The first Courrèges advertising campaign under the direction of Sébastien Meyer and Arnaud Vaillant featured no clothes—just the words “jacket,” “dress,” or “skirt” in bold, black sans serif typography against a white backdrop. Their first pre-collection images feature no models—just the component parts of a high-impact, minimally hued wardrobe photographed like clinical specimens against the modernist backdrop of the brand’s original factory in the southwestern French city of Pau.
If the essence of Courrèges has always been aesthetically efficient and forward leaning, the duo is taking it more so. Like their two previous runway collections, this offering was tightly edited with points of interest at all angles. The walk-through began with their new statement jacket covered primarily in a “gum vinyl” that resembled leather with a springy feel. More impressive was the fabric welding used to seamlessly integrate the black panels that also appeared on a curvilinear miniskirt. A similar technique (both thanks to a computer-assisted machine called Nucleus) was applied to a starched white poplin shirt, this time creating indentations that mimicked stitching. Nearly imperceptible, these details reflected the duo’s sense of systematic design, which Vailliant summed up in mathematical terms: “We’re trying to find the midpoint between creativity and wearability.”
They challenged themselves furthest with the 3-D–printed, double-layered shorts, plus a skirt and coat covered in pleated silver vinyl “embroidery” fastened with hundreds of studs. The rubbery mesh effect of the former might skew too sci-fi for the typical Courrèges customer, who wouldn’t second-guess the ribbed knits and modified utility pants. On the hanger, a sleeveless pinstripe top with rounded armholes and an exaggerated storm flap was persuasive for all its geometries. The assumption, based on Meyer and Vaillant’s exacting standards, is that it will look good on a body, too.
