Monastic chanting hummed from the speakers, laid out on the balcony of the Institut National de Jeunes Sourds de Paris building in the 5th arrondissement, this evening as we looked out over its lovely gardens rather gone to seed since the super-fun Berluti sports night here exactly three years ago (when the Brits were losing their minds about the Brexit referendum result and the Americans were all scoffing at the very notion of Trump getting elected). Today is the solstice, of course, so perhaps that added an extra ley-line resonance to this GmbH-authored cut-in-cloth cult of diversely dreamy characters. As co-designer Benjamin Huseby explained as his partner Serhat Isik applied last-minute adjustments pre-show: “We have always talked about protection, but this time we wanted to make a gentler collection and focus on spiritual, or intellectual, protection.”
That means belief (whether ideological, religious, or pagan), and here Huseby and Isik looked to their cultural heritage—Pakistani-Norwegian and Turkish-German, respectively—and focused especially on the nazar, or amulet thought to protect one from the evil eye. Wearing an evil eye is a form of superstitious protection from misfortune at the hands of fate, and GmbH’s models were heartily armored in beautiful brocade evil eye shirts, flowing many-eyed silk shirts and pants, T-shirts, and dresses. They were also bolstered by the silhouette-defining twists of strapping that encircled the waist on denim and suiting for men and women, which created gorgeously regal silhouettes. In addition, there were jackets with hammered silk strapping, like little shoulder holsters, that were also attractive. Some of the overlap-strap shoes and apparently leather goods were, in fact, made by an Italian supplier from apple pulp. This was an all-vegan show—and the few synthetic pieces, including the kinky double-zipped sludgy brown pants or the open-zippered at-the-knee pants with matching shirts in olive and off-white, were as environmentally virtuous as the designers could make them. I only made this show at the last minute, but was so glad to: it was among the best fashion collections in Paris this season.
