Fashion in 2016 is suffering from a case of ungapatchka, an overly busy, ornately decorated, garnished-to-the-point-of-bad-taste condition. Designers typically resort to embellishment and extras when they’re at a loss for bigger ideas about cut, proportion, and silhouette. Fashion’s OTT-itis is relevant here because it puts what Sébastien Meyer and Arnaud Vaillant are doing at Courrèges in such sharp relief.
The young designers sent a jolt through Paris Fashion Week last season with a stripped-down reinterpretation of André Courrèges’s space-age ’60s aesthetic and a novel presentation that had them speaking to the audience beforehand. There was no preamble at their sophomore effort today, but the premise was the same: Present variations on straightforward categories—knit bodysuits, jackets, skirts, pants, etc. The risk of this strategy is that Courrèges's mod shapes become familiar fast. This crowd is constantly looking for the new. It’s an issue Meyer and Vaillant will have to reckon with for as long as their stint at Courrèges lasts.
But they did a good job of keeping interest levels up this morning, by tapping into fashion’s other current fetishes. First with technology. A trio of coats marched by with power-control buttons on the left bicep. Press the button, the designers explained backstage, and the mobile phone–enabled power source warms the coat. The charge apparently lasts for six hours. And second with a huge ready-to-buy offering. All season long brands have been proudly announcing see now, buy now “collections” that are usually no more than a handful of pieces. Courrèges has 30.
The fact that the Courrèges aesthetic, now half a century old, still stands for the future is endlessly ironic. Why hasn’t fashion come up with alternate visions of the future? That’s a question for another day. At the moment, the fact that Meyer and Vaillant are reinterpreting the groundbreaking designer’s legacy in ways that go beyond crinkly patent cropped jackets and minis is satisfying enough.
