Blonde Redhead, New York City’s magical melancholy rockers, played at Isabel Marant’s show tonight. Backstage Marant said she’s a big fan. “There’s an old song from them that was really inspiring me, it’s this ballad, “Cat on Tin Roof,” she explained. “For me, this season was about this ballad of a girl, she’s really going to the essentials; she wears a knitted dress with a huge coat over it. I wanted to do something very evident and very cozy, and easy to wear, and being naively sexy. She’s very discreet and at the same time very powerful.”
All that to say, this collection walked to a different beat from Marant’s spring show last season. The sunny hedonism of that outing was replaced by a cooler vibe—not exactly muted, but definitely not as splashy. There were indeed little sweater dresses worn under big coats, accompanied by the over-the-knee boots that have become one of the season’s key trends.
Another combination that in the before times of the pre-pandemic might’ve seemed surprising, but now looks like the new normal: the glam sport of a sexy evening top (here in stretch panné velvet) and shell pants.
A Marant show is a good place to observe subtle shifts in fashion. Beyond the boots and oversize outerwear, this show told us definitely that cargo pants will be big next fall, and that pants in general are going to be lower-slung and longer of leg, likely with a little kick flare. If this designer has anything to do with it, we’ll all be in baggy jeans, too. Rianne Van Rompaey closed the show in a faded black pair with drop pockets and, as promised, a super-relaxed slouch.
