She wanted to become an actress. He planned to be a rock star. Instead they became a renowned, though very unconventional, fashion couple working with some of the most prestigious jeans brands.
They continue to look at the overall fashion, sportswear and jeanswear market with always new eyes, while offering an unconventional fashion brand that carries their name-M+F Girbaud.
When they met in 1960, before their creative output came into full swing, they imported Western and cowboy looks to Paris. Later they began to experiment with denim.
They were not interested in chasing trends but have become trendsetters themselves, as they have always been mostly interested in comfort, protection, innovation and multi-functionality and have been constantly experimenting, studying new materials, new cuts and fits, along with uniquely creative names.
“We have never done or touched a five-pocket jean, never, in our entire lives,” they say. “Everything we have done over the last decades is exactly another story, it is another jean. ‘L’altro Jeans’ (The Other Jeans), in fact, was the title of an exhibition organized at Pitti Uomo about us many years ago, dedicated to everything we have done,” they underscore.
What they created has always been another jean, certainly parallel to denim jeans, but never like the traditional American ones by Lee or Wrangler.
They have also been constantly engaged in testing new finishing, washing and softening techniques to further evolve classic blue jeans. Furthermore, they consider themselves the inventors of stonewashing, a discovery that marked a unique change in jeans manufacturing.
But, as they discovered later, it was also a high-impact and polluting practice so they also tried to be part of the solution to the problem they had contributed to causing. That’s how they collaborated with various industry partners and laundries and discovered other new softening and aging techniques, like, for instance, laser, ozone and air aging techniques, to name a few.
While they collaborated for varlous brands, they developed alternative new fits, like the Pedal Pusher, designed for bicycle riders—comfy around hips, but tighter and short at ankles to avoid to disturb cycling.
They also studied new looks like baggy styles along with innovative processes like laser cuts or thermofusion and discovered new extraordinary materials they also used for their sportier brand, SPORCITY, their denim-line Lo Jean de M.FG., and Metamorphojeans and many others that made them achieve worldwide recognition.
Among their longest, most productive, and forward-thinking collaborations there are, among others, the ones with The Lycra Company stretch fiber technology and Sensitive Fabrics by Eurojersey, a triple partnership that continues as the recently launched Fit+Form+Function, a new project disclosed during the Milan Design Week’s Fuorisalone in 2025.
They have allied and presented a new capsule collection meant to tie innovation, durability and sustainability using some innovative and long-lasting Sensitive Fabrics by Eurojersey powered by Lycra fibers, while they celebrated an over 30-year legacy that ties them to both the fabric and the fiber manufacturers.
Their capsule is a unisex manifesto collection inspired by the symbolic messages and icons of the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, but it also wants to send out a clear statement about what fashion of tomorrow should be like.
Each piece of the collection can be worn by both men and women; it is highly functional, easy-care, and multipurpose —as most of the couple’s creations have been. Moreover, while each item is designed according to timeless styles and made with high-quality materials, these pieces can be worn for a long time and therefore express the idea that fashion and sustainability can walk hand in hand.
Every item is completed by small labels carrying short messages on topics related to climate change, clean and affordable energy, and gender equality, along with the UN’s 2030 sustainable goal symbols redesigned by the Girbauds. And, as choosing what to wear is a form of expression, these labels can be hidden in small pockets, or shown, or even cut, according to each wearer’s desire to express their opinion-marking another strong element that is never missing from their creations.
“We have been working with Lycra for over 30 years, and it has been a great story,” said the Girbauds, remembering how it all started. “Once, we visited Lycra’s booth during a fabric trade show in Paris and asked them for the worldwide exclusive to use the Lycra fiber for jeans. When they heard that, they laughed and gave us that exclusive, as they were not aware how radically that fiber would have changed the jeans fashion industry,” they continued.
“When we met Giorgio Crespi, father of Andrea Crespi, the general manager of Eurojersey, he was wearing a blazer, a shirt, and a pochette in his pocket. We realized the pochette was a tanga in Sensitive, a hypermodern material that could be cut with a laser and thermosealed. It was versatile and as adaptable as a second skin, much more than beachwear, or underwear, like highly functional and cool clothes,” continued the designer couple, marking how that collaboration continues until today for the brand that carries their name and offers garments made in Sensitive Fabrics of different weights, often also in the same garment to guarantee the right freedom of movement and comfort for every part of the body.
They are not only innovators in product design and material development, but also in business management as they are now producing and selling their own brand upon request and made-to-order criteria.
“We produce only what we sell, after we present our collection through trunk shows worldwide. We don’t need to produce large sample collections, nor blind-numbers of exemplars. We don’t waste resources and produce a limited number of apparel pieces—just what the market is asking for. And we are successful all over the world,” they explain disclosing a new direction the rest of the market will have to follow soon.