French fashion house Jacquemus presented a collection on Monday that returned to the meaning of the garment itself. The presentation at the Fondation Maeght private museum in the French city of Saint-Paul-de-Vence focused on glamorous and surrealistic looks.
“I feel like I’m exactly where I should be and I’m relieved,” brand founder Simon Porte Jacquemus told AFP following the recent fashion show. The 34-year-old can already look back on a success story that is unparalleled in his generation.
This time, for the presentation of his fall/winter collection 2024/2025, he did not choose a pompous backdrop such as the Palace of Versailles, the salt dunes of the Camargue or the lavender fields of his native Provence. Although he remained loyal to the south, he chose the abstract Fondation Maeght, an exhibition space for modern and contemporary art.
Pictures by the Spanish painter Joan Miró, the French artists Fernand Léger and Pierre Soulages and the Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky were rearranged in the rooms to clear the catwalk for around 40 models, including the Americans Gigi Hadid and Emily Ratajkowski.
Titled ‘Sculptures’, the collection played with boundaries between the arts: a white plaster cast acted as a bustier that seemed to float on the body, and a protruding tuxedo left the impression of a surrealist distortion of a misplaced waist. The elegant color palette consisted of four tones: black and white with recurring accents of bright red and yellow.
‘Superb’
Shoulders were wide, waists were defined and cuts were simple and symmetrical – both in dresses, trouser suits and ensembles. Men and women wore the ‘Pilota’ leather jacket, inspired by Swiss sculptor Alberto Giacometti’s jacket. Dangling from her arm was the brand’s ‘Le Petit Calino’ bag model, reminiscent of British sculptor Henry Moore’s curvy sculptures.
Sitting in the front row was reality star Kylie Jenner and her five-year-old daughter Stormi, who was dressed in red to match the color palette. American actress Julia Roberts wore a blue Jacquemus costume and raved about the collection. “Superb,” she told the AFP news agency. Lena Mahfouf, a French influencer, added: “A true choice of materials. You can tell that the collections are evolving, there is a lot of focus on the clothes.”
As is usual for Jacquemus, the fashion show, whose guests included a range of rappers from the Belgian Shay to the French Gazo and Kalash, took place outside the fashion week calendar. It was particularly eagerly awaited, as the brand’s developments during crucial restructuring were followed with great attention by the public.
Jacquemus appointed Mélissa Ait-Ouakli, who previously worked for the French luxury goods group LVMH, as ‘Directrice Commerciale’ in mid-January. The one for them Bastien Daguzan, responsible for the management position left the company after a short time. These circumstances led to the designer taking the reins again.
‘Zizi’ superstar
In addition to a high presence on social networks, Jacquemus always seems close to nature and optimistic, in contrast to some colleagues who cultivate an elitist image. This season, however, he also appeared more mature: instead of straw hats or sunflowers, classic references to art predominated.
The company, which only has a single store in the world on Paris’ Avenue Montaigne, told the fashion platform Business of Fashion that it would exceed the 200 million euro sales mark in 2022 and was aiming for half a billion euros by 2025. The heart of the collections remains the brand’s bags, especially the ‘Chiquito’ model. An eye-catcher this season is the laced dance shoe, a ‘Zizi’ Richelieu model, which was created in collaboration with the French shoe brand Repetto and has been the talk of the town on social networks. (AFP)
This article originally appeared on FashionUnited.fr. Translated and edited by Heide Halama.