“What really interests me about fashion is discipline, [yet] we always think it demands a lot of freedom.” Boramy Viguier, the young Parisian menswear designer, was talking via Zoom a week before the spring 2021 men’s shows were due to hit the internet, zigzagging back and forth from screen to sample rack to screen, holding pieces up for virtual inspection. “But it is a discipline that demands a lot of rigorous behavior. I love to be with the factory, with the technicians, almost like a discipline. The making of a garment is being rigorous from A to Z. I love this discipline because it is really about creativity.”
Like almost everyone else in the entire world, Viguier has found his life—creative, business, and otherwise—dramatically, cataclysmically upended these past few months. His new collection was conceived and produced entirely during lockdown. But if the results are anything to go by, confinement was only a physical state for him. Take his terrific black croc-stamped vinyl coat, for instance, which was one of many plays on volume in this collection, some of it alluding to religious and medieval dress (the coat’s right cuff patched with a mystical icon). Or consider the aqua and lilac sweater vests, seamed and stitched together to create something both noble and raw, an echo of having to search for beauty at a time when it feels almost entirely absent. Clearly Viguier’s imagination was as boundless as ever, something underscored by the incredible set of images—part William Gibson, part Denis Villeneuve—that he created to showcase his work, quite easily the best of this (digital) season thus far. (Though still, truthfully, previewing this collection virtually made you long for Zoom HD. Or maybe I just need stronger glasses.)
Those vests started out as a pile of sweaters in Viguier’s atelier, and they’re now part of a new series of garments that he constructed from whatever was to hand; there are also protection vests made out of a stock of vinyl he had, wadded with scraps of leftover fabrics. All these pieces will be offered to buyers as one-offs, each with a label giving details of the garment in French, English, Arabic, and Khmer (his mother is from Cambodia). You could say these are all literal renderings of past lives, something that has cropped up in his work since he launched his own label two years ago after a spell at Lanvin. You could also say that they are exactly what would make any one of us shop now; the soulful quotient here is high.
In lockdown, Viguier fused together all sorts of things that might not seem like they really belong: technical athleticwear with Tarot divination; the mysteries of faith with a relentless and sometimes disturbing futurism. He rocked those here to considerable effect, with a romantic floral layering of satin and organza cut into a duster coat, or used for a crossbody utility bag, strapped across a poetic white tunic. Both looks—like all of the looks here—were styled with white lace veils daubed in red. Unsettling, to be sure, but also visually hypnotic. If a designer is going to take their own leap of faith at a time when the industry is harder than ever, make it magical, and make it mesmerizing.
