Jacquemus (Q3156)
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French fashion brand
| Language | Label | Description | Also known as |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | Jacquemus |
French fashion brand |
Statements
Simon Porte Jacquemus pulled off one of his resort spectaculars today, this time in Capri—a vividly sun and color-drenched co-ed production which he said his team had been privately calling “the impossible show.”It’s been Porte Jacquemus “biggest dream since starting 15 years ago” to show at the Casa Malaparte. The French-cultural significance of the place: Jean Luc Godard filmedLe Mepris, his 1963 New Wave classic, including unforgettable scenes atop the terracotta terrace of the modernist Italian villa, an architectural feat perched on vertiginous cliffs to the east of Capri.The catch: the house is only accessible by boat—when the weather allows. Some of the kit needed to be helicoptered in as they prepared for the 40 guests who could fit onto the rooftop space. And just for once, in a season when so many summer resort shows have been buffeted by storms, the weather gods smiled. “There is no beauty without risk!” Porte Jacquemus had declared a day earlier.So Gwyneth Paltrow and Dua Lipa were there to witness a Jacquemus collection that marked a creative rite of passage for the designer. “We are evolving into something new. A new kind of sexiness. Realistic but also minimal; almost two-dimensional,” he said. “As pure as I can be.”Surrounded by drones shooting footage over the Mediterranean and boats plying to and fro far below, models stepped up the long open-air staircase and onto the rooftop. The entry of the opening look, a creamy-pale tufted bathrobe coat, nodded subtly to the famous Brigitte BardotLe Meprisscene shot on that very terrace. Following were Jacquemus-recognizable silhouettes: his shawl-collared Provencal-derived jackets, now carved in vermillion, yellow, stark black, or white, smoothly matched with high-waisted A-line below-the-knee skirts, full tailored pants, or bermudas.Walking amongst them, came the menswear: tops derived from sailor’s smocks, over asymmetrically-collared shirts, smartly color-coordinated with pleat-front trousers. With every look, a bag; soft fold-over clutches, top-handled bags, and shopping totes in pops of color: turquoise, leaf-green, pink, or yellow.Cineasts will know that the plot ofLe Meprisinvolves a meta-theme of a movie within a movie—Fritz Lang plays an auteur making a version of Homer’sOdyssey. Porte Jacquemus’s departure into sinuous draped chiffon or jersey dresses—swooping in the back, or slit at the sides to reveal bodysuits—seemed to touch off that reference.
Plenty of skin-show has been part and parcel of the Jacquemus brand until now. It’s not that this resort collection abandoned it—bared shoulders, backs, and the side-exposing narrowness of his halter dresses said that. But in the nuance, there was something more sophisticated going on here. “I wanted it to be surprising, sensual, more ‘woman’” is the way he framed it.More revelatory on the creative—and the commercial—front is the fact that Porte Jacquemus, the most dynamically successful of young independent designers, is consciously growing up with his audience. He has listened, he said, to criticism that, though stylish, his past work hasn’t always met the benchmark of quality he wants to hit. “I’m ambitious to work every day and make things better and better,” he said. “It’s taken time, and it’s a fight with factories, to work with a new savoir faire.”His prices are still in the ‘reasonable’ range, compared to sky-high luxury brands. The link to the pre-orders for this collection made immediately available today is proof of that. He’s already seeing the reaction to focusing more effort into his ready-to-wear, he said. “We have never sold as much. Our stores used to be full of people buying one bag. Now we have people spending 15,000 [euros] on clothes. Perhaps,” he reflected, “it’s because I’ve changed a bit. I’m a dad now, and I’m thinking about the next generation, and having constancy. But what I do know is that I will be doing this, the same, for my whole life.”
10 June 2024
Tongues wagged wildly when Simon Porte Jacquemus posted from the desk of Hubert de Givenchy last December. So at the preview today he was put on the spot: Is he interested in the Givenchy gig? “No,” he replied: “I have a big house to take care of…. And what I want to achieve in my life is to make [this] company better and better—not bigger and bigger. I’m 34 years old and I understand what I really want, and I will not compromise.” This was unambiguous. He added: “Hubert, I think, had the greatest taste…the way he did everything was so modern.”Plus, why would he work for The Man when he is already his own man? This Jacquemus show combined intelligence, culture, wit, and libido to conjure a collection that looked rich in commercial catnip yet didn’t compromise on concept. “I think we are the biggest independent house in Paris,” said the designer. Notwithstanding today’s heavy economic weather, this show suggested that further growth is due.Its invitation, trailed online by showgoer Kristin Davis, was a fine knit gray V-neck: ultimate upscale bourgeois normcore. In a gesture that set the tone for the entire collection Jacquemus took this archetype of “quiet” worn convention and embedded it within garments as a sculptural point of departure from the conventional. In menswear (Look 9), for instance, just such a knit framed a portrait neckline sweater (very Givenchy for Capucine). In womenswear (looks 10, 18), they came inserted at the shoulder into knit tops; the sleeves were then wrapped around the bosom in order to create a disrupted twinset. But after all, a V-neck is a V-neck: Did Jacquemus count himself as so-called quiet luxury? “No! We are pop luxury, I think. Because of the shoulder, the shape, the wrongness, and also the sense of humor.”Pop-Luxe? Perhaps, but Jacquemus is aiming for mass without being crass. This show was held overlooking Nice at the Maeght Foundation, the hillside home to 13,000 pieces of 20th-century modern art that was established in 1964 by its gallerist founding family. Many aspects of the Maeghts’ achievement found their way into Jacquemus’s collection, right down to the wavy terracotta flooring whose “hexagones” pattern was shaved into the flocked round-shouldered top in Look 23.
29 January 2024
In November of 1973, the Palace of Versailles hosted one of the most iconic fashion shows in history. The Battle of Versailles, which saw American designers challenge their French counterparts, was an effort to raise funds to restore the palace. But it brought not just money to Versailles; it brought new life. Today on its grounds, Simon Porte Jacquemus staged a spectacle of his own, one that promised to bring Versailles to the people in a different way.Not just anybody can rent the palace. After the show, the designer said that today’s happening was a year in the making, adding rather tantalizingly that it is “the beginning of a relationship with Versailles.”The show is an extension of a long-term strategy to further establish the accessible Jacquemus brand in the luxury space, CEO Bastien Daguzan said in a recent interview. The plans include an international rollout of stores and activations that elevate the label in the collective mindset. This one had the added benefit of rubbing off some of that Jacquemus cool on the centuries-old palace. “My brand is really linked with the youth, which is why I think Versailles wanted to have me,” said the designer.Daguzan elaborated: “We wanted to show that you can also have a date here or come and be in a boat and it can be beautiful. It’s us showing that if they [the young people] want to, they have access to it.” A luxury handbag, a historic palace—it’s all the same, merely a matter of making the out of reach seem attainable. That’s the Jacquemus magic trick—no matter how big, how far, or how spectacular, it somehow always feels within reach.Jacquemus came to Versailles for his very first date with his now husband and had always dreamt of showing at the palace. “A year ago I had a vision and sent an email to Bastien with two pictures of Versailles,” said Jacquemus after the show. “I told him that I wanted people arriving by boat and looking at the collection from the boat.” And that’s precisely what happened. Guests were escorted to the runway on quaint little off-white bateaux, and as we docked, models stepped out and walked in front of us with the palace in the background. Jacquemus certainly knows how to put on a show.
