The practice of a young designer reinvigorating an iconic Parisian house has now become a formula. But it’s not an easy one, it’s a mine-filled path that’s seen more than a few car-crash appointments in the past ten years. Get it spot-on, however, and magic can be made  – the creation of a cultural shift and a bold vitality for our times.

One of the most fascinating things about this youth/establishment formula, is the possibility of building icons out of the young pretenders to the throne; turning them in 20 or 30 years to names as revered as their maison’s founder. Ghosts etched on the labels inside each piece, Christian Dior, Cristóbal Balenciaga and Hubert de Givenchy are landmark designers feted in archives and collections across the world; as much an inspiration for fashion students and cloth junkies today as they were as contemporaries 50 years ago. But today, Hedi Slimane, Nicolas Ghesquière and Riccardo Tisci sit beside their figureheads, their own contributions praised in magazines, glued in sketchbooks, pinned to mood boards, and imprinted with excitement into a fashion fans developing, interrogative mind.

There’s no hard and fast rule for getting a reinvigoration right (if there was the industry would be a lot simpler and the conglomerates even richer). But there has to be a rebellion and a contemporary steadfastness in amongst a sense of respect and understanding. There can’t be heartache for the past, there has to be a hedonism for now.

In A#8 curated by Riccardo Tisci, a double page shows the art of Seb Patane (‘A Fancy Dress’, courtesy of Maureen Paley gallery, London) contrasted by an image selected by Riccardo from Monsieur Givenchy’s 1961 collection. It’s this original photograph that perhaps encapsulates the dynamic Tisci has with past and present, the pure elegant lines of a lady’s dress and opera gloves contrasted with the, very Tisci, heavy, ornamental scarf veiling the models face. An arresting image, the explanation for the masking is impossibly simple: the studio model’s face is blanked out so as not to distract from the cataloguing/promotion of the clothes when archiving the collection.

That something as tiny and insignificant as this detail should draw a parallel to the work of Givenchy today and the brutal/beautiful modern handwriting Riccardo has forged of his own is extraordinary. A subtle coincidence, but it might be one that alludes to why he was the right man for the job.