Marine Serre (Q3299)
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Marine Serre is a fashion house from FMD.
| Language | Label | Description | Also known as |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | Marine Serre |
Marine Serre is a fashion house from FMD. |
Statements
Radical Call For Love was the title of Marine Serre’s graduate show back in 2016; it was shaped as a reaction to the terrorist attacks on Paris and Brussels the year before. The recycled t-shirt dress that closed this latest show—her first ever outside of Paris—referenced that starting Serre sentiment. She said: “I think it’s really important to keep that hope, even if it feels like nothing is changing.” The models wearing the 39 looks in this show hailed from 25 different nations in order to epitomize this collection’s title: Sempre Legati (Always Connected).Eight years on from her emergence Serre remains a radical voice unswervingly committed to her origin ethos. Her vocabulary, however, has expanded. This Pitti show was, in theory, supposed to be her first-ever all menswear presentation: she confessed her excitement about how the new locale had galvanized her to go all-in and add couture and women’s ready-to-wear to the mix. Pitti produced the agonizingly beautiful Villa di Maiano as Serre’s venue. Her models walked the terrace outside while the sun sank over the darkening Tuscan hillside as swallows competed with the drone for airspace in the dappled cloudscape above.As well as that broadening beyond menswear, her response to this shift in place was to shift her looks beyond the specifically Serre-ish quotidian wardrobe that she has shaped so precisely in Paris. Here an opening black moire silk skirt, abundant in volume, was placed under a chest piece fashioned from vintage jewelry. Much of the menswear revolved around two leading-man tailoring silhouettes, one double-breasted, cinched, and defined, the other single-breasted, boxy, and strong. Scarlet and black were locked in competition within tailored looks punctuated by leather garments for both genders. Serre seemed to be directing herself towards the cinematic as a reaction to her backdrop.Yet the collection remained very recognizably hers, not least through the cluster of glossily-finished airbrushed leather looks and a meshed bodysuit upon which were gridded her crescent moon motif. Many of the closing credits all-white looks were crafted in upcycled embroidered bed sheets. Her versatile scarf looks this season encompassed trench and liner coats and a trompe l’oeil scarf effect dress. The upcycled scarf menswear shirting whose collars had a wingspan to rival that of the swallows above were more than a little Tony Montana: Scarf-ace.
Other looks were crafted from (mostly German) tote bags and tennis bags.The location, the live band, and this collection all combined to create a fascinating new chapter in the Serre story. Because while her work is very much informed by Paris, it was tangibly enhanced through this fleeting translocation to a dreamy hillside above Florence.
12 June 2024
Just behind the Gare du Lyon there’s a former SNCF railway warehouse that has been upcycled into a food court / art space / community center hybrid. It’s called Ground Control. Marine Serre took it over this afternoon for a show that—at least to this tourist—felt more true to ‘real’ Paris than any other on the schedule.Rather than remodel the space, Serre instead Marine-ated it (sorry) with her own codes. Guests, who included 200 fans of the brand, either stood or sat around tables laid with crescent-moon branded deadstock cups of chai and coffee served by Café de Serre. The Effet de Serre florist doled out moon-wrapped tulips, Marine Records stocked vinyl, and La PiSerreIa (arguably even a cheesier pun than mine) served slices.Once we were settled the models, around half of whom were street cast, walked as if they were here to browse, chill, or meet up with friends: some carried pizza boxes or take-out cups from the designer’s new portfolio of fantasy businesses. Each individual was aligned with various loosely overlapping (and all complementary) typologies of character designed to showcase Serre’s worn categories. We were people watching.The opening was a specifically Serre-ish mix of sportswear and evening-to-morning wear, starting with a knitted ‘fur’ paneled leather coat that segued to flocked sheer black dresses. A black knit sparkle-moon dress and cardigan over bodysuit transitioned to black tracksuit over faux python heeled boots. Thigh highs and tough jackets in smoked-finish moon leathers, two loose suits in non-moon black-on-black check jacquard, and two all-over black on white moon print looks (accessorized by an infant-occupied baby-carrier and vegetable-occupied shopping caddy) followed.A series of moiré looks, including two fantastic sportily-corseted fitted ruched dresses, were followed by more knits in zingier colors and a series of finely draped upcycled scarf pieces. Next came moon-emblem denim jeans and workwear, python-print jersey and leather, and a blue marinière sweater. Great details included fork-head earrings and a necklace made of upcycled key fobs (Serre’s grandfather, Jean-Jacques, used to collect them and passed on that passion). A body suit was patterned after a collection of vintage brooches in a print that was manipulated to ergonomically contour the body beneath it, and then applied with the brooches themselves.