26 June 2023
“This is my last show,” Simon Porte Jacquemus announced solemnly on his Instagram Stories yesterday—cue a severe intake of industry and influencer breath. Then he swiftly added: “of the year.”Pranked. “We wanted to have a bit of fun with our brand,” he declared. So, on December 12, 2022, possibly the most extreme late-date upon which any fashion show has ever taken place in Paris, there we were at Le Bourget airport, suddenly transported into Jacquemus’s vision of summer. A collection he’d named ‘Raphia.’Under a straw-storm that rained from above, we watched as his humongous cartwheel sun hats came out, balanced over his tiny cutaway things, some with trails, others with slinkily bunchy drapes, and still more with bits and pieces suspended from skimpy lingerie straps and held on with criss-crossed shoelaces in the back.Sectioned into trilogies—three related outfits at a time—looks for women and men came out, walking along the perimeter of a circular, curtained space evoking a sundown situation. “Solar” was his word for it. Sunny. Sunshine yellow through ecru, pink, and red. Beachy sarongs, tiny shorts and soft-psychedelia ’70s-ish prints. It was a happily playful—yet skillfully carried out—excursion around all of the youthful, sexily revealing, quirkily accessorised bases he’s been building for his brand since 2009. This one, he said, was inspired by “girls you imagine in Portofino and Capri, going around with their hats and earrings and polkadot pants.”There were mad fringed raffia hats, poufs of straw decorating triangle-shouldered tailoring, and one whole shaggy coat that was a collaboration with Lesage, the French haute couture embroidery house. Clutched in hands were soft bags (a new contrast to the miniscule Jacquemus purses of fame). And amongst the shoes—clogs and strappy stilettos—the pointy toes implanted with a circle and a square on each toe, his own signature invention.Porte Jacquemus is famed for his love of creating environmental scenarios—and for projecting the imagery with which he’s gathered an adoring public around him. Friends and influencers turned up at Le Bourget already dressed in the collection that was on the runway; others were wearing pieces from the one he showed in June. “You know, often they go more viral than the show,” he observed, smiling as he watched them walking in on the backstage monitor. “It’s different, dressing real people who are not models. I love it. People find them relatable.
”Somehow, his talent is for humorous exaggeration (just look at those giant daisy earrings!) and for French romance, combined with a down-to-earth instinct for reality. This collection, in the last gasp of 2022, showed all of that at his best. “And tomorrow it starts to drop,” he added. “Not everything, but people shouldn’t have to wait.”
12 December 2022
The world stops for Jacquemus. After a show in Hawai’i with mostly local guests, Simon Porte Jacquemus landed in the salt mountains of the Camargue park in the South of France for his fall 2022 collection. The guestlist in France was far longer than the one for his Pacific trip, with trainfuls of international buyers, press, stylists, and models arriving through the Avignon station hours before the show. After car rides and bus rides we arrived at the otherworldly location at dusk, the Rhone and the sea crashing into the harsh terrain. Several remarked that it looked like we were on the moon: clear water, icy salt, lilac sky. The moon and Planet Fashion aren’t that different: Gauzy far-off spaces with alternative perspectives on reality, pragmatism, and what types of shoes might work on gravel. (A surprising number of stilettos in the audience and on the catwalk.)Between the mountains of salt, Jacquemus had carved out a runway that wound down a hillside. His models descended from the top of the mount, their trains whipping in the wind, their tulle veils blowing up into clouds, looking like extras in a Karl Lagerfeld costumed version ofDune. Once the looks were on eye-level the reality became clearer. Working with a brute hand and humble-yet-lovely materials, Jacquemus was repositioning his brand and his look away from the Pop vibes of recent years and towards something more finessed. “I started working on the collection with the obsession to restart from nothing, like a white page,” he said. The first two things he filled his page with were ideas of comfort and couture; “every couture,” he elaborated, talking about fusing the security of a blanket or pillow with the easy drama of a pleated ball skirt or cocoon jacket. His impending nuptials, set to take place in the South in two months, also influenced the scene: The show began with two models hugging and dancing.At 61 looks, that white page of ideas filled up quickly. Shearling coats, puffer vests, and cargo pants are what Jacquemus does best for men, and here he had loosened up the shapes for a more serene spirit, adding his new Humara sneaker in collaboration with Nike. For women, his simplest ideas are best, like a white tulle midi dress with a piece of burlap-colored canvas tied around its front for a pure, maidenly look.
Jacquemus’s body-baring pieces are a good counter to the Lycra cling-couture of other Parisian houses: the diaphanous white dress Mica Arganaraz wore is unimpeachably pretty—even if Arganaraz had to stop mid-runway to remove her uncomfortable heels. Luxe ball skirts over trousers and a little white tulle explosion coming out the side of a black tuxedo dress added a little swoosh to the Jacquemus strut.In many ways, the collection was a harkening back to where Jacquemus started. His crafty couture of the mid-2010s defined that moment’s irreverent, bourgeois arty look—think of his polka dots of fall 2017 or his prairie girls of the previous spring, clothes that were cute, cheeky, and surprisingly elegant. Jacquemus’s new take relies a lot on drama—not just of the unmatchable set design—but of volumes and precarious straps and cinching that may not translate as easily into a real life away from the Space Age salt mountains. It won’t deter him. “I want to be the name of my generation,” he said post-show, implying that whatever big fashion jobs might be available, he is not in the running. “I want to work for Jacquemus—and Jacquemus is a big house.” He stopped playing by the fashion system’s rules, but the fashion industry still wants him.
27 June 2022
A cobalt catwalk cut across the sand of the Moli’i Gardens’s beach on the northern side of Oahu. Rain fell by the bucketload, and guests crowded under their black umbrellas. One said that the rainstorm, which postponed Jacquemus’s Hawaiian debut by about an hour and a half, could be interpreted as a blessing. When the rain cleared and the show started, an actual Hawaiian blessing was performed, giving thanks to the land, people, and history of this place. The sun faded into the Pacific; the waves lapped the shore. It was beautiful and peaceful and (thanks to a P.R. request) without a cell phone in sight. Then came the fashion.Linen sets the color of sand opened the show, exploding into Hockney blue, shocking pink, and inky black swimwear by the end. Simon Porte Jacquemus’s proportions are intentionally abnormal—one part ruched, another cutaway. For spring 2022, he played with the shapes of scuba gear, cutting and winding unitards and bodysuits into tailoring. Some of the best dresses and trousers unfolded around one hip like a sarong, sexy and uncomplicated in their appeal. Backless blazers furthered the idea, though Jacquemus’s cargo trousers and board shorts might have a longer shelf life. Elsewhere, he played with short-over-long styling, garments worn in an illogical order for optimal optical appeal. He also introduced a new beadwork collaboration with the artist Tanya Lyons designed to look like water droplets.The decision to take his runway show on the long road from France to Hawaii was a big step for Jacquemus and his brand—one that was not met entirely with praise. For some fashion followers, the choice to hold a destination show in a place connected with colonialism and tourism was a misstep. But to many of the local guests in the audience, seeing a European designer arrive islandside was affirming. Along Waikiki’s main drag, luxury stores abound, and yet none of those designers have ever held a show on the island or maybe even set foot here.With the help of Hawaiian-born-and-raised stylist Ben Perreira and creative director Taylor Okata, Jacquemus worked to create a show that honored the local community. Only a handful of Jacquemus’s European staff traveled to the island, and only guests from the Pacific region and mainland United States were invited. Every model was local to the region, and for most, it was their first runway. The entire production crew was local.
“Working in fashion, nothing has felt as fulfilling as this,” said Perreira preshow.“It’s time to speak about something else,” said Jacquemus of his choice to present his collection outside France. “I think the Jacquemus woman is not French—she is a sunny person. That’s what the brand is about: sharing, sun, love, and family.” The Jacquemus woman—and man—is also ironic, using a scuba snorkel as a handbag handle or wearing a leather floatie as an accessory. This irreverent, Pop point of view comes with a heaping soupçon of sincerity, which helps make Jacquemus’s humbly haute clothing so popular among millennial and Gen Z fans. It’s high-minded fashion with a friendly face.But after such a bombshell show, well, what else is there to do but change? “This is my last Pop collection,” he said. “Next season I am coming back to something super womanly, a new part of the Jacquemus identity.” It will be exciting to see where Jacquemus and his community of friends and collaborators go next—but maybe worth it to linger just a moment more in the halo of such a successful outing in such a beautiful light.
