During Fashion Week in Paris, the Shanghai-based contemporary fashion brand Keigan unveiled its first Keigan Genius Salon, a multidisciplinary installation that redefined the meaning of the salon concept for the 21st century. The event, hosted on Rue de Rivoli (one of Paris’s most historic avenues), transformed an elegant Haussmann apartment into a living dialogue between fashion, art, architecture, and sensory experience.
Reviving the spirit of the Parisian salon
Drawing inspiration from the 18th-century Parisian salon, where intellectuals and artists once gathered to exchange ideas, Keigan Genius Salon reinterpreted that tradition through a contemporary lens. Rather than a nostalgic recreation, the brand created a living space for cross-disciplinary collaboration — a “modern palace of thought,” as one curator described it — uniting voices from design, music, and culinary art around Keigan’s minimalist, architecturally inspired fashion aesthetic.
The space itself, curated by architect and designer Sophie Dries, embodied this harmony of eras and influences. Merging Eastern and Western cultural heritage, the apartment’s neoclassical structure was reimagined with sleek contemporary interventions that echoed Keigan’s design DNA — a balance of precision and poetic restraint.
A contemporary fashion brand with an intellectual edge
For Keigan, the Genius Salon marks a pivotal moment in its evolution from a contemporary womenswear brand to a cross-cultural platform for artistic dialogue. The event showcased how clothing can serve not only as a material expression of beauty but also as a medium of cultural connection.
Architect Sophie Dries presented a selection of her signature works, demonstrating the interplay between structure, rhythm, and material. Her curatorial approach positioned Keigan’s garments as extensions of space itself — “a bridge,” she suggested, “between art, architecture, and daily life.”
Sculptor and architect Marc Leschelier contributed raw yet refined sculptural installations, blending industrial construction materials with Keigan’s fabrics to explore the tension between permanence and fluidity.
Immersive experiences at Fashion Week in Paris
The Genius Salon extended far beyond visual art. Artist Siyi Li composed a musical program divided into three acts — Morning, Noon, and Night — blending motifs from Paris and Shanghai into a soundscape that evolved with the day. Visitors were invited to wander through the space as melodies shifted from delicate piano tones to immersive ambient compositions, evoking the passage of time within the salon.
TOUTIA Culinary Studio transformed gastronomy into a tactile, artistic experience, offering edible installations inspired by Keigan’s fabrics and color palette. Guests interacted with sculptural dishes that mimicked textile textures, merging the senses of touch, taste, and sight in an entirely new way.
Floral artist Louis Geraud Castor created botanical compositions that interpreted Keigan’s relaxed yet refined aesthetic, blending flowers emblematic of both Paris and Shanghai. Meanwhile, Mateo Garcia Studio introduced sculptural audio equipment that blurred the boundaries between sound design and sculpture.
A new chapter in the salon concept
Through Keigan Genius Salon, the brand revived the salon concept as a platform for aesthetic and intellectual exchange — much like its Enlightenment-era predecessors, but through the language of contemporary fashion.
By uniting craftsmanship, architecture, music, and culinary art, Keigan not only celebrated the slow beauty of creation but also positioned itself as a thought leader among new-generation designers bridging East and West.
Photography by ADRIAN MEŠKO
Special thanks to PERRIER COMMUNICATION
