a mutual friend in Milan. He had recently relocated to the city to work in-house at Off–White under Ib Kamara. During that dinner, I grew fascinated by him, his views on fashion, and his creative process when he is in design mode.
Most recently, Marvin and I spent time together during his trip to New York, where he was celebrating his designs being featured in the Met’s latest exhibition, Superfine: Tailoring Black Style. I was lucky enough to wear one of his pieces while accompanying him to preview the exhibition.
In this conversation with Marvin, we explore how his curiosity for learning gave him an unconventional head start in his career, his unexpected sources of inspiration, and his plans for the future.
SASHA: Walk us through your career – What was the first step you took to start?
MARVIN:
"I’d say my career really began when I was 17. I already knew how to draw, but I realized I needed to learn the actual skill of making clothes. So I went door to door in Le Sentier, Paris, seeking out tailors who would teach me. That’s where it started – learning directly from pattern makers and tailors. Most people count the beginning of a career from graduation or the first job with a brand, but for me, it all began at 17, with hands-on training in the heart of Paris.
I think it really cemented the foundation of everything that I do, everything that I'm about. I would say it's the beginning for me.”
SASHA: What followed?
MARVIN:
“What followed was a traditional path –– I went through the standard education system, then on to fashion school. I studied at Duperré, then at Central Saint Martins. Then obviously, what people would consider it to be the real start –– Gucci, I started as a junior designer there, then went to Off-White, and then Saint-Laurent. For me the real beginning was when I was 17, learning how to make clothes”
SASHA: You mentioned “Le Sentier” –– can you tell us a little bit more about what that is and how you navigated it?
MARVIN:
“Le Sentier is the fashion district in Paris. It's quite well known for if you want to buy fabrics, trimmings, you can find different tailors there. It's like the fashion district. If you want to do fashion, you just know to go as a Parisian. I just decided to go there and try my luck. I knocked on a few doors and I was like, ‘Guys, I'm only 17, just starting fashion school, and I would love to (Outside of fashion school) learn under somebody that knows the technique’. I received a couple of nos then one kind lady said she couldn't help me, but she knew somebody who could. So she gave me a number, and I called that person, and the rest is history. That person is still very much part of my life and became a mentor for me.”
SASHA: How does your cultural roots shape your artistic vision?
MARVIN:
“It's the driving force of everything I do, it's the starting point, I think. Even me with this top [points to the top he’s wearing], people see lingerie, but the starting point was actually the “wife beaters” that we all own in the Caribbean. And I wanted to blend that with that French sensibility that I adopted growing up in Paris. I think it's the driving force of everything. It's the filter to everything that I look at. Yeah, it's It's literally everything.
Basically, everything that I see, it's being filtered through my own emotions, my cultural roots. I think filter is the right word because as a designer, you absorb everything, but the way you're going to interpret that is unique to you. To me, my cultural roots, they do act as a filter to everything that I look at. So it's everything. It's the starting point, it's the filter.”
SASHA: What are the themes you're most passionate about in your work?
MARVIN:
“I love, love, love, lingerie. There's something about lingerie that I adore. I never can understand why. It's almost like an obsession. Yeah, I would say the main theme (it always changes) but I would say the main theme is always lingerie. Although people might not think, the other (inspiration) is hip hop, people might not see it necessarily in the work because I'm not necessarily giving off that vibe, it's streetwear, whatever. But It is a huge theme because I love hip hop, and I grew up in that as well through my big brothers. So it's always going to be something that I look at naturally.
But again, I'm going to filter it with different things. At the end, it's not really going to look like hip hop per se, but I always use it as a starting point somehow. I would say hip hop and lingerie for sure –– Those are the main ones. I have couture here and there. I love [adding] couture elements. I'm a huge couture fan. I'm a huge fan of just French designers in general. But the main two, I would say, is lingerie and hip hop.”
SASHA: That's what makes the influence so interesting with you, that there are of two different worlds.
MARVIN:
“So different. Opposite worlds. But that's what I love about… I've always worked in a diptych kind of way where I would take two components that are just so far from each other and try to figure out what links them together. I love working like that, in a diptych.”
SASHA: How did you build your network and find collaborators?
MARVIN:
“In terms of Paris, I definitely just went in with [the attitude] like, ‘Hey, guys I’m young, but I want to learn’. I built [network and collaborators] through drive and just wanting to learn skills, and then obviously, working in fashion. Also, working within studios of different brands.”
SASHA: What advice would you give to someone starting out as a designer?
MARVIN:
“I would say be kind, have fun, but learn... I would say learn your craft. I do think a lot of people now want to make fashion and want to do fashion because of what we see and how much of a wider audience it has now, and a lot of people want to make it, but they're not really going to the core of it, which is the basic skills of learning how to draw, learning how to drape. If you're going to be in a fashion, just know what you're talking about. [Make sure] you can hold a pencil, you can hold a scissors, you can cut fabric, you can do all of that. I believe, if you go back to the drawing board and focus on upping your skills first. I'm a bit old school.
That would be my advice because you're always going to be necessary. Even if [having your own label] doesn't work out, when you have skills, you're always going to be necessary. So skills are, to me, the most important thing. That's my advice. Focus on that.”
SASHA: What project or moment am I most proud of?
MARVIN:
Well, because it just happened, I would say the Met. I would say the Met exhibition because when I did what I did [design his graduate collection which is featured in the exhibit], at the time, it was never to launch a brand. I didn't know anything about launching [a brand]. When I did this, I was 22. I remember saying this, all I wanted was to inspire people and to open their eyes about new masculinity. And I just wanted to do something for the culture. So being at the Met, and especially being in an exhibit where it is about culture and it is about reaching people through that, it really meant something for me. I'm very proud of that because it’s what I wanted to achieve when I did this collection. I felt like I did that. I'm very proud of that.
SASHA: What's next for you? And is there anything that you want to share with us that you're excited about?
MARVIN:
“I definitely want to continue collaborating within fashion, maybe with other brands, maybe with other designers. But I also would love to implement my voice a bit more within the whole fashion sphere. I do believe I have something to say, and I want to say it.”