Chaire MANE
Created by the Institut Français de la Mode and MANE, the Diversity & Beauty Chair explores how beauty standards, practices, and representations are constructed, transformed, and circulated across cultures.
At the intersection of research, education, and documentary storytelling, the Chair brings together researchers, students, professionals, and entrepreneurs to better understand contemporary transformations in beauty and to support the fashion, luxury, and beauty industries in developing more inclusive practices.
The Chair has a twofold ambition:
- to document the diversity of beauty perceptions around the world;
- to monitor and analyze the role of industry in shaping, disseminating and transforming aesthetic norms.
With this objective in mind, the Chair is developing a Diversity & Inclusion Observatory, designed as a framework for tracking changes in representation across the fashion and beauty industries.
The program includes conferences, a series of courses, and a workshop.
Myths and Ideals: The Faces of the Beauty Industry
This course, taught by Sarah Banon, Assistant Professor at IFM, explores the concept of beauty, from its philosophical roots to its commodification by the fashion and luxury industries. Through a social, cultural and political lens, and drawing on contemporary examples, the course examines beauty standards as expressions of dominant and potentially alienating systems, while also highlighting how beauty can become a source of empowerment and contribute to greater diversity.
Sensory Seminar – Fragrance Creation Workshop
This olfactory workshop is led by Frédéric Walter, consultant and perfumer. Its main objective is to explore and analyze fragrance families in depth, as well as the symbolic and cultural representations intrinsically associated with them. The seminar offers a unique opportunity to decode the sensory language of fragrance while developing a nuanced understanding of the cognitive and emotional mechanisms involved.
When a Brand Identity Becomes a Fragrance
Incubascent is an experimental program developed by the Diversity & Beauty Chair in collaboration with MANE, the IFM Incubator, and CARRÉ BASSET.
The program is built around a simple question: if a brand had a scent, what would it smell like?
Entrepreneurs from the IFM Incubator are supported by MANE perfumers in translating their brand universe, values, and emotions into a distinctive olfactory identity. This work is extended through a reflection on the design and physical expression of that identity.
Incubascent thus creates a meeting point between entrepreneurship, fashion, design, and perfumery, offering emerging brands a new way to explore and question their identity.
The project also provides a particularly rich experimental laboratory for the Chair: emerging brands are often among the first to reflect new social and cultural sensitivities. Observing their worlds provides insights into changing notions of identity, gender, well-being, inclusion, and belonging that are shaping fashion and beauty today.
