In a season where post-pandemic revelry is starting to feel like a real possibility, Christelle Kocher offered what felt like one of the most efficient antidotes to the athleisure overdose of the past year.
The designer’s long been about bringing the energy of the street to the couture salon. Now, after nearly two years of being cooped up, couture’s ready to hit the ground running. “It’s a celebration of getting dressed up, of craftsmanship, of things done well,” she said after the show. “After being cut off from the world, we want [all that] but also to be comfortable.”
And that’s exactly what her glamorous Koché lineup delivered: a wardrobe fit for a party, but easy enough to pass for glam daywear, peppered as it was with sporty details.
Among the best examples: organza trenchcoats lined with airtex nylon; long sequined boxing shorts, and a pair of slacks with a contrasting stripe down the leg. Whether the piece was sporty or a tuxedo depended on the rest of the outfit.
An achingly cool asymmetrical sweatshirt dress, bejeweled and trimmed with feathers, sported a crystalized Tinder logo — a teaser for a capsule collection due to drop on Sept. 29 on the Koché website and the dating platform. It would be just the thing to go from first swipe to second date.
Elsewhere, the designer, who is also artistic director of Chanel-owned owned featherer Lemarié, applied her couture know how to elevate floor-grazing knit dresses finished with wispy feathers, or to turn a trenchcoat into a show-stopper by rendering her signature geometric pattern in beading and crystals.
On those, it was her knack for contemporary shapes, be they slinky asymmetrical shapes or midriff-baring crops, that prevented the opulence from ever feeling stuffy, even in the gilded salons of the Shangri-La hotel.
