The steaming deposits delivered by the four horses corralled in the middle of this Casablanca runway mid-show made for powerful critical statements. Charaf Tajer said he’d wanted to reflect his recent time spent in Mexico by creating a “psychedelic ranch in Paris,” and that he did. Yet you felt sorry for the poor dumb animals in the room—despite frantic air-freshening mid-show we were in very fragrant territory—and even more sorry for the horses, who did not seem delighted to attend Paris Fashion Week.
That caveat aside, this was a highly entertaining if slightly unhinged show. You wondered if perhaps the creative team had pursued its research into the mushrooms that featured on radiantly embroidered bolero jackets and dresses with extra gusto. There was also an entertainingly wide-eyed rabbit and an illustration of what looked like Guatemala’s Tikal. The arches of the Bourse, this show’s venue, were clad in radiantly colored panels to reflect what Tajer said was an inspiration drawn from Mexico’s colonial architecture that was also in the collection: It felt very much like a doors of perception reference too.
Even without a microdose he gave us a trip. Stylized vaquero-wear included embroidered chaps and embellished denim ranch gear. A few satin traje de luces were beautifully finished with pearlescent beading. There was one stand-out womenswear look, a dress in layered shades of burnt orange with a white piped low scalloped neckline. Hippie tailoring looked spot-on. Casablanca’s core louche tennis pro vibe remained discernable, but came over-layered with a powerful hit of exactly what Tajer had intended to spike us with. He said of the brand’s M.O.: “the conversation is really around this idea of looking at the beauty of the world and always paying homage to different places and different cultures that inspire me.” Tajer clearly has the verve, drive, and imagination to twist fashion’s landscape in a diverting direction: I’ll have what he’s having.
