With signature styles like the trapeze dress, the vinyl jacket and bug-eye sunglasses, André Courrèges defined the look of the Space Age ’60s — but not all of his inventions were a hit. Exhibit A: a pair of white shorts from 1968 with a circular cutout at the crotch.
Nicolas Di Felice, artistic director of the label, peeled a photocopy of the archival image off his collection board backstage at his spring 2023 show and inspected it quizzically.
“It’s one of the documents that has always intrigued me the most, because I would say that I get instant inspiration from 90 percent of the images that I find in the archives. And this one, I’ve always wondered: ‘Ah. How?’” he said.
It’s a testament to the designer’s knack for spinning the Courrèges heritage into Gen Z gold that he found a way to make the idea feel relevant for today. His updated version — jeans that morphed a miniskirt with snap-button chaps, leaving a window of flesh exposed at the thighs — should have stylists on speed-dial.
Now in his fourth season, Di Felice is pushing the house in a more casual direction, embodied by Bella Hadid, who padded barefoot around the circular sand set, wearing a crop top and crystallized jeans, her denim jacket tied around her waist and her shoes dangling from her wrist, like a raver walking down a beach at dawn.
As the show progressed, the set gradually turned into a giant hourglass, with a gaping sinkhole in the middle. “That’s the real theme of the show: the passing of time. It’s trying to find the right balance between the past and the future,” Di Felice mused.
On the one hand, he offered faithful takes on minimalist staples like a white sleeveless dress with a rounded breast pocket — only the fabric was shredded in places, as if it had been eroded by age. On the other, he pushed innovation with looks like a trapeze dress sprouting molded silicon spikes.
In between, all manner of covetable merch, from knotted T-shirt dresses to unisex oversize jackets and shirts, all cut with meticulous attention to detail. The stuff is evidently flying off the shelves, as evidenced by the recent opening of a store in New York City, and plans for a third boutique in Paris in the trendy Left Bank neighborhood of Saint-Germain-des-Prés.
The eveningwear looks were inspired by another vintage design: a dress with a spiral zipper from 1974. Di Felice loosened it up with floor-length versions in black silk or nude “second skin” viscose, the buttons left undone with casual abandon. Courrèges has let down its hair, and it’s looking good.
