If you rise early enough in Paris, you will see a certain cadre of young apprentices—a baker in training or a butcher's assistant, say—on their way to work. Guillaume Henry was sufficiently inspired by their uncontrived (ahem, overtired) coolness to consider how they might dress if they weren't, in fact, en route to their underpaid posts. Echoing his Resort offering, Henry is in a streamlined state of mind. He is also thinking functional comfort, as evidenced in pants cuffed like sweats or trimmed with stretch inserts, and zippered shirts with roll-necked collars. But here's the thing: Carven guys aren't musclemen, and in this way, shorts and trousers were cut to emphasize leanness. As were the roomy shirts with fabric-blocked sleeves, which had the added bonus of good ventilation—Henry expressed concern about heat waves. The same polished faille technique from Resort re-emerged as an elongated, spread collar Mackintosh. If the safety orange registered too shocking, the coat also appeared in accessible black and putty. Henry borrowed the safety vest striping as a framing trick toward the end of the collection. No one will mistake it for a harness—yet it was the only idea that seemed overthought.
Henry didn't push his sharp new logo proposition as strongly here as with the womenswear—and this seemed like a missed opportunity given how deeply fellas fell for his branded floral sweatshirts a few seasons back. His final two looks included black blousons with scratched-out text that riffed on Parisian instructions for sorting trash, in addition to an embroidered snowdrop flower whose petals were littered across the body and sleeves. Those same petals dappled one of the three Resort dresses he added to the mix (because girls can be apprentices, too). Like the guys, his sporty ingenues wore Carven's version of a Birkenstock. There were sneakers and double monks, as well, but the sandals and white ankle socks were clearly Henry's way of paying respect to those who wake at the crack of dawn.