10 March 2022
“The smell was like fresh grass. There were sounds like little birds when you went in. I wanted to make it like a green and blue bubble—nature but unreal. Like you go in, and you find yourself somewhere else.” A newly engaged Simon Porte Jacquemus is celebrating the excitement of having his first fashion show in more than a year. It happened in a film studio and was “experiential” and “immersive” in lots of ways, a big IRL reunion for everyone involved. “It was so nice to see people, and to see everyone so happy,” he said, pausing to find the words for how it felt. “It was like a deliverance.”All Jacquemus’s gazillion brand followers, and supermodel and influencer friends, have been collectively craving the comeback of the fashion show so badly. He wanted to conjure hyper-colored, hyper-proportioned, hyper-emotional intensity. The designer said: “For me, the show can’t be replaced by any good video. It’s the emotion, and the feeling of people sharing their own vision of the show that makes the difference, I think.”His show was a roll call, a gathering, of all the above—as well as a collection which is now delivering, or on preorder, on his e-commerce website. Shown in the round, it was called La Montagne, a title which set up the anticipation that it might have literally taken a crowd to the French Alpes-Maritimes, or another outdoor spectacular such as the epic lavender-field Provençal runway show he organized in 2019.But, no. Porte Jacquemus exclaimed: “That’s exactly why I didn’t want to do a mundane location or anything. I think a lot of people are doing crazy shows outside and I didn’t want to do the race of the most crazy spots of the planet. Because I wanted to focus on the clothes and on the design, and not repeat myself, into like a perfect formula.”In other words: Porte Jacquemus is still young enough to want to be a contrarian, to be the person who never gets caught into a trend or a stereotype. There was a lot of lockdown time with his team to think about how that would shape up. Giantly and tinily was the answer, a surreally playful over-and-under proportioning of garments. “The collection started really with the frustration of corona,” he said. “We had the option, you know, to repeat ourselves, to do a perfect jacket and a nice linen dress and stuff. That’s nice, it’s beautiful, but we were super-frustrated, so we wanted to explore more.
”Notionally, the Montagne of his title might resonate with everyone who’s been on that vertiginous, lonely hike through isolation from friends all this time (while putting aside the thought that, as mountaineers know, there’s always another unexpected peak to conquer as you go). But let’s not mention peaks. In practice, it wasn’t at all about athleisure. “Because I know Patagonia does much better hiking clothes than us,” he said, laughing. “Because we’re a small brand doing fashion, and we wanted to mix that with, like French couture elements. So it was between that, and the naive, happy Jacquemus of before.”It was shot in profile, video-wise (a noticeable trend, post Marc Jacobs), mini and maxi pieces in the same outfit, randomly framing lots of skin. Cropped puffers and abbreviated tailored jackets over bras strung together with widely placed clips—abs on show, triangular slices of inner knee on show, all popping with shots of fuchsia, orange, red. “Cartoonish and playful” is the way Porte Jacquemus put it. No need to add more: It’s already resonating, with a life of its own.
1 July 2021
“The smell was like fresh grass. There were sounds like little birds when you went in. I wanted to make it like a green and blue bubble—nature but unreal. Like you go in, and you find yourself somewhere else.” A newly engaged Simon Porte Jacquemus is celebrating the excitement of having his first fashion show in more than a year. It happened in a film studio and was “experiential” and “immersive” in lots of ways, a big IRL reunion for everyone involved. “It was so nice to see people, and to see everyone so happy,” he said, pausing to find the words for how it felt. “It was like a deliverance.”All Jacquemus’s gazillion brand followers, and supermodel and influencer friends, have been collectively craving the comeback of the fashion show so badly. He wanted to conjure hyper-colored, hyper-proportioned, hyper-emotional intensity. The designer said: “For me, the show can’t be replaced by any good video. It’s the emotion, and the feeling of people sharing their own vision of the show that makes the difference, I think.”His show was a roll call, a gathering, of all the above—as well as a collection which is now delivering, or on preorder, on his e-commerce website. Shown in the round, it was called La Montagne, a title which set up the anticipation that it might have literally taken a crowd to the French Alpes-Maritimes, or another outdoor spectacular such as the epic lavender-field Provençal runway show he organized in 2019.But, no. Porte Jacquemus exclaimed: “That’s exactly why I didn’t want to do a mundane location or anything. I think a lot of people are doing crazy shows outside and I didn’t want to do the race of the most crazy spots of the planet. Because I wanted to focus on the clothes and on the design, and not repeat myself, into like a perfect formula.”In other words: Porte Jacquemus is still young enough to want to be a contrarian, to be the person who never gets caught into a trend or a stereotype. There was a lot of lockdown time with his team to think about how that would shape up. Giantly and tinily was the answer, a surreally playful over-and-under proportioning of garments. “The collection started really with the frustration of corona,” he said. “We had the option, you know, to repeat ourselves, to do a perfect jacket and a nice linen dress and stuff. That’s nice, it’s beautiful, but we were super-frustrated, so we wanted to explore more.
”Notionally, the Montagne of his title might resonate with everyone who’s been on that vertiginous, lonely hike through isolation from friends all this time (while putting aside the thought that, as mountaineers know, there’s always another unexpected peak to conquer as you go). But let’s not mention peaks. In practice, it wasn’t at all about athleisure. “Because I know Patagonia does much better hiking clothes than us,” he said, laughing. “Because we’re a small brand doing fashion, and we wanted to mix that with, like French couture elements. So it was between that, and the naive, happy Jacquemus of before.”It was shot in profile, video-wise (a noticeable trend, post Marc Jacobs), mini and maxi pieces in the same outfit, randomly framing lots of skin. Cropped puffers and abbreviated tailored jackets over bras strung together with widely placed clips—abs on show, triangular slices of inner knee on show, all popping with shots of fuchsia, orange, red. “Cartoonish and playful” is the way Porte Jacquemus put it. No need to add more: It’s already resonating, with a life of its own.
1 July 2021
Not only was Simon Porte Jacquemus eager to return to the runway; he wanted to get back to traveling, too.And so it was that an audience of 100 guests —among them VIPs including Isabel Adjani and Tina Kunakey—were ferried to a gently rolling wheat field near Us (pronounced: “oose”) in the French Vexin Regional National Park, about an hour outside Paris. Snaking through the sheaves, a dramatic wood plank runway ran 600 meters long, a setup the designer said was meant to evoke authenticity as well as the brand’s more romantic side.In March, Porte Jacquemus had been in touch with the dancer Alexander Ekman, who came to the designer’s studio on the eve of lockdown in France. Needless to say, everything changed at that point, but the reference remained. During a pre-show interview, Porte Jacquemus said he wanted his collection to talk of love and celebration, “like a simple country wedding or a harvest festival.” With everyone cocooning at home, he wanted to create something “bubble-like” to represent the moment.Ultimately, he named the collection “L’Amour,” a declaration of love for his team, and sprinkled it with Provençal references such as ceramics, a poem by Miro, a corner of a grandmother’s tablecloth, and a colander of cherries. The show may have taken place in the great outdoors, but the clothes nodded to what we have all been experiencing inside.Where Porte Jacquemus really connected was on dresses that channel the typical Southern French insouciance: One-and-done numbers included a polo dress, and a slinky black number with contrasting stitching, breezy wheat sheaf beading, and tassels. A few white dresses, one in broderie anglaise, will probably do well by bucolic-minded fans, bridal or otherwise. For men, a leaf print was as beguiling as leather knife-and-fork tassels were improbable; elsewhere, the Picasso motifs and cut-out hearts might hit home with some fans. A sun-washed color palette of sage, ecru, black, and clay looked universally flattering. Witty earrings—coils, a Chiquito handbag, a bar of Marseille soap—added to the fun, as did leather accessories like a harness for a single plate, or the new Chiquito Noeud, a variation on the house bestseller.Despite complicated logistics, visually this show was a masterstroke. It addressed all of the issues dominating the fashion conversation in 2020 in terms of diversity, inclusivity, and apparent authenticity. Presciently, Porte Jacquemus last year had dialed down to two shows per year.
But a live runway, he noted, can never be replaced.“For me, the runway can’t be a video. It’s at the heart of what we do; it’s not superficial. It’s important to all of us to continue, just like a restaurant that reopens. It’s like a movie of a summer day. It’s our life.”Unfortunately, many Jacquemus fans won’t be able to summer in the South of France this year. But they’ll be able to pretend they can: pre-orders via the brand’s website open tomorrow morning.