A brace of near closing looks featured bell-sleeves or winged shoulders in a mix of moiré and more foulard silks before a final dress in black “wet” jersey. At the finale the models who had walked apart came together, as if they’d found each other in the crowd. The guy with the bouquet had found his date, while the two young women—one with baby, one with groceries—were getting their steps in together.There were a few men’s looks here, but having already presented her menswear lookbook in January, Serre was focused on the womenswear today. She said: “Just being a woman designing for women—today you don’t have this so much. I just want to be at the service of women to design a collection for them that is both something daily but also graceful. It's better for me, it makes sense, to dress women for daily life. Some red carpet, yes, but not only red carpet.” Serre’s quotidian and contemporary feminine realism took off without a hitch from Ground Control today.
4 March 2024
Marine Serre has been leavening her shows with menswear for a while now, and during the last three seasons has taken to showing her mainline during the men’s weeks in Paris. But what you see here, she said, is her first full and standalone menswear collection. “I’ve been building my masculine archetypes,” Serre said in a showroom appointment, “but it’s taken a while for me to feel satisfied that I have developed a full vocabulary.” She will hold a show at womenswear in a few weeks—so why none to launch this? “I didn’t want to come out with a full menswear show the first time round, because that seemed a bit presumptuous,” she said.It really wouldn’t have been. Still in her early 30s, Serre has built up a compelling business with distinct codes and USP that combines the sustainable, the feminocentric, the inclusive, and the French. This collection, to be released in three phases June through August, was remarkably cogent yet impressively broad. Phases included boxy tailoring in wool jacquards that countered the dadness (notsadness, as my spellcheck just suggested) of the jackets with more youthful leaning Bermudas and a new hikecore version of her rise sneaker (dreamy in berry). Pants were delivered in the late ’90s bootcut (definitivelynot’70s bell-bottom) silhouette that has been creeping back up the index.Which leads nicely to the denim. Serre pointed out that creatively she could have offered a multitude of pieces (she cited 60-something outerwear concepts), but added that both her ethos and her business sense demanded she rigorously self-edit. The result was three denim shapes; straight, slightly baggier and articulated by a triple seam behind the knee, and a darted yoke, slightly carrot-shaped cut, whose outseam angled from crotch to flippable cuff. For this old timer it was instantly reminiscent of the engineered Levi’s Twisted: following the carpenter-jean explosion seems another subset that’s due a revival. For me, however, it was the articulated knee cut that was especially fresh in this selection. Serre was also wisely circumspect about where and how to use— and not overuse—her powerful crescent moon logo. On denim it featured heavily on the paler blue washes but barely at all on the black pieces, which were partially conceived as mix-and-matchable with the tailoring for evening looks.Accessories included daintily jaunty bowling bags and more rugged models inspired by mail bags.
It was also notable how many ties—both leather and fabric—were in the collection, including in an all denim look. Said Serre: “I just think they bring something elegant, refined and unusual today.”Other stories included the upcycled spliced T-shirts that must take so long to combine so ingeniously, sprayed faded-moon leather outerwear, fine soft sportswear fashioned from upcycled scarves, djellabas and shirting in upcycled bedsheet cotton, and some moonstruck argyle knits. For a first “full” menswear collection, this was a varied yet defined offering that exhibited consideration on all its many levels.
