Marie-Christine Statz set her fall 2021 collection in the Centre Pompidou, the beacon of postmodernism in Paris’s Les Halles neighborhood. The last show set in the museum wasn’t really set there at all; Louis Vuitton flexed its powers and created a mock-up of the Pompidou inside the Louvre in 2019. The spirit of that Vuitton collection and Statz’s latest for Gauchere are the same: the way women on the street dress.
Of course, the world has changed in innumerable ways since 2019. Statz is an exacting tailor, and her vision of modern female dress hinged on a dropped and deflated shoulder, which gave models a friendly prowess. Navy suits and brushed mohair turtlenecks followed the same line—slightly aggressive but easy. In a nod to current behavior in Beaubourg, Statz’s models passed each other in the Pompidou’s corridors and on escalators but did not acknowledge one another. “They are crossing but not interacting,” she said over a video chat. “They are locked in and isolated in their own worlds.”
Their clothing will have a freeing effect. Even with such a no-fuss attitude, Statz found ways to inject warmth. She cut a swinging tank dress in a spongy, nubbly knit and color-blocked shades of azure and grass within a single spritely look. On their feet, models wore sneakers as part of a collaboration with Li-Ning or Gauchere’s first foray into its own footwear: pillowy slides and pumps that are stuffed to have a cushy, exaggerated effect. “Structure, but with a softness to it,” Statz called it. As we begin to venture out into the world again, that proposition certainly has legs.
