Zadig & Voltaire celebrates 25th anniversary with sleek book

By

Godfrey Deeny

Published
Oct 17, 2023

Zadig & Voltaire has celebrated the brand's 25th anniversary with a sleek book encapsulating the marque’s novel blend of French chic and rock n roll attitude.
 

Produced by Italian master publisher Rizzoli, the eponymously named book is crammed full of the cool photography that helped set the brand’s concept apart.
 
Founded in 1997 by style entrepreneur Thierry Gillier, the Paris-based house’s name is inspired by the 1747 philosophical novel Zadig by the French thinker and literary icon Voltaire.

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The writer’s name keeps on giving. Besides Zadig & Voltaire, Gillier has also opened Chateau Voltaire, the most happening new boutique hotel in central Paris beloved by movie stars and art collectors. And the location of a recent book signing with its designer Cecilia Bonstrom.
 
From the beginning, Gillier’s goal was to instill the same sense of optimism and modernity that permeates the original novella’s story. In a path-breaking strategy, the brand has always artfully blurred the lines between masculine and feminine, blending posh punk rebel with Parisian hipster.
 
The resulting book is a compilation of iconic moments, great runway shots, advertising campaigns, store architecture – illustrated by evocative photography from noted photographers like from Inez & Vinoodh to Olivier Zahm. Revealing influences and inspirations in a tome composed of three different types of paper – uncoated for black and white; coated for images of design objects; and tipped-in for inserts.
 
Written by the noted American fashion writer and editor of Vogue Runway Nicole Phelps, who wryly comments: “Thierry Gillier named his fashion brand after a beloved book from his youth. Zadig was the main character in a fable by the eighteenth-century French philosopher Voltaire. But you could say, however, that he owes a debt to Elvis.”