21 January 2024
Half of this collection was crafted from upcycled deadstock. And the rest was made from certified recycled fabrics and other materials. Which is important and good. However the really great thing about Marine Serre is that her environmental practice, while foundational, is only the starting point. This former LVMH Prize winner has built on that foundation to shape a distinctly designed world complete with her own codes and signatures. It’s fun, powerful and sexy—and she added more layers to it with this collection.Held in the hallowed Salle Wagram, this show was very nearly standing room only. Apart from fashion’s doddery professional chaperones who were sidelined onto two benches (and we were grateful for them), the immigration queue-style runway was lined on its back and forth route by excited youth behind the same type of metal fencing used to corral crowds at concerts. Said Serre: “They could reach and touch the models if they wanted.” The young onlookers were more respectful than that (and more interested in phone footage than physical contact) but as the banging tunes and Clair de Lune—mixed by Pierre Rousseau— kicked in, they were clearly having a blast. Serre said the party that would start immediately after the show would go on late.“I wanted to bring some dance to the show experience,” she said: “it is really a show about music.” To reflect that her cast featured many musicians, some of whom were scheduled to perform later. They included Teyana Taylor, Miguel, Noah Cyrus, Brooke Candy, Anetha, and more. Exciting as that was, I have to confess being more interested in the wearables than the hearables. Serre duly delivered several headlining innovations.These included new combinations of existing materials in the Serre catalogue: the opening section saw her combine upcycled T-shirts and foulards for the first time to make dresses that clung to and wreathed the body. A brief sortie into upcycled military surplus, complete with Moon Boob warrior dress, was followed by two new sources of fabrication that wittily took everyday aspects of domesticity and refashioned them for sybarites and creatures of the night. Deadstock beach towels and table cloth material were crafted into subversively quaint collages; the liberal use of labrador and kitten prints on this counterculture cast was especially endearing.
Upcycled crochet materials added more subversively grand-mère goodness before a foray into patched popcorn spandex jacquard augured a shift into Serre’s first ever deadstock (rather than recycled) denim pieces. These, she said, will be much much more affordable than her hitherto all recycled denim pieces thanks to the reduced cost of reprocessing. There was one particularly strong dress spun from a diagonal cascade of layered leg panels.Silver leather, crafty knits, hibiscus print jersey, tailoring in black moon jacquard and drapey dresses in black jersey completed this set-list of Serre hits both newly old and oldly new. “Et voila,” she said, before heading into the thick of her party and her people.
25 June 2023
“Nothing is created. Everything is transformed. To love is to repair. It must be simple. We are repaired, we are reused… We are restitched, we are re-embroidered…”. So went the poem—written by Marine Serre—at the beginning of another inspiring public-facing show tonight.Within her enormous runway space Serre had placed three soaring towers of deadstock—one of scarves, one of tote bags, and another of denim—that she said was a mere nothing compared to the stocks, otherwise likely landfill-bound, held in her warehouses. The point was clear but the effect was strong, and reminded me of Anselm Kiefer’s more abstract but equally apocalyptic installation The Seven Heavenly Pieces in Milan’s Pirelli Hangar. Pre-show, influencers threw pouting TikToks in their shadows.In the heavily light-produced show that followed (it was sometimes a little too dark) Serre systematically set about showing what she could do with these materials. The first eight looks or so were crafted from the totes, and included the cropped jacket silhouette that would ricochet across the collection. The next set was denim, and featured one of my favorite fashion benchmates as a surprise model: her right hand casually pocketed, Caroline Issa wore a siren silhouette denim dress with Serre’s new moon breast inserts. Other looks featured jewelry fashioned from upcycled cutlery.Then we pivoted to motorcycling gear, recycled. Backstage the model in Look 18 had told me “It’s so cool. I love it. I can move!” of her moto jacket and bodysuit, typical of a sleek, tough and conscious section. Next we hit knit: Look 20, on a proudly body-positive model, featured a patchwork “lozenge” knit fashioned from 15 or so pullovers. After that were upcycled or chemical-free processed leather looks—Serre’s own attire of choice —which sometimes came with some pulled-pile knit trims that understandably set their models in unplanned directions when used as face coverings. A series of sophisticatedly faux-sophisticated moon monograph pieces followed.We were getting to the climax now, building tension with a swathe of house moiré looks interspersed with tapestry topped couture shapes and reclaimed upholstery fabrics. Then a series of pieces fashioned from strips of material, specifically scarfs, that were amongst the most compelling here. This was another highly effective and affecting collection from Serre, who when asked if there was an overall theme of this collection drew our attention to the poem at the top.
