What’s interesting about André Courrèges’s work is its slight perversity. It’s often been left unexplored, but Courrèges’s intrinsic oddness is something that Nicolas di Felice has embraced wholly. Take as an example this season’s heeled sandal, a commercial reinterpretation of a shoe (well, object) that di Felice pulled from the archive. The archival piece in question is a sandal cut from a single sheet of metal. It’s completely unwearable, but that’s the point—see? Strange!
The Courrèges show last season started with models hunched over cellphones, only to end with them “finding” their inner light with the help of spotlights and chrome pendant jewelry. “There was a quest for exiting the city and for hedonism,” he said at a showroom appointment. “It’s something we certainly went for this season and something you will see in the show in September.”
Di Felice rewatched Zabriskie Point, Michelangelo Antonini’s 1970s deep cut, as he started this lineup. He had stills from the film printed, which showed the western U.S. landscapes captured in the film, together with its freewheeling characters. “It touched me, because they’re fighting for a certain cause and for their rights, and then they leave to live in exile in a really beautiful and very dry desert. I simply imagined the possibility of an endless summer,” he said.
The inspiration merged nicely with di Felice’s interpretation of archival styles. He started with tailoring, with an impactful and sharp one-shoulder silhouette and an alluring askew vested one-piece. As the story continued, these pieces came undone. Put-together pinstripes (continuing from fall) were twisted and shirred, and an otherwise covered-up jacket was slashed through the torso to expose a nipple (perverse!). “Here they are transforming what they have once they arrived to the desert,” di Felice said. His characters are making due with what they have on their backs.
More naughtiness followed. The black rib sleeve finish on varsity logo tees broke off into a leather strap on one side (“very [Robert] Mapplethrope”), and di Felice’s boot-cut jeans went wider and flared. Most inventive and impactful were dresses and skirts fashioned from circles draped around the body to resemble the Courrèges logo, and the closing look, a men’s singlet (this season’s reinvention of the tank top) in a completely sheer rainbow-like print. It looked as if a golden hour rainbow was shining on the model’s torso—“we call it the aura,” di Felice said.
These details are the nuances that make di Felice’s Courrèges stand out across a sea of brand reinvigorations. He’s building a counterculture of his own here by leaning into uninhibited fun and sensuality. After all, what is countercultural in today’s self-serious atmosphere if not pursuing one’s own pleasures? “In the end it’s about desire,” di Felice said. “You want it and you go and get it.”
