Backstage, Christelle Kocher was modeling a bold new platinum dye job that matched her crinkly, bright-white suit. Drastic metamorphoses of that sort usually reflect a major lifestyle change. We know very little about Kocher beyond her business, but the collection itself did move in a more grown-up direction this season. To start with, she sidelined the playful collaboration with the local Paris football team that produced the colorful patch-worked jersey dresses of her last show. In fact, she eliminated logos entirely, a move that takes a certain courage in our social media–led, logo-mad times.
Absent those features, Kocher tried her hand at camouflage, an idea that came to her, she said, the day after she returned from the New York presentation of her Pre-Fall collection. We saw glimpses of another New York influence in the metallic painted denim and parkas suspended backpack-style from shoulder straps: none other than the master minimalist Helmut Lang. If there’s a designer whose ideas bear reworking in 2018 it’s Lang. We like to think he’d approve of the utilitarian-deluxe spirit of Kocher’s latest—such as a brushed-gold nude tank with a fillip of ruffles at one shoulder and the low-slung, pleated satin cargos that accompanied it, or the parka exquisitely embroidered with gold-dipped short feathers.
Like Lang in the way-back days, Kocher shows women’s and men’s together on one runway, and the guys’ outfits here looked especially compelling. Chalk that up to the clarity of the tailoring. Some of the women’s looks were weighed down by a surfeit of layered ruffles. A female model’s bronze silk Le Smoking featured a geometric pattern of brass embellishments where the one Kocher wore was crinkled; with the sleeves pushed up and accessorized with trainers, it would look as effortlessly cool as the designer’s own.
