Jude Ferrari is rewriting the rules of French fashion, one pigeon, kebab shop, and bubble tea cup at a time. Through Maison J Simone, the Central Saint Martins graduate embraces humour, colour, and the beauty of everyday life, proving that Parisian style can be just as playful as it is chic.
Raised just outside Paris, Jude Ferrari didn’t follow a straight path into fashion. After briefly considering a career in television, she swapped political studies for design, eventually leaving France to study at Central Saint Martins. Today, through her label Maison J Simone, she is challenging the idea that French fashion must be restrained, monochrome or overly serious. Instead, her collections celebrate humour, colour and the everyday poetry of Paris, transforming everything from pigeons and kebab shops to discarded bubble tea cups into joyful fashion statements. Following her Spring Summer 2026 collection, which is out now, we spoke to Jude about why she believes the future of French fashion should be a lot more fun with an exclusive shoot shot in Paris Adrean Wong and styled by Felipe Castro.
I read that you have seven siblings. Let’s start there. How would you describe your childhood?
Very fun, very noisy haha. Very free but in a quite traditional family. With some bourgeoisie codes. But we all grew up with different personalities. Our parents haven’t shaped us. But I think our neighborhood maybe did. We grew up in a fancy city very close to Paris. With its own fashion trends. If you would not adopt those trends, you were considered as an outsider.
What was your first fashion obsession?
When I was in primary school I was only dressing with military clothes. My goal in life, achieving 18 years old to enroll the army, grab the outfit, and leave.
You grew up next to Paris and did your foundation course at LISAA, what made you decide to study at Central Martins? Did you want to escape?
I was first doing a political and social foundation in order to enter a prestigious school in Paris. I really wanted my dad to be proud of me because he did very prestigious studies himself (Harvard and HEC the equivalent in France). But he told me one day « why do you want to make this shitty job (TV presenter) and not make something you truly love like fashion or art ». LETS GO ! This sentence changed everything. Now I needed the best fashion school in the world. To make him and myself proud. He was.
You went from Jacquemus to Zara to writtenafterwards in Japan. What did working in Japan teach you about fashion that Paris never could?
Craziness. And the capacity to make incredibly creative clothes and to adapt them into very commercial garments.
There’s a cliché that the French wrote the fashion rules. What’s one fashion rule you secretly enjoy breaking?
Black is not the only color that makes you look fierce.
One of the things I love about you is that you are a designer who wears a lot of your own pieces. Is there a garment you’ve designed that perfectly captures who you are?
All my printed catsuit. Effortless, no need for layering, full of creativity.
Everyone asks me if my life is like the Devil Wears Prada, personally, I’ve had more Zoolander moments. What is something about the fashion industry that people romanticize too much?
Overnight success stories. Brands or designers being portrayed as “sudden successes,” when most are the result of years of unpaid work, networking, and iteration.
If someone had to understand your Spring Summer 2026 collection through one film, one song, and one city, what would they be?
French Kiss
Il est 5 heures, Paris s’éveille
Paris … of course
Tell us more about this collection.
Simply titled “Paris”, the collection strolls through the city’s sidewalks and their pigeons, late-night kebab stands in Pigalle, café terraces, cigarette smoke curling in the air, the Pont des Arts, and coins tossed into fountains. Familiar images, sometimes overused, but here reimagined with humor and passion because at Maison J Simone, we only tease what we truly love.
Among the fabrics, mesh takes center stage for its sensuality and sheer transparency, bringing a daring yet delicate edge to the collection. Tailoring fabrics nod to the sharp suits of La Défense businessmen and the crisp uniforms of old Parisian café waiters, while crochet details recall the vintage railings of the Pont des Arts.
In terms of silhouettes, we return to Parisian elegance with long dresses, while keeping our signature hip cut-outs, a recurring detail season after season, first made iconic by our best-seller, the Hombro Shirt. This season also introduces an upcycled shirt-body, transforming a corporate staple into a bold, sensual statement piece.
This season, all sequins were created from discarded bubble tea cups, collected and transformed into objects of desire. We are also proud to announce collaborations with two brands we love Labdip, renowned for crafting jeans for every body shape and POOLDAY, bringing its fun and colorful swimwear to their Parisian story.
The main motifs this season are cigarette smoke, Pigalle kebabs, and Parisian pigeons meet our signature primary colors, a Maison J Simone trademark inspired by Ferrari tones.
Our collections also carry a recurring figure: the urban cowboy, a lonely French cowboy with shades of Johnny Hallyday, who keeps reappearing season after season. He roams Paris this time, adding a tongue-in-cheek tribute to French pop culture
Sustainability has become a buzzword in fashion. Do you think young designers are expected to solve problems that the industry itself created?
To be honest, the industry does not allow us to solve problems. Because the problem itself are 2 fashion weeks per year. ( I am not even talking about cruise etc) We keep on producing new products everyday.
So being sustainable is quite hypocrite. But yes we are trying as much as possible to create keeping in mind a lot of fabric already exist, we do not need to create some more. And that up cycling is a must to make the planet a little little little cleaner.
You work a lot with deadstock, what do you think consumers still misunderstand about responsible fashion?
The responsible fashion does not mean second hand fashion. You can make new with old.
Twenty years from now, what would you like Maison J.Simone’s legacy to be?
The French fashion can be fun. That French fashion does not have to be black. And my dreams would be to see more French people wear more colors, prints and stop being afraid to be judged 24/7.
Credits
Photography: Adrean Wong @adreanwong_
Styling: Felipe Castro @felipecsstr
Models: Nikol Mlinova @nikamlinova at Girl Management @girlmgmt, Elody François @helo_lody at Elite Model Paris @elite_paris
Makeup: Akane Lova Nakamura @akn_1025
Casting: Nathalia Cerda @nathaliacerda
Styling assistant: Julia Mogavero @juliaamgv