21 January 2023
“Nothing is created. Everything is transformed. To love is to repair. It must be simple. We are repaired, we are reused… We are restitched, we are re-embroidered…”. So went the poem—written by Marine Serre—at the beginning of another inspiring public-facing show tonight.Within her enormous runway space Serre had placed three soaring towers of deadstock—one of scarves, one of tote bags, and another of denim—that she said was a mere nothing compared to the stocks, otherwise likely landfill-bound, held in her warehouses. The point was clear but the effect was strong, and reminded me of Anselm Kiefer’s more abstract but equally apocalyptic installation The Seven Heavenly Pieces in Milan’s Pirelli Hangar. Pre-show, influencers threw pouting TikToks in their shadows.In the heavily light-produced show that followed (it was sometimes a little too dark) Serre systematically set about showing what she could do with these materials. The first eight looks or so were crafted from the totes, and included the cropped jacket silhouette that would ricochet across the collection. The next set was denim, and featured one of my favorite fashion benchmates as a surprise model: her right hand casually pocketed, Caroline Issa wore a siren silhouette denim dress with Serre’s new moon breast inserts. Other looks featured jewelry fashioned from upcycled cutlery.Then we pivoted to motorcycling gear, recycled. Backstage the model in Look 18 had told me “It’s so cool. I love it. I can move!” of her moto jacket and bodysuit, typical of a sleek, tough and conscious section. Next we hit knit: Look 20, on a proudly body-positive model, featured a patchwork “lozenge” knit fashioned from 15 or so pullovers. After that were upcycled or chemical-free processed leather looks—Serre’s own attire of choice —which sometimes came with some pulled-pile knit trims that understandably set their models in unplanned directions when used as face coverings. A series of sophisticatedly faux-sophisticated moon monograph pieces followed.We were getting to the climax now, building tension with a swathe of house moiré looks interspersed with tapestry topped couture shapes and reclaimed upholstery fabrics. Then a series of pieces fashioned from strips of material, specifically scarfs, that were amongst the most compelling here. This was another highly effective and affecting collection from Serre, who when asked if there was an overall theme of this collection drew our attention to the poem at the top.
21 January 2023
“It’s about being present. Putting down your phone. Being with your friends and people you love. Seeing the sun go down and feeling the wind and having a party. Not just a 10-minute show. With all these people coming, I just wanted to give them a good time and to feel like a community—and honestly I think that was really here. So this is what State of Soul means.”This is how Marine Serre explained her show title and concept shortly after that show had ended. It was Saturday night and we were in a sports field on the southern edge of Paris’s metro system. The sun was indeed setting, and behind us the hundreds of guests, almost a thousand in fact, who had scored public tickets to join us for the show were streaming into a party area where dancing would continue long into the night.When fashion designers elect to hold late night shows on the edge of Paris it is often borne of a wearisome creative insecurity—they wish to make the audience suffer for their art in order to feel reassured they have clout. This was entirely different. Serre was trying to reshape the fashion show in sync with the values transmitted by her brand; inclusive, ethical, positive, human. She was inviting us to be happy, not daring us to complain.The show acted as opening ceremony for this gathering of the Serre community, upcycling the concept from sporting jamborees like the Olympics. The models, both professional and amateur, included athletes, families, friends, and a smattering of celebrities including Jorja Smith and Lourdes ‘Lola’ Leon. The age range was broad—I’d guess around four to 60-ish. The idea of this being in theory a menswear event seemed laughably irrelevant, merely the result of Serre’s canny decision to choose the balmiest fashion week of Paris’s calendar to try this experiment in.The models walked the 400 meter circuit around us in groups that reflected the phases of the collection. The swimwear, made from recycled fibers, had been on offer for a while, the designer said, but never before in a show. Patched denim looks featuring Serre’s crescent moon mark segued into a section of bodycon pieces crafted from shaved pink terry, which on a mother and daughter were worn against two Chanel-esque jackets. This made you wonder whether Serre had even knocked on the door of Paris’s couture fashion week, given the huge amount of handicraft here. That was perhaps most exemplified by the piped dresses made of upcycled towels in green and pink.
