Next fall will bring to a close, at least for now, Sébastien Meunier’s experimental odes to the performing arts. As a send-off he chose to pay tribute to Robert Wilson’s oeuvre, specifically “The Unicorn,” a fresh spin on the story of Mary Stuart, aka Mary Queen of Scots, aka Bloody Mary (played onstage in Paris last year by Isabelle Huppert, to Meunier’s lasting fascination).
Fashion is currently having a love affair with mystical bodies and creatures, so why not a unicorn? Meunier was wearing a silver unicorn horn, made by his studio, as a pendant on the day of the show. Backstage, he touched on the animal’s untamable nature and how that might connect with feminine strength, mystery, rebelliousness, and, ultimately, fashion.
Borrowing from Wilson’s staging, a likeness of Mary appeared in the background at the show’s opening. From there, the designer explored minimalist lines in rich brocades and velvets, forsaking the diaphanous layers of seasons past in favor of literal structuring, with wire bent, retainer-like, over bodices, panniers extending from the hips, and some cool sets of shoulder cuffs and feathered headgear. A sleeveless gold brocade number struck the right balance between regal and edgy, and the Demeulemeester base will probably thrill to the slithery one-shouldered number in red velvet, slung with the ease of a T-shirt over a square-neck stretch top. To close, the designer threw in a few dresses done in stretch leotard fabric that, he joked, could almost have been catsuits had they not flared into skirts.
In his tenure at Demeulemeester, Meunier has mastered the codes and also made them his own—no mean feat. The minimalistic shapes on today’s runway were a welcome break from the weeping willow melancholia offered up in seasons past, although the satiny, shirred numbers looked somewhat tricky. Meunier salutes a strong woman, for sure. But this reviewer was left wondering wistfully whether, one of these days, Meunier might get more comfortable with investing womenswear with the kind of raw, sensual emotion that has made his recent men’s outings so compelling.