16 July 2020
Not only was Simon Porte Jacquemus eager to return to the runway, but he wanted to get back to traveling too.And so it was that an audience of 100 guests—among them VIPs including Isabel Adjani and Tina Kunakey—were ferried to a gently rolling wheat field near Us (pronounced “oose”) in the French Vexin Regional Natural Park, about an hour outside Paris. Snaking through the sheaves, a dramatic wood plank runway ran 600 meters long, a setup the designer said was meant to evoke authenticity as well as the brand’s more romantic side.In March, Porte Jacquemus had been in touch with the dancer Alexander Ekman, who came to the designer’s studio on the eve of lockdown in France. Needless to say, everything changed at that point, but the reference remained. During a preshow interview, Porte Jacquemus said he wanted his collection to talk of love and celebration, “like a simple country wedding or a harvest festival.” With everyone cocooning at home, he wanted to create something “bubble-like” to represent the moment.Ultimately, he named the collection L’Amour, a declaration of love for his team, and sprinkled it with Provençal references, such as ceramics, a poem by Miró, a corner of a grandmother’s tablecloth, and a colander of cherries. The show may have taken place in the great outdoors, but the clothes nodded to what we have all been experiencing inside.Where Porte Jacquemus really connected was on dresses that channel the typical Southern French insouciance: One-and-done numbers included a polo dress, and a slinky black number with contrasting stitching, breezy wheat sheaf beading, and tassels. A few white dresses, one in broderie anglaise, will probably do well by bucolic-minded fans, bridal or otherwise. For men, a leaf print was as beguiling as leather knife-and-fork tassels were improbable; elsewhere, the Picasso motifs and cut-out hearts might hit home with some fans. A sun-washed color palette of sage, ecru, black, and clay looked universally flattering. Witty earrings—coils, a Chiquito handbag, a bar of Marseille soap—added to the fun, as did leather accessories like a harness for a single plate, or the new Chiquito Noeud, a variation on the house best seller.Despite complicated logistics, visually this show was a masterstroke. It addressed all of the issues dominating the fashion conversation in 2020 in terms of diversity, inclusivity, and apparent authenticity. Presciently, Porte Jacquemus last year had dialed down to two shows per year.
But a live runway, he noted, can never be replaced.Said Jacquemus: “For me, the runway can’t be a video. It’s at the heart of what we do; it’s not superficial. It’s important to all of us to continue, just like a restaurant that reopens. It’s like a movie of a summer day. It’s our life.”Unfortunately, many Jacquemus fans won’t be able to summer in the South of France this year. But they’ll be able to pretend they can: Preorders via the brand’s website open tomorrow morning.
16 July 2020
How could Simon Porte Jacquemus possibly top the internet-breaking success of the show in a lavender field in Provence he held last summer? The fame of that phenomenal event, with its incredible fuchsia runway, gathered 1.8 million followers to his Instagram—not to mention his ridiculous-cute micro-bag campaign.It means that everyone who’s anyone of his age is flocking to his show. The sisters Hadid and a gang of today’s hottest supermodels, male and female, came to walk around the vast stadium at La Defense Porte Jacquemus had booked for his co-ed collection for fall. There’d been a crush of thousands outside, a crowd as big as the ones which used to trek to see Jean Paul Gaultier in Paris in the ’80s. The anticipation had a sense of international scale on an almost rockstar level. Inside, Porte Jacquemus was talking backstage about serving his generation.“This is not an art show. I am selling clothes, so it was going back to things that are minimal and effortless, like a dress people can wear to a wedding and a few times afterwards,” he said. “I am happy that I got the prices down again. See this dress?”—he pointed to a bias cut linen mini-halter neck, suspended on a narrow rope—“This is 500 euros in the shop.”There was an unexpected sexiness to it all—the body-conscious fit, cropped tops and bras, wrapped micro-skirts, thigh-high boots. Bella and Gigi Hadid vied to outdo each other in midi-sheath dresses cut to accentuate every asset. Guys followed girls in pants which appeared to have their flies open (actually a trompe l’oeil double-trousered device, but still.)For sure, these were the kind of relatable going-out clothes girls will love—on a continuum, say, with the attraction of Virgil Abloh’s Off-White and Rihanna’s Fenty. There were oversize blazers and roomy coats as everyday, too; tailoring and practical layerings of streetwear for men.If somehow the French flavor and quirky charm of Jacquemus’s storytelling had been lost this time, maybe that was down to the vast presentation and the anonymity of the space. Yet the backstory behind the collection was as personal and profound as it could be—and equally important in the designer’s mission to play his part as a member of his generation.
19 January 2020
How could Simon Porte Jacquemus possibly top the internet-breaking success of the show in a lavender field in Provence he held last summer? The fame of that phenomenal event, with its incredible fuchsia runway, gathered 1.8 million followers to his Instagram—not to mention his ridiculously cute micro-bag campaign.It means that everyone who’s anyone of his age is flocking to his show. The sisters Hadid and a gang of today’s hottest supermodels, men and women, came to walk around the vast stadium at La Defense, which Porte Jacquemus had booked for his co-ed fall collection. There had been a crush of thousands outside, a crowd as big as the ones that used to trek to see Jean Paul Gaultier in Paris in the ’80s. The anticipation had a sense of international scale on an almost rock-star level.Inside, Porte Jacquemus was talking backstage about serving his generation.“This is not an art show. I am selling clothes, so it was going back to things that are minimal and effortless, like a dress people can wear to a wedding and a few times afterwards,” he said. “I am happy that I got the prices down again. See this dress?”—he pointed to a bias-cut linen mini-halter-neck, suspended on a narrow rope—“This is 500 euros in the shop.”There was an unexpected sexiness to it all—the body-conscious fit, cropped tops and bras, wrapped micro-skirts, thigh-high boots. Bella and Gigi Hadid vied to outdo each other in midi sheath dresses cut to accentuate every asset. Guys followed girls in pants, which appeared to have their flies open (actually a trompe l’oeil double-trousered device, but still).For sure, these were the kind of relatable going-out clothes girls will love—on a continuum, say, with the attraction of Virgil Abloh’s Off-White and Rihanna’s Fenty. There were oversized blazers and roomy coats as everyday too; tailoring and practical layerings of streetwear for men.If somehow the French flavor and quirky charm of Jacquemus’s storytelling had been lost this time, maybe that was down to the vast presentation and the anonymity of the space. Yet the backstory behind the collection was as personal and profound as it could be—and equally important in the designer’s mission to play his part as a member of his generation.
18 January 2020
A vibrant pink line of fabric—a third of a mile of it—undulated through a field of purple lavender, up and over a hill to meet bright blue Provençal sky. Bees were buzzing, white umbrellas were handed out against the sun. Then in the distance, a column of people started to walk over the horizon, led out by someone in a dazzling oversized white jacket with a streak of sheer lace beneath. It took a good few seconds to realize that the beautiful androgyne was Mica Argañaraz—she could have been a boy or a girl. The prosaic gendering questions of the season had finally melted away in the dazzling heat.Simon Porte Jacquemus was marking his first decade as a designer with an epic coed show on his home soil. “I wanted it to look like a David Hockney painting or a Christo installation through the fields,” he said. “With lots of prints. A painting within a painting, in a field. Provençal Pop!”That he has the wherewithal and the influence to attract an army of attendees from all continents to converge on this far-flung lavender field says everything about the charm, desirability, and power of his brand of youthful Frenchness. “I wanted something sophisticated but at the same time as light as a cocktail in summer,” he said backstage before the show. It was a tented village over the brow of the hill, in soaring heat. “Everything that means everything to me is from here. Please don’t call me Parisian! I am from the South of France.”His show happened to round off the European menswear season, but this was a one-shot Jacquemus show for Spring 2020; he won’t be participating in the September Paris women’s season. Who cares? This is by far the best way to see Jacquemus and all it’s become—a preternaturally mature brand with signatures and quirks all its own.There they were, parading through the lavender—great loose, tailored suits that could work on anyone (like the blue-and-white scribbly flower-printed version); hyper-sexy modern peasant dresses with ribbon straps to tie and untie; sheer knits; the art-heel shoes he’s invented; and the funny proportions of bags, from a shoulder tote as big as a tent to a “granny’s cake-tin” dangling from straps.It was the first time he’s shown menswear with womens, and you could see the points—all the squared-off printed shirts and canvas jackets—where the clothes could easily be shared. How was it, thinking about both together? “It was so much easier and a big pleasure for the whole studio,” he said.
