“I think we are all looking for something that’s simple and is touching and emotional without trying so hard, muses Huelle. His hybrids, like Elbaz’s exposed zippers and seams, speak to the joy of making and improvising, and in so doing seem to acknowledge that life, and creation, can be glorious in their messiness. “In the end, it’s just about the clothes, and I think that was always also Alber’s way of seeing things,” the designer notes. Of course these clothes play out in the theater of life as well as the theatre de la mode. Huelle’s focus on clothes is based on a belief in his chosen field. The “incredible thing about fashion,” he enthuses, is “it’s so multifaceted and so complicated and so extreme in many ways because it’s literally about everything. It’s about our lives.” Lutz talks to Laird Borrelli-Persson about AZ Factory on VOGUE RUNWAY