Helene Meunier: No Concessions

We may have the French Concession, Paul's, and numerous other influences from the country of Bardot, Truffaut, and Sartre, but Meuh! is a very welcome continental addition to Gallic Shanghai. Designer Helene Meunier told TALK about the 1950s, creating her own line, and her take on French style.

Helene Meunier's Tai’an Lu store looks like the inside of a kaleidoscope, with colours and patterns swirling their way around the room. Having opened in October, Meuh! is the self-taught designer's first store, despite the fact that she has been selling her custom pieces to Shanghai’s guys and dolls for five years. The name Meuh! comes from a nickname she hated as a teen, the sound of a cow's moo.

Meunier has been in Shanghai since 2002, when she arrived to study business as part of an exchange program. Stimulated by adventure and the unknown, she says she chose China because, “I knew nothing about it!” Before long, she was eking out a pretty interesting life in Shanghai, even taking up some acting work: “I played a Russian spy who died as a hero on the 17th episode of a police TV show,” she explains.

Hailing from a family of decorators, Meunier's clothes showcase her adoration of vibrant patterns and colours. Tailored men's dress shirts in subdued florals, casual walking coats adorned with whimsical illustrations – each piece has an enthusiastic, glowing vibe. "I'm inspired by shapes in mind. My mother and grandmother always mixed patterns, so it's like I'm decorating and putting shapes together," she says. 

Meunier's style shows a penchant for 1950s elegance, womanly silhouettes, style icons such as Grace Kelly and Audrey Hepburn, an admiration for Christian Lacroix's couture, and ‘French Style’. “French people are very careful of how they dress,” she says. “Right now the current style is 'BoBo’ – bourgeois bohemian.”

Meunier also plays with the classic French fixation with stripes – if the red and white stripes hanging in her store are any indication. “Well, stripes can be tricky; they can make you look better. Or fat. Stripes can be dangerous,” Meunier says with a laugh. She sums up her design aesthetic as “vintage-inspired, daring, feminine and colourful. I like to show the waist and I love to show women's shapes,” she adds.

The hourglass shape is clearly a favourite of Fontaine’s. Take for example an auburn and gold checkered, cross-back silk dress that won’t leave its wearer crying out for attention. The straps are subtly trimmed in red and white polka dot, almost unnoticeable, but each strap holds up a voluminous low-cut bodice nestled atop a waist-snipping body, sliding into a full skirt. It could very well be called the ‘Dorothy has left Kansas and met Marilyn Monroe’ dress, or for Mad Men enthusiasts, ‘Betty Draper meets Joan Holloway vamp’.

For young designers, getting their name out there is always a challenge, but Meunier's May 2009 show in Paris's Marais district took care of that for her quick smart. “I felt weird, because I had real models! I usually use 'real' people,” she says. 

In Shanghai, Meunier has been relatively well-known in design circles for some time, with much of her business previously coming from custom designed pieces for men, women, and even brides-to-be. She works by sketching an entire wardrobe for the client, melding influences from the buyer's personality and her own aesthetic. One of her female clients ended up buying the entire wardrobe. 

With a new store, an increase in international recognition and motherhood (she has a baby daughter), Meunier is one busy lady, but she says she won't be saying au revoir to Shanghai anytime soon – she is here to stay, stripes and all. 

Meuh! 29 Tai'an Lu, between Xingguo Lu and Wukang Lu. Web: www.meuh-creation.com