Christophe Willem: Inventaire

Christophe Willem was the winner of France’s Nouvelle Star in 2006. Sony BMG France (now Columbia) tasked Stylorouge with designing and art directing his debut album, Inventaire.

Christophe and the team at Sony BMG were heavily involved from the onset, as Christophe had a very strong idea of what image he wanted to give the public. Realising that most people think that Pop Idol winners are marionettes manipulated by the music machine, Christophe wanted to convey an idea of there being more to him than his showbusiness persona.

Based on this brief, we decided to go over the top with the cover, but to slowly reveal the true side of Christophe through a narrative that would be provided by the singles to follow.

Old Busby Berkeley references were passed around and they stuck—they were striking and spoke spades about show business and gave us enough material to manipulate for the singles.

As we were showing mockups Christophe wasn’t satisfied with the direction, thinking that it didn’t hint that there was something under the pomp and flamboyance. He came up with the idea of implying that the cover image was a screen which he was rolling up—and in doing so getting rid of his stage personality, something that is carried through to the back cover.

On the back cover, the false screen of fame is rolled up and all that is revealed is the real Christophe standing in an empty room which represented life without fame in contrast to the velvet and gold. This room is shown in the lyrics booklet, but as the album progresses feathers from the front cover fall in and eventually obscure the zen like peace of room.

The first commercial single, ‘Double Je’, carried this theme of duality further.

The type used is a custom Serif Gothic paired with one of my favourite faces, Andrejs Grinberg’s Brewery, a face I would use more often if it had an italic accompaniment.

Photography by the lovely Sandrine and Michael.
Christophe styled by
Erica styled by Lou at Unconventional.