Photos from a fashion show rarely do justice to the sensoriality of a garment, the quality of its finishes and the excellence of its fabrics.
So you will have no other choice, to fully appreciate Nadège Vanhee-Cybulski's collection at
Hermès
, than to go to a saddler's shop in order to touch, weigh, look at the interior or, better still, put on rooms.
This season more than the others.
Because, for next winter, the artistic director is purifying her message, lightening her silhouette and, at the same time, injecting new energy.
Leaving this locker room?
The hair and all the feminine symbolic charge that goes with it.
Precisely, Nadège Vanhee-Cybulski cut hers, flamboyant redheads, squared.
“It is true that my hair color is quite constitutive of my identity”,
she smiles, this Saturday, a few minutes before the show presented to the Republican Guard.
The tones from blonde to brown, from copper to chestnut, hierarchize the parade.
The models have very long braids that echo the cashmere turtlenecks with leather twists on the bib.
The lamé dresses move down the back like Gorgon's hair.
"I went to the Palais Galliera to study the dresses of the 1920s by Lanvin, Poiret, Vionnet, to understand how the great masters worked the lamé, which is woven with metallic threads, among other things."
An alpaca jacket, an overcoat or a baby cashmere duffle coat incorporate a wool scarf that can be tied at the waist, passed around the neck, dropped in front or behind according to the woman who wears it - as she will tie, braid, pull or let her hair down.
If the design is very thoughtful, wearing it is instinctive.
A nice way to give customers the choice of their style.
Here, the monochrome silhouette is both enveloping and
sharp.
On the one hand, the beautiful coats in shearling or quilted flannel (convertible into a very glamping
sleeping bag
).
On the other, the clean lines of Bermuda suits, second-skin thigh-high boots in suede goatskin with forge nail heels, shirt-dresses in black calfskin – Hermès with just the right dose of fetishism, as we like.
For the first time, the designer closes her show with a dozen evening dresses, column lines, draped sleeves, pleated silk or metallic jacquard (which gives them this shape memory), antique simplicity and bright monochrome.
But the ultimate piece, in our opinion, is this radically chic trench coat, lined in “fossil brown” mottled wool serge with large ebony buttons where you can barely make out the label.
The shape of the collar, the length of the sleeves that caress the wrist, the mid-calf hem, the lightness and hold of the fabric are a model of perfection.
It's been three years since Sarah Burton walked with us with
Alexander McQueen
.
It is said that it will have been necessary to convince this very shy person to leave London, where she had taken her habits since the pandemic.
But when you're representing a brand of that ilk, you have to compete in the premier league, so it's Paris Fashion Week.
The public was not disappointed this Saturday evening with this exceptionally well-dressed show.
"It's funny how we've seen thousands of jackets this season and can still be moved by this one,"
says an industry expert of this double-breasted faux banker stripe wool suit. like a chalk marking on a costume pattern.
These traces refer to
"broken lines of a dress from the 1998 Joan of Arc collection by Lee
(founder of Alexander McQueen, editor's note)
which recall the chalk of a tailor
, explains the artistic director, the day before, in her studio installed for a few days at the door of the Chapel.
I thought about it when I saw the film
Tár,
with Cate Blanchett, where she marks off the space with masking tape.
The essence of this winter 2023-2024 are therefore the fundamentals of McQueen.
“That is to say the tailoring and the body,
” she continues.
During the confinements, when everything stopped, I realized that it only took a few scraps of fabric and a pattern to build a garment.
Some of my collaborators have done it in their kitchen, in their bedroom.
Like Lee in his early days."
Because despite her fairness and her youthful fair skin, the Briton is a veteran of the house, where she joined in 1996…
Returning to the human body, as evidenced by Leonardo da Vinci's anatomical drawings that cover the inspiration painting.
"Embroidery, embellishments, it's all much easier than finding the perfect fit and proportion so the garment moves with the wearer."
At the time, we think that this tailored look is turning into an obsession.
But when the jackets go down the catwalk and reveal their shoulder line (and, for some, their red corset laces running down the descent of the kidneys), we say to ourselves that they are undoubtedly the most beautiful that we have. seen in Milan and here in Paris.
"Lee always said, 'You gotta know the rules to break them.'
You have to know how to make real classics and then subvert them.”
A subversion that can be read in the upside-down (but never demonstrative) construction, the upside-down turn-ups, the offset pockets and the pumps as if worn front to back.
This same shift breathes life into a trench cut like a 1950s ballgown. Also very Lee McQueen, the Victorian quote, here through the orchid, “a strange flower that can be very carnal, stocky,
muscular , or on the contrary tiny and puny”.
One of them unfolds on the blood-red fissure of a dress with a shield bustier and a draped petticoat.
Elsewhere, its organic shapes inspire armor embroidered with silver seed beads and poisonously beautiful crystals.
New youth
This Saturday day is definitely very busy since the evening takes place the first show of Ludovic de Saint Sernin for
Ann Demeulemeester
.
The brand founded by the Belgian designer in the mid-1980s had difficulty surviving her departure ten years ago.
Bought by Claudio Antonioli (an admirer of Mrs. Demeulemeester) in 2020, it offers itself a new lease of life with the arrival of the thirty-year-old Frenchman at the head of the collections.
In the slightly icy atmosphere of the courtyard of the Carnot high school, the central podium recalls the parades of the 1990s, the golden age of the Belgian in Antwerp.
The first model with long red hair (worthy of the Flemish beauty of Ann and the flamboyant androgyny of Ludovic) walks shirtless, a feather of leather and wood hiding her breasts.
She wears a long black satin skirt with a draped train like a mermaid dress, reinterpreted from the archives.
Other young girls parade with their hands on their chests,
"a gesture that Ann's models sometimes made to show their vulnerability,"
said De Saint Sernin during an interview the previous week in Milan.
My first instinct when I was appointed was to immerse myself in what is called the “bible” here, a collection of images from all the fashion shows.
I then asked to pull out more than 90 looks from the 90s and 2000s from the archives where, for me, she was at the top of her craftsmanship.
We received everything here at the studio and I tried on myself each of the looks - in perfect condition! - which were originally worn by great models of the time such as Stella Tenant.
It was a kind of appropriation that goes through the body.
I could feel in my flesh the magnificent cuts, the darts, the bias… The experience was incredible;
trying on iconic clothes is almost transcendental.”
The tulle sleeves reveal the nails elongated by metal jewels that the designer has also found in the heritage.
Leather jackets with French cuffs and lapels held together by a thread, velvet sheaths and sinuous dresses in knitted mesh flesh out this tribute, this
"love letter",
as the Frenchman says, whose dream is to
"continue where Ann left off.
I want to tell my journey as a designer who takes over the house of another designer”.
The finale passes like in slow motion, it's infinitely pretty.
Ludovic de Saint Sernin also says:
“I come from the family of creators who embody their brand.
Here, I am at the service of a story other than mine, but I must also bring my voice to it, and create something that touches people as it touched them.