The Scoop With Osama Chabbi: On Directing His First Fashion Documentary

Welcome to the Scoop: a weekly email series in which I quiz fashion insiders on the stories of the week. This will be a way for the Vogue Business community to synthesize and reflect on the latest headlines and get a little inside scoop every Friday.

This week’s guest is Osama Chabbi, one of the few fashion commentators that emerged on Instagram post-pandemic that actually has something to say. Born in France, Osama moved to Dubai in 2018 and soon after, started working for Farfetch, first as a stylist for the platform’s Middle East campaigns and later on joining the private client side of the business.

Osama didn’t feel this was the right place for him, telling me he felt a little too close to the business targets to really enjoy his job. But spending time with the 1% who actually consume fashion gave him insight that is hard to gain, like the ability to fragment a collection into different product ranges based on region and age, and understanding what will actually sell.

While still at Farfetch, Osama started posting fashion show reviews on Instagram Stories against Vogue Runway images. He began to gain a following, and soon after he got a surprising double-whammy of on-camera interviews — first with Haider Ackermann, then with Kris Van Assche — that he filmed and also posted on the platform. He speaks about how those came to be in the interview below, along with sharing his feelings on the protests in France and some predictions for the latest round of designer comings and goings. Now, Osama is ready to take his career in a new direction, which he also spoke to me about.

Hi Osama, what’s the scoop?

I’m directing my first documentary, and it is about my favorite designer. I can’t yet tell you who the designer is, but we will start filming in January, and it’s meant to come out next year. I’m working in partnership with a fashion-centric streaming platform that’s going to be launching soon. Our film will be one of the platform’s originals.

I didn’t realize filmmaking was among your ambitions.

Me neither. Basically, I had the idea to do a sort of commemorative interview, in light of the anniversary of the designer’s death. I wanted to film a conversation with two figures who meant a lot in this person’s history.

When I film my own interviews, I produce and direct them. I’m on set, involved with all the technical aspects — the shots, the framing, the lighting, the chairs, and what if the chair makes a weird noise. I was talking to someone on my team who handles our production, and she was like, “I think you have imposter syndrome. You’re actually a director.” It was really nice to hear that and a wake-up call. I decided to give it a shot and jump into something that’s longer than what I’m used to shooting, and obviously a bigger risk.

Can you give me a clue about who the documentary is about?

A little man with big ideas. I am interested in the idea of legacy. When I first started interviewing designers, the goal was really for these interviews to age well and eventually end up in exhibitions, museums, fashion schools. So I feel this is on the same path.

Who was your first interview?

I was just jobless and on Twitter, and I wrote that I really wanted to interview Haider Ackermann when he was guest designer for Jean Paul Gaultier. I received a call from the Jean Paul Gaultier PR team, and they said, “Haider would love to have coffee with you.” I was in Dubai, and he was in Paris; I couldn’t afford it. But then I realized I had to make it work somehow, so I called them again and said: “Listen, if I can film this coffee meeting, I will come.” I don't know how, but he accepted.

Around the same time, I was pitching an article to i-D, and they were asking for references and quotes. I made up that I had a quote from Kris Van Assche, who is another favorite designer of mine. I wrote to him on Instagram: “I’m so sorry. I literally just told i-D I have a quote from you. Can you please send me a few words on so and so?” I think he found it so hilarious that he actually did do it. And then my next message was: “Apparently audacity goes a long way. Do you think I can come to your house next week to interview you?” It’s so crazy that he said yes. And so it was two days between my interview with Kris Van Assche and the Haider interview.

What’s the lesson in this story? Do you need audacity to grow a platform?

The number one thing in my case was a utopian level of delusion, where you actually think that if you’re not going to ask for something, no one else is going to. Also, when you look at things from so much distance, it’s easier to take risks. Like when I messaged Kris, I genuinely was like, “Well, worst-case scenario, I’ll just be left on read, or he’s going to have a laugh.”

I think my platform is a testimony to this. My focus has never been on making my Instagram the center of a scalable mass conversation. I was always fascinated by fashion’s larger-than-life personalities and had a precise niche of people I wanted to talk to and make sure they were fed with the right information to keep them educated and entertained. I had no interest in catering to people observing fashion from the outside as, like, this far-fetched dystopian fantasy. I always knew I wanted to talk to people who live it, work it, breathe it. A lot of the people that follow me actually work in fashion. It makes things easier in a sense, because you start by assuming people know what you’re talking about.

I’m going to move to the newsy bit of the conversation. You grew up in Lyon. Do you have any thoughts on the student protests taking place at the moment in Paris?

I am in Dubai at the moment, so I have not witnessed the protests. But I think it’s important to insist on the fact that these protests are not an inconvenience to the luxury and fashion industry. I grew up in what in France is called ZEP, which translates to priority education zones. These are basically less privileged neighborhoods where the government is meant to show a greater focus on education by employing more teachers and so on. Obviously, this has just been a fantasy that never really materialized. We were never a priority in terms of education.

And so the claims of the youth are extremely valid. I understand that anger so much because, as my dad used to say in France, the social elevator is frozen. If you are born in a working-class family, chances are you will remain so or, even worse, you can end up without a job. I empathize with everything that's happening in France at the moment, and I hope that it will lead to positive change.

Seán McGirr and Veronica Leoni left their positions at McQueen and Calvin Klein on the same day last week. Anthony Vaccarello left Saint Laurent the week before. Alaïa is also without a creative director. Do you have any predictions for who might fill those openings?

Chemena Kamali will go to Saint Laurent, which will leave a gap at Chloé. For McQueen, I have heard all the rumors and entertained a fair bit because they are all talented people but I think hiring in-house or lesser known people has proven to be the most successful model for our times. It happened with Matthieu. It happened with Michael Rider. It’s the one of the rare instances of merit in the fashion industry where you can actually see that the people who have worked hard, under someone for a long time and been patient, eventually got promoted. It’s good to see that kind of thing.

I think Maximilian Davis from Ferragamo or Nicolas Di Felice will end up at Alaïa. When it comes to Calvin Klein, it’s such a strong brand culturally that I am not sure it needs a designer for runway collections. I think we’re all very happy to be buying the Calvin Klein items we can afford.

Is there anything that can be done about size inclusivity on the runway? Or are we just going to be stuck in a perpetual cycle of deflating bodies?

It’s alarming that we’re going backwards and also revealing how non-committal fashion was towards this issue. I feel the reason why we don’t have different body types on the runway today is the exact same reason creative directors were casting only white males and saying, “This is my creative direction.” You know what I mean?

It goes beyond inclusivity, to body visibility. The problem is, does fashion think bigger bodies are glamorous? Unless we come to terms with that and the culture changes to deem them desirable, we’re not going to get anywhere.

Slop, slop, slop — how do you keep your brain creative in the age of AI slop doomscrolling?

To start with, I’m not threatened by AI. I think it’s a tool that can be extremely beneficial. The one thing we should all do is use it responsibly and that goes for all technology. We should all remain curious, keep going to exhibitions, keep meeting new people, and people that are not in our industry. And try to be as present as possible in moments that have no commercial weight. Moments that are not work, that don't have to produce results. That’s what I try to do because it fuels my empathy, and empathy is the one thing the machine can’t develop.

Catch up with last week’s Scoop with Completedworks’s Anna Jewsbury here.