ON POINT: Known for its collaborations with contemporary artists including Kenny Scharf, Alex Israel and Mickalene Thomas, luxury swimwear brand Vilebrequin has teamed up for the first time with an artist’s archive for a limited-edition capsule collection.
The French brand joined forces with Charlotte Hellman Cachin, the great-granddaughter of French Neo-Impressionist painter Paul Signac, who selected two of his paintings of Saint-Tropez from the Signac Archives to be featured in the line.
The pointillist works are printed on two men’s swimming trunks, set to go on sale Wednesday in Vilebrequin stores and online, priced at 260 euros. A linen bowling shirt that matches one of the designs will follow later this year.
“Signac had deep links with Saint-Tropez, as does Vilebrequin,” Cachin said at the headquarters of the archive, located in an artist’s studio on the Left Bank with a clear view all the way to the Sacré-Coeur basilica in Montmartre.
The artist bought a house in Saint-Tropez in 1897, helping to put the sleepy fishing village on the map. By the time Vilebrequin was founded in Saint-Tropez in 1971 by photographer and journalist Fred Prysquel, it had become a magnet for the international jet set.
Swimming shorts from the Vilebrequin collaboration with the Signac Archives.
Courtesy of Vilebrequin
Signac was a keen sailor, arriving in Saint-Tropez on his boat Olympia. “It made total sense to have a swimwear line for a man who was as sporty as he was, because he loved sailing as much as he loved painting,” Cachin said.
Roland Herlory, chief executive officer of Vilebrequin, said the brand’s printers in Como, Italy, took great pains to match the colors used by Signac, whose technique consists of breaking down single hues into multicolored dots. The print runs along the front and back of the trunks, which are meticulously matched to ensure continuity, while tonal stitching further contributes to the seamless effect.
“When you work with a painter, an artist, you have such a responsibility toward the work that you always push your know-how and your standards a step further,” Herlory said. “You see in the eyes of the printers the excitement of the challenge.”
Through the collaboration, Vilebrequin will help finance the creation of a comprehensive digital catalogue of Signac’s work.
His work was featured in a recent exhibition at the Basil & Elise Goulandris Foundation in Athens titled “Neo-Impressionism in the Colors of the Mediterranean,” and two shows are in the works for 2026, including one at the Barberini Museum in Potsdam, Germany, Cachin said.