“The women gave so much to the men, and the men to women. But I always do things without trying too hard.”So much of the conversation of the past few weeks has been about the escape from dystopian angst, the return to childhood, and the longing for youthful fun. Well Jacquemus doesn’t need to theorize or theme around any of that; his brand genuinely is it: youth, sexiness, fun, and optimism bottled. Sales, he says, are soaring.As the whole gang migrated into a wheat field for his all-night festival of a party, he took a moment to reflect. “I always want to give a message that’s positive to the young generation: ‘Look, I am self-made, it’s possible!’ ” he said. “I want to bring the sunshine—that’s it.”
25 June 2019
A vibrant pink line of fabric—a third of a mile of it—undulated through a field of purple lavender, up and over a hill to meet bright blue Provençal sky. Bees were buzzing, white umbrellas were handed out against the sun. Then in the distance, a column of people started to walk over the horizon, led out by someone in a dazzling oversized white jacket with a streak of sheer lace beneath. It took a good few seconds to realize that the beautiful androgyne was Mica Argañaraz—she could have been a boy or a girl. The prosaic gendering questions of the season had finally melted away in the dazzling heat.Simon Porte Jacquemus was marking his first decade as a designer with an epic coed show on his home soil. “I wanted it to look like a David Hockney painting or a Christo installation through the fields,” he said. “With lots of prints. A painting within a painting, in a field. Provençal Pop!”That he has the wherewithal and the influence to attract an army of attendees from all continents to converge on this far-flung lavender field says everything about the charm, desirability, and power of his brand of youthful Frenchness. “I wanted something sophisticated but at the same time as light as a cocktail in summer,” he said backstage before the show. It was a tented village over the brow of the hill, in soaring heat. “Everything that means everything to me is from here. Please don’t call me Parisian! I am from the South of France.”His show happened to round off the European menswear season, but this was a one-shot Jacquemus show for Spring 2020; he won’t be participating in the September Paris women’s season. Who cares? This is by far the best way to see Jacquemus and all it’s become—a preternaturally mature brand with signatures and quirks all its own.There they were, parading through the lavender—great loose, tailored suits that could work on anyone (like the blue-and-white scribbly flower-printed version); hyper-sexy modern peasant dresses with ribbon straps to tie and untie; sheer knits; the art-heel shoes he’s invented; and the funny proportions of bags, from a shoulder tote as big as a tent to a “granny’s cake-tin” dangling from straps.It was the first time he’s shown menswear with womens, and you could see the points—all the squared-off printed shirts and canvas jackets—where the clothes could easily be shared. How was it, thinking about both together? “It was so much easier and a big pleasure for the whole studio,” he said.
“The women gave so much to the men, and the men to women. But I always do things without trying too hard.”So much of the conversation of the past few weeks has been about the escape from dystopian angst, the return to childhood, and the longing for youthful fun. Well Jacquemus doesn’t need to theorize or theme around any of that; his brand genuinely is it: youth, sexiness, fun, and optimism bottled. Sales, he says, are soaring.As the whole gang migrated into a wheat field for his all-night festival of a party, he took a moment to reflect. “I always want to give a message that’s positive to the young generation: ‘Look, I am self-made, it’s possible!’ ” he said. “I want to bring the sunshine—that’s it.”
25 June 2019
On the far outskirts of Paris tonight, a cavernous warehouse space was converted into “Place Jacquemus,” a colorful South of France town square with impressive verisimilitude, down to the drainpipes and the laundry hanging out to dry. The charm of the set prompted one influential Frenchman in the audience to call Simon Porte Jacquemus “the new Karl Lagerfeld.” That kind of comparison is bound to happen more frequently in the wake of Lagerfeld’s death. Design-wise, Jacquemus’s ambitions are more circumspect than Lagerfeld’s, but his ability to conjure a scene is evocative of the master’s.As with most seasons, Jacquemus had his countryside childhood in mind—the filmsMon OncleandLes Demoiselles de Rochefortwere also references. But with the clothes he took a more holistic approach than he did for Spring. “I didn’t want people expecting from me only the sensuality, I have so many more things to say,” he said. The collection did read like a corrective to his last show, which erred on the side of the insubstantial. The ability to respond to feedback and reinvent is a positive characteristic. Here there were pantsuits, skirt-and-sweater combinations, and button-downs and culottes to wear to the office, and even double-face coats, much of it with workwear-inspired utility pockets—an extension of his recent menswear outing. What gave it its particular southern flavor—what made it Jacqumeus—was its Instagram-ready color: brighter-than-bougainvillea pink, vivid shades of orange, green, and azure blue. The designer also loaded up the collection with personal references. Earrings were modeled off of his own 1stdibs.com furniture obsessions, or they featured snapshots of himself and his mother in tiny plexiglass frames.Jacquemus has a knack for accessories. On the runway, the clog-soled knee-high boots struck the right real-world note between the rubber waders and the pointy-toed pumps. Off it, showgoers gathered around the Place Jacquemus “storefront” to snap photos of this new release for Fall, a bag so small it’s only big enough for AirPods, just impractical enough to be irresistible. As he recalibrates his ready-to-wear, that inventive approach to the extras is going to be a boon.
25 February 2019
The way Simon Porte Jacquemus throws open windows on his early life in the South of France—everything foreigners long to enjoy—gives his work its delightfully genuine intensity. For his second menswear collection, he turned his vision 180 degrees away from the Ambre Solaire–drenched Marseille beaches to look at down-to-earth rural life in the hills around Montpellier.Recently, the designer has been feeling the need to get back to something more real—“traditional French workwear,” he said, “bakery guys, farm workers. They are real, real clothes, cotton, wool.”He said the subject made him feel awkward about having a show—a general mood of questioning the formats of fashion. He did it anyway but tried to inject an idea of nonurban reality into his presentation. Jacquemus and his models arrived in a white truck outside the Palais de Tokyo—as if arriving from the country—and, after a turn around the gallery, sat down to eat breakfast at a rustic table laden with bread, cheese, and coffee.The playful slice-of-life spontaneity of it had typical Jacquemus directness and charm. It was full of relatable outdoor boy-basics, interleaved with whimsical embroidery—a wheat sheaf on a linen overshirt and faded prints of rosemary sprigs on a white Sunday-best suit.Jacquemus shows are often suffused with youthful romanticism, but this one had a grittier poignancy. The erosion of traditional occupations—and the divisive tensions which have boiled up in the regions—is precisely the issue which is fueling the Gilets Jaunes protests in Paris and across France. “There is no political message, but I am from the countryside, from a farmer family,” said Jacquemus. “I was born with these guys, these Gilets Jaunes. So all these messages about people’s suffering, I understand them. I feel close to them. But it’s a bit wrong to have a message in a fashion show on a Sunday morning.”Still, there was a nuance which spoke volumes: The worker boys he brought to breakfast were a completely diverse crew. “I grew up with North African kids, but also my family is mixed—my sister has French and Algerian roots,” he said. “For me, this is the France of today.”Jacquemus is plowing his own field in fashion as a burgeoning successful young entrepreneur and employer, and, at a time when far-right racism is rearing its ugly head, he added an affirmative subtext to his love letter to the country he comes from.
20 January 2019
What Simon Porte Jacquemus did for the straw hat a year ago, he did for the straw bag today. If pressed, you could probably fit every single sundress, logo T-shirt, and bikini in his new Spring collection into one of those raffia totes. They were that big. The clothes were itsy-bitsy, teeny-weeny little things, designed for hot climates and steamy atmospheres. “You don’t know if she’s going out or to the beach,” the designer said afterwards.Jacquemus’s proposition for Spring 2019 boiled down to second-skin knits and gauzy wrapped pareus; plunge-front necklines and hip-grazing hems. It was not so different from his Spring collection of a year ago. Weightlessness was next to godliness, and sheerness was even closer. “A fantasy of the Italian Riviera,” he called it, “like something I imagined a long time ago.” That sense of boyish imagination was accentuated by the physics of the runway. Promenading as they did on sculptural high heels down an old-fashioned raised catwalk, the models looked larger than life. And in many cases we were looking straight up their skirts, a highly uncomfortable position.That said, if his influencer-studded front row is anything to go on (it included the Haim sisters, by the way), many are the women who’ve been seduced by Jacquemus’s sensual vision. This collection will keep them braless and beautiful well into 2019. But it sort of feels like Jacquemus is just coasting. A scroll back through the designer’s not-so-distant past, circa 2017 to be exact, reveals a more ambitious Jacquemus, one with something to say about modern French tailoring, and clothes a woman young or old could wear beyond the boardwalk. Where did that guy go? And when will he come back?
