PARIS, France — Alexandre de Betak has been staging spectacular fashion shows for over 27 years, with clients as diverse as Christian Dior and Victoria's Secret. Now the master producer is turning his hand to the windows of Colette to mark the launch of his new book, "Betak: Fashion Show Revolution".

For the duration of Paris Fashion Week, the two windows of the famed Rue Saint-Honoré boutique, which is to close for good in December, will be transformed with "backstage" and "front-of-house"-themed displays, and will show video footage of some of the 1,000-plus shows de Betak has produced, as well as many throughout Paris Fashion Week, beginning with Jacquemus on Monday.

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De Betak's book, which is published by Phaidon and features an introduction by Vogue's Sally Singer, chronicles the Frenchman's career since setting up his company, Bureau Betak, in Paris in 1990. Today, with clients including Hussein Chalayan, Rodarte, Jason Wu, Viktor & Rolf and H&M among many others, he has offices Paris, New York and Shanghai. He produced Miu Miu's first ever fashion show (in New York in 1994), as well as theatrical shows for Victoria's Secret and Christian Dior in the 2000s.

“I guess I’ve been credited many times for revolutionising [fashion shows] by making them shorter, more television-genic and more spectacular,” de Betak tells BoF. “They used to be before done in-house by the designer and the PR teams themselves, and when I started it became a more important thing and because I’m not in-house, it gave me a more critical and personal point of view.”

Today, even though the traditional fashion week schedule is in question, de Betak insists that the creation of a memorable live moment is still necessary for luxury brands.

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“I think that a lot of these efforts can have bigger and better results if we accept that a fashion show is a live moment that still needs to happen for luxury brands to keep making money, but they could happen at a different time, in a different place, in front of a different audience,” he says.

“The truth is that our job is about the creation of live moments in order to generate the best possible digital content, and not the other way around. Once we have accepted that, we should sit back and say, ‘With the amount of money and talent we have, and with the amazing content we have, how do we create even better, more effective and more engaging content?’”

The new tome will be sold exclusively by Colette, along with a "fashion week survival pack" featuring products customised by de Betak. The limited-edition hamper will include Master & Dynamic headphones, a Devialet speaker, a Fujifilm Instax Camera, a Michel Gaubert x Betak vinyl, as well as "Front of House" and "Backstage" Byredo candles, an A.P.C. sweatshirt, a Gabriela Hearst cashmere blanket, Kaspia caviar, a vodka box set and a ginger shot.

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