When you thrill with momentary hope that the pneumatic drill starting up outside is in fact the show music—then experience chagrin when it’s not—the show is starting much too late. At last, some languorous piano. We started with blue one-button fil coupe not-quite-suiting, with contrast shawl collars in turmeric and integrated chest coverings. Black shoes were embroidered with silk viscose patches of indeterminate pattern. This silhouette slowly dissolved to be replaced with a thorough meditation on the permutations of layered outerwear: included were a herringbone weave denim-ish coat over a long alpaca jacket of white and shades-of-mustard, and a soft mohair black silk jacket integrated into a green zip-up below. Low vented topcoats, jackets, and kicky pants in camel mohair were lightly tangled by knotted bobbles of texture. The collection became more and more textured—hairier. That embroidery previously glimpsed on the shoes had a broader canvas on a high-slung, wide-waistband bomber as well as a leather waistcoat that was worn under a dark coat with scarlet flashes of shoe and mohair-mix check shirt cuff. Close to the climactic relaxation back to darker versions of the opening suiting we saw a short-sleeved—rather than pulled-up, as per all other looks—coat in honey that featured an impressive blow-dried-poodle eruption of volume on sleeves and shoulder. There were also mane accessories, strips of black leather from which fell a long fringe of recently-seen-a-colorist blonde highlight-hair.
So why all the hair? Sebastian Meunier said afterward: “I speak of Apollo and his beauty. . . . I wanted all the elements of what makes a beautiful body and a beautiful aspect and a beautiful soul. I wanted to make it very generous, visible, and not too tight.” Meunier’s lock-strewn vision of Apollonian hotness was an intensely wrought thing.
