Victoria/Tomas Shuts Down Operations

The news came as a surprise late on Monday afternoon (June 10). Victoria/Tomas is coming to an end. It's a shock decision for young French designers, even though the Parisian ready-to-wear brand led by Victoria Feldman and Tomas Berzins was considered to be well established, having showed every year at Paris Fashion Week since 2017, their last show being in the capital last Feburary. 

The company and the workshop are to be closed. "We made this decision recently, a month and a half ago. It had become increasingly complicated. We're stopping because of everything that's happening in the market, both from a communications point of view, with more and more brands and events during Fashion Weeks that overlap and don't make it any easier for the press or buyers to do their job, and also from a commercial point of view. In particular, with an increasingly difficult situation with wholesale distribution," explains Victoria Feldman.

"We've never stopped for the last eleven years, either during Covid or with the arrival of two babies two years ago! In the last few seasons, things got more and more complex and by the end, we were more entrepreneurs than creators. We felt the need to take a break and get back to what we love to do, the creative work for which we are renowned," she continues.

In September 2012, the young woman of Russian origin and Tomas Berzins, her Latvian alter ego, created the label that has borne their first names from the outset and sealed their love. The two designers met on the benches of the Esmod School in Paris and have been together ever since. From the outset, their offer was centred on modern, fresh and youthful ready-to-wear with a touch of fashion, infusing masculine codes into women's wardrobes.

On leaving school, where they chose to specialise in leather, which they work with dexterity and inventiveness like fabric, they launched their women's ready-to-wear label, Victoria/Tomas. The following year, in 2013, they made a name for themselves with seven looks in burnt leather at the Hyères Fashion Festival, where they were the youngest finalists. Two years later, their project took off, with the range gradually expanding to include ready-to-wear for men and accessories such as shoes and bags. It wasn't long before they were being distributed internationally in well-known stores, from Colette to Bon Marché, via Neiman Marcus, focusing exclusively on wholesale.

But the designer fashion market is becoming increasingly competitive, favouring the best-known brands to the detriment of smaller entities, which have already been heavily penalised by the pandemic, losing many of their multi-brand retailers. With Covid, the latter either disappeared or were reluctant to take risks by buying lesser-known names. At the time, Victoria/Tomas revised its business model by reinventing itself with a range of fully reversible, dual-use garments. Above all, the brand multiplied its collaborations, such as those with Chantelle and Caron perfumes.

This is the direction the duo intends to take from now on. "There will be no more collections or catwalks under our name. There will be no more Victoria/Tomas. At least for the time being, we may start up again one day... But the two of us are still young and very much alive. We're just going in a different direction. We're already working on a number of projects," confides the thirty-something.

In the pipeline is a major collaboration with a sports brand to create a fashion line.