A Feel For Fashion: Bryan Yambao

⁠In your view, how significant are heritage and identity in contributing to a Maison’s consistency today?

Heritage and identity are everything, but only when they are alive. Heritage should not be treated like a museum label or a dusty archive. It is the operating system of a maison. It tells you what the house believes in, what it refuses, what it returns to, and what it can never betray. The strongest maisons today are not the ones repeating the past. They are the ones with enough identity to make the present feel inevitable. This means having a point of view so clear that even when the expression changes, the spirit remains recognisable. Creative directors come and go. But a maison with a strong identity has gravity.
 

Haute Couture has gained widespread popularity due to overcommunication. Do you see this as an advantage or a disadvantage?

Both. The advantage is obvious: more people are looking. Couture is no longer hidden behind velvet ropes for a tiny circle of clients, editors and insiders. A teenager in Manila, Beijing, Lagos or São Paulo can see a couture look seconds after it appears. That is powerful. But the disadvantage is that overcommunication can flatten mystery. Couture is not content. It is not just a red carpet moment, a backstage reel, a celebrity arrival, a viral dress. Those things can bring attention, but they cannot be allowed to replace the work. The danger is when people think they have understood couture because they have seen the image. But couture is not only the image. It is hours, hands, fittings, silence, discipline, obsession. I sound like a broken record online sometimes but Haute Couture is not about how a garment looks but how it is made.
 

In today’s fast-paced society, how can it coexist with the slow processes of crafting Haute Couture?

That tension is exactly why couture matters. Everything now is fast: opinions, images, trends, outrage, desire. Couture is one of the few places in fashion that still insists on time. It coexists with speed because it offers the opposite. It reminds us that not everything valuable should be immediate. A couture dress cannot be rushed just because the internet is bored. The hand does not move faster because the algorithm is hungry. That slowness is not a weakness. It is the value. In a culture of acceleration, couture becomes almost radical. It says: wait, look closer, respect the process. The world may move quickly, but the highest form of fashion still requires patience.

How do you envision the future of Haute Couture?

I think the future of Haute Couture will be smaller, sharper and more culturally visible. It will remain exclusive, because it has to. But exclusivity cannot mean irrelevance. The future of couture depends on protecting the craft while allowing the conversation around it to expand. I also think couture will become more important, not less, because the rest of fashion is becoming so chaotic. There is too much product, too much noise, too much sameness. Couture still has the ability to make people stop. But it has to keep proving that it is not just expensive fantasy. The future of couture is emotion, craft, identity and modernity working together. It must seduce the eye, but also justify its existence intellectually, technically and culturally.

What is the most significant change you are seeing in fashion right now?

The biggest change is that the audience is no longer passive. People do not just receive fashion anymore. They interpret it, challenge it, meme it, archive it, expose it, celebrate it and sometimes destroy it in real time. That changes everything. A brand can no longer rely only on authority. The old hierarchy has cracked. It is not enough to say, “This is important because we say it is important.” People want to feel something. They want proof. They want a world they can enter, even if they cannot buy the dress. At the same time, there is a return to substance. After years of hype, logos and endless collaboration culture, people are asking: what is the value? Where is the craft? Where is the point of view? Where is the emotion? Fashion is becoming more exposed, but also more accountable.
 

Can craftsmanship keep fashion and couture alive in these troubled years of the system?

Yes, but craftsmanship alone is not enough. Craft can keep couture alive only if it is connected to desire, meaning and relevance. We cannot romanticize craft as if the presence of handwork automatically makes something important. There is beautiful work that says nothing. There is also simple work that says everything. The question is not only, “How many hours did this take?” The question is, “Why does this need to exist?” But in a troubled system, craftsmanship is one of fashion’s strongest arguments for survival. It slows things down. It protects knowledge. It gives value back to the object. It reminds us that fashion is not only image-making. It is human labor, memory, skill and transmission. Craftsmanship keeps Couture alive when it is not used as decoration, but as conviction.

What is your perspective on the role of new technologies in Haute Couture?

Technology should serve couture, not dominate it. I am not against technology at all. I think it can be extraordinary for research, preservation, communication, precision, experimentation and access. It can help us understand archives differently. It can help artisans test possibilities. It can bring new audiences into the story. But Haute Couture cannot become a technology demonstration. The soul of Couture is still the relationship between the body, the hand, the material and the imagination. The most interesting future is not human versus machine. It is the intelligent use of technology to protect and extend human skill. Technology can help Couture evolve, but it should never erase the trembling, imperfect, emotional intelligence of the hand. That is where the magic is.

What excites you most about fashion at the moment?

What excites me most is that fashion feels unstable again. I mean that in a good way. For a while, everything felt too controlled: the same references, the same celebrities, the same strategies, the same bags, the same “moments.” Now there is a sense that the old formulas are not working as easily. That creates anxiety, but it also creates possibility. You can feel audiences becoming more demanding. You can feel people looking for sincerity, fantasy, craft, beauty, humour, danger. I am excited by designers and maisons that are not trying to please everyone. Fashion becomes interesting when there is risk. Not chaos for the sake of chaos, but a real point of view. I want to feel that someone has made a decision.

When was the last time you marvelled over something in fashion?

I marvel when fashion makes me quiet. That is rare now, because we are trained to react immediately. But sometimes you see a garment, a show, a gesture, a sleeve, a piece of embroidery, a proportion, and you stop performing opinion. For me, that is the highest compliment. Not “I liked it.” Not “it will sell.” Not “it was good for social media.” But a moment where the work disarms you. The last time I truly marvelled was not only because something was beautiful, but because I could feel the intelligence behind it. Beauty is everywhere in fashion. True wonder is rarer. Wonder happens when beauty, skill, emotion and timing arrive together. I feel this whenever I’m at Chanel show by Matthieu Blazy. 

There seems to be more overlap between fashion/entertainment and fashion/sports than ever. Thoughts?

It makes complete sense. Fashion is following attention, and attention now lives around music, film, sport and personality. Athletes are not just athletes anymore. They are cultural figures. Musicians are not just performers. Actors are not just actors. Everyone with visibility now participates in image-making. Sports especially has become one of fashion’s most exciting spaces because it has emotion built in. There is loyalty, performance, body, identity, nationalism, fandom, triumph, heartbreak. Fashion loves all of that because fashion is also about belonging and projection. The risk, of course, is opportunism. Not every collaboration needs to exist. But when the relationship is authentic, fashion and sport can be electric together. The athlete’s tunnel, the red carpet, the arena, the couture salon — they are all stages now. The real question is not whether fashion should be in sport or entertainment. It already is. The question is whether the result has taste, intelligence and soul.

This interview has been lightly edited.