Name to know: Maxime Simoens Young French designer Maxime Simoëns explains why chicken's feet will be integral to the development of his brand. Sending out a catwalk collection in the wake of a game-changing acquisition might have paralysed lesser designers, but not Maxime Simoëns. The 28-year-old bespectacled Frenchman was the picture of calm when he presented his first ready-to-wear offering for autumn/winter 2013 mere weeks after LVMH, the luxury conglomerate that owns Louis Vuitton, Dior, Céline and Marc Jacobs, took a majority stake in his eponymous - and relatively unknown - business. READ: Maxime Simoens autumn/winter 2013 show report He deems fashion a 'vocation'; his epiphany came at a Madonna concert in 2001. 'I bought a programme of the show in which the costumes, created by Jean Paul Gaultier, were illustrated,' he said. That was when I fixed my objective: to become a fashion designer. Looks and sketches from the autumn/winter 2013 show. Photos: Maxime Simoëns Simoëns honed his talents in the couture arena, enrolling at the Chambre Syndicale de la Couture Parisienne in 2003. After stints working in the embroidery studios at Dior and Balenciaga, and apprenticeships with Elie Saab and Gaultier, he set up his own couture line in 2011 - and was snapped up to design a collection for the French house Leonard. Beyoncé took note and promptly encased herself in one of Simoëns's violet beaded dresses for the cover of her album '4' in the same year. Simoëns has since parked the couture line and parted ways with Leonard to focus on ready-to-wear. This season, to a background of Tchaikovsky, he referenced Swan Lake, most literally in the flared skirts in sumptuous silks and velvets that featured on his nifty cocktail dresses. IN PICS: Emma Watson wears Maxime Simoëns More striking was his exploration of pied de poule ('chicken's foot' - hounds­tooth in English) which turned up on neat, tweed-panelled jackets, form-fitting pencil skirts and, in exploded, punchy patterns, on floor-sweeping gowns. 'I was thinking about chicken's feet, which I used in all its shapes,' he said. The chicken-feet pattern will be a recurring theme. 'It's a motif that will become a new code for the house because if you look carefully, it has an M and an S inside,' he said. Simoëns is thinking big. 'I want to build my own universe,' he pronounced after his first ready-to-wear show. An LVMH investment is as good a springboard as any. READ: Inside LVMH's most famous brands