Sébastien Meyer and Arnaud Vaillant are on Paris show No. 3 for Courrèges. Their first two seasons were about re-establishing the Space Age-y label for the 21st century. They made remarkably swift work of it; their vinyl jackets, inspired by André Courrèges’s originals, have been spotted on many a woman at the shows. Backstage today they said they wanted to “find the silhouette of Courrèges.” From the sound of it, they’ve been asked to work on softer, easier-to-wear pieces rather than the vinyl ones. This task proved more of a challenge for the young duo. Vaillant’s sensibility was honed at Balenciaga under Nicolas Ghesquière; rigor and a retro-futuristic sensibility seem to come quite easily to them. Spring’s ivory silk blouses and black silk dress, for example, looked designed to fulfill the show’s flou requirement, but there was nothing that distinguished them as particularly Courrèges.
They had better luck with a motocross jacket covered with patches on the front and the brand name spelled out across the shoulders in back. Shoppers are still logo crazy, and Courrèges has a particularly good one. The collection’s jumping-off point was Couture Future, the house founder’s high-end ready-to-wear line, a onetime novel concept in a Paris fashion scene dominated by true haute couture. Using those two words as a framework, they started with a series of pod-shaped, couture-y short dresses and ended with a pair of 3D-printed tops. The wedge-shaped shoes gave the models a hard time on the marble floors, and Meyer and Vaillant stumbled a bit with the collection’s pants. But these were the growing pains of two talented guys in rapid expansion mode. With focus, they’ll be able to get back on the fast track.
