Andrew Gn is an avid furniture collector. His Paris home is filled to bursting with seventeenth-, eighteenth-, and nineteenth-century antiques. Which is why he's started over and is stocking a new place with treasures from the twentieth century. They were the genesis for his collection today, which marked a turning point in his career. Gn hasn't become a minimalist overnight, but there was definitely a new sensibility here. The best way to describe it is, well, modern. Gio Ponti, Carlo Mollino, Fernand Léger, Georges Braque, Pablo Picasso, Peter Doig—Gn name-checked them all, and their work came into play in various ways. "I always say, if you cannot have it on your wall, you can wear it on yourself," he remarked backstage. For most of the collection, that was an apt explanation. Where once Gn would've embroidered the hem of a coat with passementerie or jet beading, here he trimmed it in a black and white façade print. And when he did opt to use appliqué, it was whip snake cut into Ponti-inspired geometric shapes. Lace lost its saccharine sweetness, designed as it was in a subtle python pattern overlaid on jewel-tone silk mikado dresses, while wood-grain prints, which Gn used for slim asymmetric skirts, looked cool. In the case of a cubist violin print lifted from Léger and planted in the center of silk blouses or a shift dress, Gn might've taken his idea too far. But Braque's doves felt true to the designer's aesthetic, especially embroidered in gold on an evening column in black crepe that fell from knee to hem in mousseline pleats. Those modern masters are a renewable resource.
