Photo Credits: Gerard Hartem

There are designers who follow trends, and then there are those who listen to deeper time.

Franck Sorbier belongs to the latter — an alchemist of the unseen, a sculptor of myth, a poet of material. In his newest collection, L’Eldorado, presented for Haute Couture Fall-Winter 2025, he does not merely drape fabric, he summons civilizations, evokes mineral memories, and gives form to the ancestral murmurings of the Andes. As a Grand Couturier and honored Maître d’Art, Sorbier transcends the idea of fashion as fleeting. For him, garments are rites, thresholds, offerings. Each collection is a candle lit at the altar of what is sacred, untamed, and beautiful. This season, he looks to the Kingdom of the Sun and Moon to the Inca Empire and its golden cosmogony, where gold is not simply a metal, but crystallized light, a spirit born of earth. In this exclusive conversation with The Runway Source, we step into the mind of a master who does not merely design — he re-enchants the world. Between protection and surrender, structure and flow, Franck Sorbier reminds us that haute couture can still be an eternal gesture, a language that speaks with the stars, the stones, and the soul.

Your latest collection seems to emerge not from a place of fashion alone, but from a deep, mythic undercurrent. What inner vision or ancestral echo first guided you toward the Andean world as a creative compass?

FS: I think I’ve long since distanced myself from fashion. It’s just a pretext, one form of expression among many others. When the starting point of a collection is a myth, that of the Kingdom of the Sun and the Moon, the Inca Empire, its customs, its treasures, and its mythology, culture becomes the anchor. For as long as I can remember, pre-Columbian civilizations have always intrigued me. And in particular, the Andean world, further away and more difficult to access and therefore more mysterious.

Photo Credits: Bertand Rindorf Petroff

Gold, in your hands, transcends materiality — it becomes myth, light, memory. What inner symbolism does gold carry for you in this collection, beyond its historic and aesthetic charge?

FS: Gold has always fascinated humanity. It has multiple reflections; the family of golds is undeniably infinite. White gold, yellow gold, antique gold, bronze gold. Today, gold is more than ever a safe haven. Long before banknotes, it was the symbol of a country’s wealth. But beyond its value, gold is a creation of the earth, mountains, and rivers; in this sense, it is the fruit of nature. Gold is eternal.

Many of the silhouettes evoke ritual garments as thresholds between the earthly and the divine. Did you conceive of this collection as a kind of sacred offering?

FS: Your question is magnificent, and I’m honored by your impression. If this collection felt like a gift, I’m delighted. I believe it’s our responsibility to inspire emotion.

The stage itself a living, breathing volcanic terrain felt like a participant in the storytelling. How do you see the role of scenography in shaping the emotional soul of a couture narrative?

FS: Scenography is an integral part of the collection. It accompanies the story and reinforces the emotions I try to convey through my creations. I imagine stories through fabrics and techniques, but also through the staging and ambiance specific to each of my collections. Clothing is a vehicle, a medium of artistic expressions?

There is a delicate tension throughout: between protection and vulnerability, structure and flow, past and vision. How do you approach this duality in your creative process?

FS: This duality is sometimes difficult to manage. Despite everything, opposites attract and come together. I love paradox, and creation isn’t a linear process.

In translating fragments of Andean myth into the haute couture language, how do you reconcile artistic freedom with the ethical responsibility of cultural homage?

FS: Above all, it’s a tribute to a particular culture. I felt immense joy revisiting my childhood affections and curiosities. And if, with this collection, I was able to express the expression of a fascinating world, I am all the happier.

If Andean Myth could speak, what whisper or revelation would you hope it leaves in the heart of the viewer long after the lights have dimmed?

FS: “I am always among you, in the sky with the sun, the moon and the stars, the stones, the rivers and the roads. I am with you forever“

Photo Credits: Bertand Rindorf Petroff