24 September 2018
Four cities of collections spanning two weeks must have offered an all-encompassing view of menswear circa Spring 2019, right? Not quite, for one day after the season had officially ended, Simon Porte Jacquemus introduced something new: thegadjo, a hunky outsider archetype from the south whose wardrobe spans knit tanks and teensy bathing briefs to airy suit jackets and shorts. “I don’t think there is this Mediterranean boy in the market,” the designer said. “Not with a solar energy like this.”And so, after months of buildup, Jacquemus’s first collection for boys/guys/men made a big, seductive, free-spirited splash from the Calanque de Sormiou, a staggeringly beautiful beach enclave on the outskirts of Marseille. The remote destination was a far cry from central Paris, with cars navigating steep winding roads while passing locals on foot in their swimsuits. Here, the runway was the shoreline and the first row was demarcated by towels on the sand. The catchy hip-hop hook of the first track, “Beau Gosse” (basically, “hot dude”) said it all.Indeed, while Jacquemus has been gradually turning up the heat on his women’s collections, he’s wasted no time asserting his men’s vision as virile, with muscled bodies giving shape to relaxed jeans, streamlined cargo pants, and a wide array of fine and heavy-gauge knits (the designer receives support from the Woolmark Company). “For me, in the Jacquemus world, men and women are separate,” he explained. “But I also think this men’s collection is like the beginning of the women’s—so naive, super-sincere, and simple, but with something else.”Was that something else the warm Provençal flavor—the mellow yellow tones, sunflower print, and wheat sheaf motifs? The idealized, almost cinematic depiction of young men in woven ties and short shorts? Or the slightly ironic view of Marseille street fashion? “There are a lot of clichés and I tried to have humor—but without laughing at them, without being tacky. I’m proud of them,” he said.And you can take him at his word, largely because he, Simon, is gadjo zero. Marseille is his hometown; his choice of models reflects the fitness, sensuality, and masculinity messaging he shares on Instagram; and the idea of a “swim parka” could only come from satisfying his own wardrobe needs. “I am not going to be the designer with the ruffled shirt and the super-experimental pieces,” he pointed out . “But I will try to put my signature on everyday looks.
” Just as important: The line’s commercial positioning, as he underscored that the pricing will be ultra-competitive. Those great hip-slung jeans, color-blocked knits, and low-cut shirts will not be out of reach; likewise the dog tag bracelets and branded leather neck accessories—easy entry points that he’s yet to propose for women. You can bet the Jacquemus girls will be among the first shoppers.So consider this debut a success not just because he has already identified a persuasive, personal point of view, but because it seems to come so naturally to him. Just prior to the show, he was swimming in the sea. “I’m not stressed,” he insisted. “I just wanted to have a good moment and bring you here. It was like a vacation moment of the Jacquemus world.”
26 June 2018
The fashion gossip-sphere has been gripped of late by Simon Porte Jacquemus’s #newjob. Was it Céline? No. Was is Courrèges? No again. Was it Pierre Cardin? No, no, no. The young Frenchman, having milked social media for as long as he could get away with, finally spilled the beans at his show tonight, a very well attended affair—Christian Lacroix was in the crowd—in one of the city’s grandest locations, the Petit Palais. The big reveal came at the end. Jacquemus is launching a menswear line, his hoodie made the announcement for him.Jacquemus is a Paris darling, paid attention to by everyone who matters, thanks to an ineffable mix of confidence, charm, and risk-taking. The fact that he has risen so far without the backing of one of the city’s supergroups makes him all the more irresistible, and the addition of a men’s line is likely only to intensify the interest around him.What he sent out for women this evening was a mix of his inventive tailoring, sweater dressing, and influences from what his program notes described as a trip to Morocco that he took after his last runway show. “I got lost in the souks with just one thing on my mind:I want to make it my next summer collection. I came back to Paris and made my winter of it; my winter collection. Not wasting any more time, my warm winter.”Destination collections are often prosaic, especially when that destination is Morocco, a land that will forever be linked in the fashion imagination to the late, legendary Yves Saint Laurent, who made his home there. Indeed, Jacquemus said he visited the recently opened YSL museum in Marrakech and cried. “But I’m not working for a museum,” he said. “I have no interest to look at the [Saint Laurent] book, it was just a feeling.”It’s hard to come up with another designer as comfortable with straight-up sensuality as Jacquemus. There are no complicating details or high fashion affectations here; just a mix of clingy, second-skin knits, flowing kaftan jumpsuits, draped slips, and teeny-tiny T-shirts worn braless. A few of the dresses were too short, and there was a fair bit of repetition, but the overall effect felt significantly more substantial than last season.Jacquemus is very good indeed at conjuring a feeling. If Luca Guadagnino ever swapped Italy for southern France, Simon Porte is his man.
Perched on the perimeter of the Petit Palais tonight, under Georges Picard’s circa 1909 fresco titled “Triumph of the Woman,” of all things, and watching the designer’s inclusive, beautiful cast stroll by, this audience member felt optimism and (maybe it was those model smiles?) something close to joy. He should bottle it. Here’s an idea: a Jacquemus perfume collaboration with Comme des Garçons.
26 February 2018
Jacquemus: the young designer, his models, his friends, his sun-drenched South of France Instagram—they’re everything about the French which makes foreigners writhe with envy. Welcome to Paris! All you needed to do tonight was take your seat for waves of this ultra-specific feeling to sink in as all the consciously unselfconscious beautiful local girls turned up, with their tumbling hair, tanned legs, and undone makeup, each of them wearing her own choice of Jacquemus’s tight, black dresses and white collars. Then watch the arrival of Giancarlo Giammetti, Valentino Garavani’s partner. Not to mention the fact—for goodness sake—that we were all in the Musée Picasso, a national landmark never before used for fashion.The tingly aura of goodwill around Simon Porte Jacquemus is unmistakable. From young girls who couldn’t care about business, to the highest echelons of the fashion establishment which certainly does, everyone wants to feel part of where this self-taught independent is going.It turned out to be somewhere slightly different this time. His soft, draped asymmetric shapes, swathed into tulip skirts or side-knotted, plunging tops were—as if spontaneously, and occasionally precariously—attached to his models’ bodies with schemes of tiny, skinny straps. Still, though, it was about the designer’s mother, and his memories of being raised in a village outside Marseilles. “I was looking at a photograph of my mother walking through the port one summer,” he explained. “She had a scarf around her head, and these ceramic earrings—and a pareo tied around her. She was always smiling and happy. People still stop me in the village and say, ‘Your mother? She was so beautiful!’ ”The designer lost his mother at a young age. It has affected the course of his life, and like so many successful people whose early lives are marked by the death of a parent, it’s given him a special, vivid nostalgia for his idyllic childhood—the sea, the sun, the folk tradition, the entire cinematic, sexy, mythology of the South of France—and a fearless drive. “You see, Jacquemus is my mother’s name,” he said as his models surrounded him at the end of the show. “She was shy, and she was sexy. It will always be about her, I don’t care! That’s me.”Porte Jacquemus is totally at home designing for the sort of climate where women make a lot out of not wearing very much.
