The man who's turned fashion inside-out: Jean Colonna's seams are showing; so is the dismay of other fashion designers at his prices, says Roger Tredre

He is short, overweight and balding. He wears trainers, black jeans and a crumpled black Adidas top that looks as if he has slept in it. He slumps in his chair and chain-smokes cigarettes. You may be surprised to learn that he is a designer, a fashion designer, from the city of chic, Paris.

Jean Colonna, 37, is in the vanguard of a wave of designers who have reacted against the high prices of high fashion. He believes most clothes with a designer label inside cost too much, and there is no good reason why that should be so.

Colonna reflects a new mood in Parisian fashion, perhaps in European fashion, taking a deliberate step outside the world of spiralling prices and head-in-the-clouds attitudes.

Designers such as Colonna and Belgium's Martin Margiela deliberately deconstruct fashion, overturning conventional ideas of what is beautiful. In this, they draw much of their energy from British street style. This is London's Camden Market brought to the couture

catwalk.

A Colonna jacket is, in its own way, as unmistakable as a Chanel jacket. The designer puts all the seams on the outside, so the garment appears to have been turned inside out. This is what fashion people call a signature look: it tells you at a glance that you are buying a Colonna.

His philosophy, he says, is straightforward. 'A piece of clothing must be simple - to make, to sell and to wear.'

He has upset some of his fellow fashion designers because he has made jackets that sell for pounds 80, and persuaded retailers to put them in their stores alongside jackets selling for five times as much. There are no prizes for guessing which go the quickest.

His critics say he only succeeds because he uses inferior fabrics (leatherette, polyester snakeskin and floral prints) and that his methods of production are so limited that he cannot progress. These are valid points, but Colonna is unapologetic. 'Maybe some of my prints aren't so beautiful, but they are real, they've been around.'

The faux leather fabric that he uses is a PVC-cotton-polyurethane mix, but he does not take kindly to the suggestion that it is a downmarket version of leather. These fabrics should be appreciated in their own right, he says. This summer, Colonna has been one of the strongest-selling labels at Jones, the Covent Garden store that stocks all the names favoured by young and groovy Londoners. Jayne Harrison, 20, a shop assistant at Jones, spends much of her salary on Colonna. 'His clothes are easy to wear with anything. The jackets look good with jeans or black leggings.'

Miriam Dalton, 30, a graphic designer, is another Colonna fan, not least because the clothes are affordable. 'I love lots of other designers, but I simply can't afford them.'

Colonna's ideal woman does not have a perfect dress sense. She makes mistakes and mixes things up in an instinctive sort of way. 'That's why I admire English women,' he says. 'They can make different clothes work together. They are not analysing, asking questions all the time, like the French.'

He gazes into the distance. It is clear that he does not particularly enjoy talking about clothes, nor himself. What does he do when he is not working? 'I sleep,' he says, shutting down one avenue of inquiry.

Michele Montaigne, the savvy Parisian PR man who looks after several of the hottest names in European avant-garde (Ann Demeulemeester, Helmut Lang, Martine Sitbon), says: 'Jean resembles his clothes. He turns up his nose at fashion, really. He just wants people to have fun, to be

themselves.'

Colonna's fashion shows are usually provocative and very rock'n'roll. He lets the models do whatever they want. Some wander down the catwalk, scowling at the audience. Others play up the sex, pouting and leering.

The clothes play various roles, too. Colonna makes black leatherette jackets, Prince of Wales check stretch trousers, long grey jackets and coats, jersey rib dresses, floral print skirts. They remind you of Agnes B, another French designer with a no-nonsense philosophy; and the prints make you think of flea markets, jumble sales, and France in the Thirties and

Forties.

What makes Jean Colonna such a rebel? He started off conventionally enough. He studied at the Chambre Syndicale de la Couture Parisienne in the mid-Seventies before landing a plum job at Balmain, working on the couture collection. It is clear this experience had a strong influence on him, because at this point in the interview he becomes quite agitated and speaks rather too quickly in French. It emerges that he was mystified by his time at Balmain, by the sight of 'all those big ladies squeezing into expensive clothes'.

And there we have it. Colonna's collections are a direct reaction to the couture tradition and the idea of le bon gout francais.

The new French fashion, turned inside out, starts here.

(Photograph omitted)