Kazhfinger, Serge

Serge Kajfinger was born in Lille in 1955 . Soon after, the family moved to Brazil , where his father ran a branch of the textile company . In 1968, he returned to France , the mother’s homeland. This return was a real cultural shock for him. In 1970 , after completing his studies at the Lyceum Marcq-en-Baroeul , Serge began to engage in window dressing in his hometown, the fashion house Yves Saint Laurent entrusted his windows to the beginning decorator. In 1974, thanks to the support of his mother and her sister Paula, Serge opened his own store in Lille, on Sec-Arembault , under the guise of Paule Ka , where women’s clothes of various brands were presented. The name was composed of the name of his aunt and the first two letters of his own surname.

In 1983, Serge, having no special education, began to create his own models of women's clothing. The first dress he created was a wedding outfit for his own sister. In 1987, he moved to Paris , where he opened a boutique of luxury women's clothing under the Paule Ka brand in the Marais district. In 1998, he also begins to create accessories for his fashion collections.

In 2007, the state-owned fund invests in the Paule Ka fashion house through the Patrimoine et Création foundation, after which the flagship brand boutique moves to street, house 223. Another store opens, in Cannes .

In 2010, the fashion designer creates a catalog collection for La Redoute , France's largest mail-order company (the models were presented by Agnes Dean ). In the same year, Kate Middleton and singers Jennifer Lopez and Selena Gomez became clients of Kazhfinger, for whom he created original evening dresses. In 2011, the American investment company Change Capital Partners invested in its brand, which led to the opening of stores in various cities of Europe , in China , as well as a showroom in New York (while the Patrimoine et Création fund left the enterprise, selling its 17%, and under the control of Serge and his family, the share remained in only 30%) ^[1] .

On July 30, 2014 , shortly after the fall-winter 2015 collection was shown, Serge Kajfinger announced that, by a mutual decision with the financial management of the company, he was leaving the fashion house he had created in order to focus “on his other projects”. His last collection as the artistic director of the Paule Ka house was the spring-summer 2015 collection, which was already ready for that moment ^[2] .

• Serge Cajfinger L'homme qui se cache derrière Paule Ka // La Voix du Nord, November 3, 2010