Even so, despite the plunging necklines, thigh-split skirts, and exposed backs, there was a characteristic Jacquemus-y pulled-togetherness about this collection. This time he said he was “going away from the stiff fabrics, to work on the flou, the draping.” Porte Jacquemus had also been thinking about “French Island girls—they could be in Corsica, or Martinique in the Caribbean, too.”The will to experiment and test boundaries is always a super-healthy trait in a young talent. Simon Porte Jacquemus, whose first fashion school was the Paris Comme des Garçons store where he was a sales associate—never college—is learning as he practices. Not all of it is perfectly executed—certainly not to anything like the couture standards of his hero Christian Lacroix, or his fan, Mr. Valentino. But Porte Jacquemus is streets ahead in his innate grip on communication and image-making. And what holds it all together is his precocious, playful, wittily chic line of fast-selling accessories. Jacquemus block-heeled shoes—one square, one circular—for Fall were being worn as trophies du jour by girls all over the audience.Next season, they’ll be lining up to get their hands on the earrings, too—a different shape to dangle on each lobe. The designer laughed. It was his mother-inspiration at work again. “I looked around her house—the handles, the door-keys, the plants,” he said. “And the sun, of course!”
25 September 2017
“It was about this Parisian girl who wears couture who falls in love with a gypsy in the south of France. She tries to be like a gypsy, but she cannot—she is too couture!” This tale of an “impossible love story” tumbled breathlessly out of Simon Porte Jacquemus’s mouth just after he’d finished kissing every single model who stepped off his fuzzy-felt sugar-pink runway. There’s no faking it: You can tell when girls are “feeling” clothes, and these were clearly loving them, from the tips of their cloches and twisted matador hats, to the pointy toes and cubic wooden heels of their shoes.There’s something special about Jacquemus and the way he potrays Frenchness, and that’s what excites people. His new-generation apprection of Provençal folk tradition and his admiration of Christian Lacroix make his work—with its spectrum of various collars and puffed sleeves—feel fresh; a sincere, slightly naive form of chic. “When I was a child, I grew up looking at my uncle, who was a toreador, and dreaming of Christian Lacroix, who I saw in my mother’s magazines, and meant fashion to me,” he said, explaining the shawl collars; raised-waist matador pants; and abstracted, frilly blouses which ran throughout.What’s really noticeable is how Jacquemus is cleverly navigating his way between idealistic high concept, and wearable reality. He’s beginning to sculpt really interesting tailoring—large, curved raglan shoulders; nipped-in, corseted waists—in trouser suits with ruched, cropped pants, and generous hourglass coats. The hats, made up in his studio as he thought of “Picasso and Surrealism” were charming but simple. In this day and age, extravagant follies are out of the question for a young independent designer. “You know,” he said, passionately, “what you see is what we sell; all of these 90 pieces, here. I’m proud of that.” With his realistic pricing, this young, self-taught designer is growing into someone who represents chic to a generation of girls who’ve never had it before; a credit to French tradition whose development is being watched fondly by many eyes, including those of Lacroix himself. “He’s so generous,” Jacquemus declared, emotionally. “Look, over there, he sent me a huge bunch of mimosa before the show.”
28 February 2017
The first day ofParis Fashion Weekis suddenly all action. If you don’t arrive in time for Tuesday’s roster of young talent, you risk not knowing how the future might take shape—and that’s a new phenomenon here. What you really want to see are designers who reach the point where they are articulating something about themselves while also giving the world glimpses of something specifically and inimitably French. With his Spring collection, Simon Porte Jacquemus rose to that level with a collection he’d gleaned from Provençal folk culture. That was natural for him, as a boy who’s constantly inspired by his childhood in the sunny South of France, but it also put him on a path connected back to Christian Lacroix’s shawl-collared, puff-sleeved, peasant-inspired heyday during the high ’80s of Parisian haute couture—with perhaps a touch of the theatrical smoky atmosphere that used to pervadeJean Paul Gaultier’s shows in the same decade.All that constitutes a welcome discovery for 20-somethings: a nostalgia risen with the blooming of shoulders and shortening of skirts, a comeback strangely synchronous with the styles once sported by the first Mrs. Trump almost 30 years ago. There’s current context here: It wasDemna Gvasaliawho first came up with the dramatically padded shoulder atVetements, of course. As it happened, he was a front row guest today, drawn as a friend to see what was to come from this emerging talent. What’s different is Jacquemus’s sources come from someplace else. He is not one of those designers pretending to be underground-edgy or ironic à la Vetements. His talent has an aura of sincere naïveté and idealism, tinged with a slightly melancholic romance.So there was a big fake orange sun glowing at the end of the runway as Jacquemus’s fresh-cheeked, incredibly pretty girls walked out under huge traditional circular straw hats. Their clothes steadily proved how Jacquemus’s repertoire has widened. He cut wide pinstripe pants with deep cuffs, fit and flare linen coats, pencil skirts with asymmetric fan pleating, and numerous examples of the shirting he’s made a business out of—now with voluminous sleeves.What’s clever is this didn’t feel like a lurch into new territory for this designer; it was more like a continuation of his own narrative.
The signatures he’s put down since his beginnings are still there—oversize buttons, shoes with geometric blocks for heels, the shirting—but most of all, the faithfulness he has to designing for his own generation, at prices they might be able to attain. You felt all of that going on at Jacquemus, and that’s great for Paris.
27 September 2016
“I would like there to be less industry and more poetry.” When you are 26 years old—i.e., born in 1990—this is the sort of thing youshouldbe saying on your Instagram account, as Simon PorteJacquemusdid a little while ago. His very French, specifically South of France, romantic ’90s-childhood-derived imagery—sunshine, sea, soft-focus first love, cheesy pop music—magnetizes followers of his generation. Loads of them turned up here and stood, packed together in excitement, behind the back row, to watch his Fall 2016 show and cheer what Jacquemus was showing.If it didn’t quite scale the heights of poetry, Jacquemus’s runway collection did show his vantage point on what his fashion aspirations are—a chopped-up yet ultimately accessible style that lands somewhere within the shapes and the conversations that look relevant now. Jacquemus, as a self-funded, self-taught, young entrepreneur designer, doesn’t have the luxury to be completely abstract about what he makes, but that’s very much to the good. Being able to think about items in the same breath as ideas is the definitive characteristic of this new idealistic, survivalist generation.So among the giant shoulders and the experimental flat geometric rectangular and circular cutouts, Jacquemus showed a series of super-chic coats in lemon, blue, and white checks, or navy velour, cinched with wide belts, broad-shoulder ribbed turtlenecks and trousers with deep turn ups.All of those pieces, as well as the thigh-high boots and his new, distinctively kidney-shaped bags, clicked neatly into the fashion conversation. Some may carp that several of his outcomes betray similarities toVetements,J.W.Anderson,Céline, and, further back, toMartin Margiela,Jean Paul Gaultier, andComme des Garçons. On the other hand, the way Jacquemus slashed an entire pantsuit diagonally in half and tied the pieces together with white ribbons looked original to him and impressively well done. But what matters now, anyway? Jacquemus also has inexpensive pieces, like miniskirts and pants, which are aimed at selling, affordably, to that back row and beyond. And they do.
1 March 2016
A gigantic red ball of fabric was pushed across an open expanse of concrete floor by a tiny barefoot child in a man’s white shirt. Models, walking in ones and twos, followed him, dressed in fractured tailored pieces, sliced half-jackets in navy and gray cloth dresses, overlaid and underlaid with white shirts cut on the diagonal or worn back-to-front and tied on with cotton tape. Halfway through the show, to add to the oddness, the designer himself appeared, seemingly an adult version of the boy, leading a white horse across the stage in an interlude before more models came on.What was this? A surreal symbolic dream or a fashion nightmare where clothes are to be bought in asymmetrical fractions? Backstage,Simon Porte Jacquemus, who recently won an LVMH Prize in its young designer competition, tried to explain the state of mind he was in when he plotted this oddly trancelike and unsettling parade. His emotions seemed raw and vulnerable. The collection was called Le Nez Rouge, he said, because he had been sick, afflicted with a red nose and personal troubles as he was designing. “You know, my collections are normally about the South of France and the beach and happy things? Well, now the Jacquemus girl is not smiling,” he said. Without spelling out what had happened, he added, “My friends, my family knows.”It is harsh to call judgment on a very young designer who is clearly under stress—as are they all—as he tries to make his way, with feeling, in the hard world of fashion commerce. Though his narrative, held in a huge arena of a warehouse on the outskirts of Paris, didn’t quite hold up in the space, it didn’t obfuscate everything Jacquemus has going for him. Backstage, his navy pants, long narrow skirts, and white shirts looked crisply cut and as attractive as they always do in stores.
