Rare is the businesswoman who laments an acceleration in sales, but Isabel Marant has always privately wrestled with her explosive success. When confronted with 2021’s stellar ecommerce results as well as recent retail wins in the U.S. during a preview in her sprawling Paris HQ (all polished concrete floors and a De Sede Terrazza DS-1025 black leather sofa) she admitted she felt “a bit disappointed.” She elaborated: “I love fashion and I love having a new garment; sometimes it’s better than going to the psy [the shrink].” Then again, none of us needs new clothes. “I was always against consuming. This pandemic is telling us we are going too far, consuming and throwing things [away], so I was thinking that everybody was going to have different interests rather than buying things that they don’t really need. But we never did so well on the website, and in the shops. It’s a bit crazy.”
Faced with what she described as a “tornado” of product—in addition to womenswear there is an Isabel Marant menswear line, the Étoile diffusion line, an eyewear offering, watches, bags, shoes—she insists her focus is on editing. The pre-fall collection was consequently a tight offering, inspired by Y2K, and a customer who wants to be both sexy and comfy, outré and laid-back, at the same time. “She wears something super tight, but she has a very big coat over it—it’s not in your face,” Marant explained. Second-skin bodysuits in pretty floral prints and vintage-inspired knits with statement cut-outs mingled with the tailored high-waisted jeans she turns out every season, albeit with more room in the leg and increased softness in the fabrics—in this case, a cotton-Tencel mix that creates a more fluid silhouette. She pointed out a mannish overcoat in her favored oversize boyfriend cut, jazzed up via a royal purple shade. But her favorite piece, a paper-thin leather top with a slouchy fit and lined with soft jersey, summed up the collection. As she put it: “Sexy, but not too much.”
