MAURICE RENOMA

The boy in the workshop around from which a multitude of possibilities gravitate, becoming the man who has dressed the biggest names, who knew how to renew his ideas, who knew how to extend and make appreciate his art all the way to the other side of the planet, thanks to his longevity in this environment where success is not so simple?

A word had to be invented to define this couturier, fashion designer, photographer and scenographer: with “Modographie”, his two main passions, fashion and photography, have been intrinsically united.

Maurice Renoma, the fashion designer

Maurice Renoma, the photographer

Maurice Renoma, the artistic encounters and collaborations

– couturier – designer – photographer – scenographer

In 1963, the White House Renoma boutique opened its doors, rue de la Pompe, in the 16th arrondissement of Paris. Considering fashion as an art form in its own right, Maurice Renoma began to express through his clothes an original vision freed from any aesthetic prejudice.

Renoma shakes up the codes by injecting the notion of aesthetics into clothing, beyond its functional aspect, exploring androgyny and the mixing of genres, shocking biases for the time.

It’s a whole generation that is passion – ate about this sartorial extravagance and the bursting of masculine codes. The “minets parisiens”, the yéyé wave and shortly after, the artists and celebrities will come to this address.

At the beginning of the 90’s, Maurice Renoma broadened his field of action to other fields and developed a passion for a new means of expression: photography. In art as in fashion, he is self-taught. He is constantly experimenting, thus creating an abundant and singular universe through his iconoclastic and avant-garde aesthetic.

Patchwork, recycling, and reappropriation in freedom and without taboos become his trademark. Images and materials are, in his eyes, forms to be modeled to create audacious and original associations.

At the crossroads of the arts, Maurice Renoma has intercepted and integrated all the cultural movements of the past six decades, both by drawing inspiration from and by giving his personal contribution to the world of music, entertainment, sports, and all the arts of living.

60 years later, Maurice Renoma is still at the head of this artistic and creative universe which works in France and internationally through its iconic places.

The Renoma Cafe Gallery, 8th arrondissement

The historic boutique, 16th arrondissement

the Appart Renoma, 16th arrondissement

Also in Tel-Aviv, the Renoma Hotel; in Asia, via fashion licenses.
In 2023, the Maison Renoma celebrates all these decades by sharing them artistically with the widest audience.

THE FASHION DESIGNER

From age of 15, Maurice makes clothes in suede or in loden, in a typical English style, unheard of for the time.

Son of the tailor and designer Simon Cressy, Maurice Renoma, born October 23, 1940, grew up with his broth – er Michel in the family apartment which also serves as a workshop, close to the Carreau du Temple, in the 3rd arrondissement of Paris.

In 1963, he and his brother opened the White House Renoma boutique, rue de la Pompe, in the 16th arrondissement.

Maurice Renoma likes to call this period and this generation, his generation, the “Sunshine Generation”: the famous Sixties which made it possible to break down all barriers and free society to open up to change and creativity.

Colors, lightness and beauty, the watchwords of this decade that allowed the Renoma brothers to mark a real turning point in the history of fashion.

« It’s the very incarnation of this moment when men’s fashion emerged from non-existence […] Dressing at Renoma awarded you a patent of Parisianism, a certificate of a youth to consume without moderation. » J. Brunel

From “Sunshine Generation” to Renoma Generation, the step is short.

Among the clients, the friends’ artists who honored the Maison Renoma by embodying an iconic piece and which were a source of inspiration for Maurice Renoma.

Renoma becomes a kind of factory where fashion and art fade their borders and blend together.

1960, fitted jacket with a straight shoulder line: the influence of English colleges; 1960s: flare line and double-breasted suit; 1961, very wide trousers with two pockets, two pleats and turn-ups: the inspiration of US Navy model; 1965, chamois shirt and landscape jacket: memories of a trip in Los Angeles ; 1970s: printed velvet jacket, crumpled linen, multipoches.

Everyone wants them.

THE PHOTOGRAPHER

In the early 1990s, Maurice Renoma developed a passion for a new means of expression: the image.

It is life itself, in its extraordinary normality, which becomes the main subject of his photographs. His career is thus presented as a continuous sequence of experiments and visual productions on different media.

He goes from film to digital, from black and white to color, from nude to landscape and still life. He records images and some time later, reworks them on a screen, edits them, recycles them.

His images are always ready to live again in another context, to undergo a treatment that changes their nature and form, being conceived as a material to be modeled.

Fiercely independent, Maurice Renoma cultivates a raw image of his own, which offers a mythology of the body and its surroundings. It is a question of giving form to the intimate far from the codes of the traditional representation, from where the hybridization that runs through his work and the application of singular modes of figuration.

This aesthetic exploration bordering on obsession accompanies and extends the reflection of Maurice Renoma since the beginning of his career.

In fashion as in photography, Maurice Renoma is an adept of transgression, recycling and transformation. He confronts the experience of photographic material and its reappropriation, its reuse as a material element. His images are instinctive and reflect a need for perpetual experimentation.

What then is the relationship between blurry shots, women’s bodies magnified in film, neo-punk collages, scratched or burnt photos, fabrics printed with images, crossed out photo booths?

An extraordinary man, who never knew how to recognize himself in success, repetition, representations, the ordinary, the established, and who refused all policing to remain free to express himself with all his languages, always rebellious to standards.

A man who does not call himself an art professional, but who is inhabited by an uncontrollable and tireless creative force, which is not devoid of an aesthetic concern: his creative impulse is dedicated to the expression and creation of his own singular universe, his personal paradise.

THE ARTISTIC ENCOUNTERS AND COLLABORATIONS

His revolutionary style allowed him to dress and frequent the greatest French artists of the time: Brigitte Bardot, Jacques Dutronc and Françoise Hardy, Catherine Deneuve, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Alain Delon…

The great politicians also succumbed to the Renoma madness: Valéry Giscard D’Estaing, François Mitterrand or even Jacques Chirac passed through the hands of the couturier. All of Paris loves him.

Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin, close friends of Maurice, became the muses of the brand for more than 10 years. Maurice Renoma dresses those who will become the greatest figures in fashion, while being a source of inspiration for them: Yves Saint Laurent, Karl Lagerfeld, Giorgio Armani, Gianni Versace, Hubert de Givenchy, Marc Bohan (Dior)…

Very quickly, international stars come to dress in the Renoma boutique, which has become legendary.

From rock to contemporary art, including Hollywood and sports personalities, the greatest legends have their suits cut there: Salvador Dalí, Pablo Picasso, Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, James Brown, Jack Nicholson, John Lennon, The Rolling Stones, Jim Morrison, and many others.

For artistic purposes and to accentuate the exceptional quality of his blazer, Maurice Renoma decided in 2005 to entrust his models to the greatest international contemporary artists to make them works of art.

This new adventure expresses his idea of creation: a mixed universe, where different inspirations converge. 32 artistic figures from all over the world respond present.

Since this first step, he has multiplied artistic collaborations, in particular the production of fusion works with other plastic surgeons.

Michel Houellebecq called on Maurice Renoma to wallpaper the erotic room of his exhibition “Rester Vivant” at the Palais de Tokyo.

One of his latest encounters was in 2022 with Bruno Decharme who exhibited at the Appart a selection of works of its exceptional collection of art brut; Maurice Renoma presents for the first time his “Failed Photos”.

CONTACT

presse@renoma-paris.com
+33(0)1 44 05 38 14/18
113 Avenue Victor Hugo, 75116 Paris