29 September 2015
It was impossible to enter Jacquemus' Marais studio and not gravitate immediately toward his debut bag, Peinture ("painting" in French), with its all-white easel form. Simon Porte Jacquemus' foray into accessories (there are cubist heels, too) and the LVMH Prize of €150,000 he picked up last month both offered solid conversation entry-points. But as soon as he mentioned that this collection—titled Valérie, after his late mother—was shot at his family home in the lavender-filled countryside of southern France, the small talk quickly turned poignant. Because even though his label name has always been a dedication to her; now, he noted, these were clothes he could envision her wearing.It's not like they diverged much from his usual framework, especially when you consider how he once again relied on a magic mix of trompe l'oeil, asymmetry, and geometry to bestow unexpected sex appeal on offset shirtdresses and exaggerated jackets. Along a Jacquemus-calibrated spectrum from balanced to unhinged, the collection hewed toward the former, thanks to simple, self-imposed constraints on fabric (linen-cotton-wool) and palette (navy-white-sand). For all the masculine references, these clothes traced feminine curves. Beyond that, the eye perceived the confidence necessary to rely on little more than ties, vents, illusion seams, and pleated panels as surface detail (save for an oblong cutout darkly dubbed "Van Gogh's ear"). The white paint delineating a jacket front on a minidress seemed like anart brutattempt at ornamentation.That Jacquemus selected 43-year-old actress Joana Preiss as his model says as much about staying on theme (read: not conflating his mother with a millennial) as thinking maturely about his brand image. Designing for his gal pals has gotten him this far; going further means expanding his consumer base. He just happens to be doing it by looking inward.
26 June 2015
Simon Porte Jacquemus is on the LVMH Prize short list this year. He's made it to the semifinal round after landing a spot on the finalist list last year. With the judging scheduled for tomorrow and Thursday, the deconstructed, surrealist, shoeless, NSFW collection he showed tonight was either a flip-off to the jurors or a come-on. Whichever, it definitely won't go unnoticed. Not when the first model out was topless, save for the outline of a tank painted above her breasts, and faceless, thanks to a featureless paper mask, wearing pants so stiff and oversized they could've walked off without her.From season to season, Jacquemus has bopped from commercial-mindedness to conceptualism. Such unpredictably isn't entirely a surprise: He is all of 25, after all, and he never finished design school. After the pop and humor of Jacquemus' beachy Spring show, tonight's collection landed firmly in the conceptual camp. Explaining that he wanted to recapture some of the instinctual feel of being a child, the designer said: "I cut jackets like little kids will do—sometimes the cut is weird, there is just a half top. I like this randomness."Jacquemus came up into the business via Comme des Garçons—he worked at the label's Paris store as recently as 2013. With this collection's porthole and strap construction, the shirtsleeves sewn onto the front of a dress, and the general askewness of the clothes, this outing definitely had its avant-garde antecedents in the work of Rei Kawakubo. Rei had the shock of the new going for her, though; Jacquemus does not. Add up the one-leg pants and the bared breasts, and what you got today was a collection that felt too effortful on the one hand, and not polished enough on the other. That said, there were a few pieces that rose above the silliness of a look that sandwiched a model between two giant felt cutouts of hands. A curvy dress and a verybelle poitrinecoat, both of which spilled off the shoulders, signaled that a grown-up Jacquemus is lurking behind the cutup.
3 March 2015
Cabana stripes are off the table at Jacquemus this season. Sure, the lookbook was shot on the beach, but take a closer gander; that's a nuclear reactor in the distance. Simon Porte Jacquemus hasn't gone bleak on us, but there was a seriousness to his clothes for Pre-Fall. At an appointment in his Third Arrondissement atelier, he said, "I wanted to come back to pure fashion. I felt like starting again, already I've done a little circle." Meaning, the bright yellow and royal blue stripes of Spring might be as upbeat as he's apt to get for a while. No matter, the navy, charcoal, and white he used here are better suited to the off-kilter tailoring he prefers. His suit jacket was as asymmetrical as the tailleurs that opened Atelier Versace last night—now there's a brand nobody has mentioned in the same sentence as Jacquemus until now. Likewise, there was something surprisingly soigné about the off-shoulder proportion of a white cotton poplin button-down topped by a ribbed knit tube. The circles Jacquemus has used as a decorative motif for the last two collections reappeared here, but they were a bit more tentative than they have been previously. We bet he's moved on to something new by the time he shows Fall in early March.
26 January 2015
The new collection by Simon Porte Jacquemus was a typically upbeat affair, riffing on the designer's childhood days in the south of France: off-kilter shirting mashed up with triangle bikini tops; skirts constructed to suggest the wrapped-on look of beach towels. Cabana stripe everywhere. There was something daydreamy about the whole affair. Yet this was also a rather realistic outing for Jacquemus, with the first half of the two-part show featuring genuinely wearable looks like cinched cotton tops and trousers and slouchy white jeans. And even in the more sculptural second half of the collection, which found the designer back in his naive mode playing with shapes, there were pieces that jumped out as wardrobe-ready, like the bra tops in candy-colored striped mesh. Jacquemus said himself that he staged the show in two parts because he wanted to emphasize that his idiosyncratic aesthetic can be interpreted in retail-friendly ways, a point driven home by the fact that his brand is now stocked by a fair number of outlets—Opening Ceremony, La Garçonne, and Shopbop among them. The Jacquemus charm is infectious—this season, particularly so.
23 September 2014
Upon arrival at this evening's Jacquemus show, guests were handed white hospital smocks, each of them with hand-appliquéd blobs of color on them, and asked to put them on. Why? The models were going to paintball the crowd, one attendee mooted. "Water?" suggested another, more circumspectly. As it turns out, the smocks didn't serve a practical purpose: After his show, Simon Porte Jacquemus explained that it was a conceptual gesture, a way of obliterating fashion hierarchy and immersing showgoers in the Jacquemus world. "It's like a child who's into circles, and he goes around making everyone else get into circles," the designer explained. The fact that paintballing models were seriously wondered about in the front row is a good measure of the sense of possibility surrounding Jacquemus; the fashion pack attends to him as a young designer capable of surprising them. Meanwhile, Jacquemus' explanation for the smocks had a lot of charm. But it hinted at the limitations of his approach. For this was, indeed, very much a collection based on the idea of making everyone get into circles. The very first look, for instance, was in essence a construction of circles, which was intriguing but not very convincing as a garment a young woman would want to wear. And that issue plagued this very cheerful outing. You could pluck out the viable looks—Jacquemus' very cool slouchy trousers, for instance, or a net crop top and pencil skirt with white oval appliqués, or a sexy yellow jumpsuit in neoprene. But a few of the silhouettes here did seem rather silly, like a comedy oversize suit. And perhaps more problematic, many of these looks were just plain ungainly. There's more to fashion than flattery, of course, but this collection could have benefitted from a bit more consideration of the end customer and how she wants to look and feel in the clothes. Most of us have had that experience of wearing something a little embarrassing for the sake of a kid—in fact, the experience was enacted, smock by smock, by the guests at the Jacquemus show tonight. But it's not an experience most women are shopping for.
24 February 2014
One thing you can say for sure about Jacquemus: The brand's attitude of youthful exuberance is not affected. Simon Porte Jacquemus launched the label four years ago, when he was just nineteen; the young women he designs for are his peers as much as they're his muses. That might account for the realism of his clothes. This season, Jacquemus was spinning a tale of a girl who goes to visit the seaside town of La Grande Motte, in the South of France, and his geometric construction reflected the fifties-era architecture of the place. But he cut those looks in cotton, and everything was wearable. He is not a designer getting lost in his concept. Nor is he a designer trying too hard to make a big editorial statement—his sleeve silhouettes had a touch of Céline about them, which made them feel au courant, but it was just a suggestion. The debt wasn't onerous. In any case, the playful tees and graphic sweatshirts didn't look like anything other than the kind of thing the peppy Jacquemus girl is going to want to have in her wardrobe come spring.
6 October 2013