The fit was so excellent that I wondered if the fabrics had been treated in some way to add stiffness. Serre arched an eyebrow and replied: “No—that is the cut!” These were followed by patched dresses made from upcycled T-shirts and a series of witchily alluring silk looks, some featuring prints of the upcycled jewelry pieces that were also part of the collection. Shoes included Serre’s own sneakers and molded sole pumps.Many did not make the trip to this show last night—which was yet another busy evening on the Paris schedule—but in the final analysis that was to no-one’s loss: you had to relax a moment and forget the clock in order to enjoy being there. Said Serre: “I always try to break the boundary of what the system is wanting you to do. It was the same with the upcycling. Everyone was telling me it was not going to work. I said ‘OK, but let’s try.’ The thing is, if no-one is trying to change the rules then they will never change… In the industry we tend to forget that.” The rest of the evening was spent with loved ones and friends. Like the show, it was one to remember.
27 June 2022
“It’s about being present. Putting down your phone. Being with your friends and people you love. Seeing the sun go down and feeling the wind and having a party. Not just a 10-minute show. With all these people coming, I just wanted to give them a good time and to feel like a community—and honestly I think that was really here. So this is what State of Soul means.”This is how Marine Serre explained her show title and concept shortly after that show had ended. It was Saturday night and we were in a sports field on the southern edge of Paris’s metro system. The sun was indeed setting, and behind us the hundreds of guests, almost a thousand in fact, who had scored public tickets to join us for the show were streaming into a party area where dancing would continue long into the night.When fashion designers elect to hold late night shows on the edge of Paris it is often borne of a wearisome creative insecurity—they wish to make the audience suffer for their art in order to feel reassured they have clout. This was entirely different. Serre was trying to reshape the fashion show in sync with the values transmitted by her brand; inclusive, ethical, positive, human. She was inviting us to be happy, not daring us to complain.The show acted as opening ceremony for this gathering of the Serre community, upcycling the concept from sporting jamborees like the Olympics. The models, both professional and amateur, included athletes, families, friends, and a smattering of celebrities including Jorja Smith and Lourdes ‘Lola’ Leon. The age range was broad—I’d guess around four to 60-ish. The idea of this being in theory a menswear event seemed laughably irrelevant, merely the result of Serre’s canny decision to choose the balmiest fashion week of Paris’s calendar to try this experiment in.The models walked the 400 meter circuit around us in groups that reflected the phases of the collection. The swimwear, made from recycled fibers, had been on offer for a while, the designer said, but never before in a show. Patched denim looks featuring Serre’s crescent moon mark segued into a section of bodycon pieces crafted from shaved pink terry, which on a mother and daughter were worn against two Chanel-esque jackets. This made you wonder whether Serre had even knocked on the door of Paris’s couture fashion week, given the huge amount of handicraft here. That was perhaps most exemplified by the piped dresses made of upcycled towels in green and pink.
The fit was so excellent that I wondered if the fabrics had been treated in some way to add stiffness. Serre arched an eyebrow and replied: “No—that is the cut!” These were followed by patched dresses made from upcycled T-shirts and a series of witchily alluring silk looks, some featuring prints of the upcycled jewelry pieces that were also part of the collection. Shoes included Serre’s own sneakers and molded sole pumps.Many did not make the trip to this show last night—which was yet another busy evening on the Paris schedule—but in the final analysis that was to no-one’s loss: you had to relax a moment and forget the clock in order to enjoy being there. Said Serre: “I always try to break the boundary of what the system is wanting you to do. It was the same with the upcycling. Everyone was telling me it was not going to work. I said ‘OK, but let’s try.’ The thing is, if no-one is trying to change the rules then they will never change… In the industry we tend to forget that.” The rest of the evening was spent with loved ones and friends. Like the show, it was one to remember.
26 June 2022
The serenity of the Marine Serre show photographs completely belie the mayhem of what was happening two floors below, and earlier in a very nasty door-crush. Suffice it to say that young people in Paris will scramble and wait, packed uncomfortably together, to witness whatever Serre will do. It felt almost like a throwback to the hysteria of the underground French fashion scene that swirled around the likes of Jean-Paul Gaultier, Martin Margiela and Xuly.Bët in the good old ’90s. But then again, much cleaner.If Serre is a female inheritor of what male designers did to deconstruct and democratize Paris fashion once upon a time, the big difference is how she delves far deeper into cultural and environmental ethics. Challenging the form of the fashion show—and who is invited—is part of that. “What was important was to open the boundaries,” she said. “To show a different way to do a show. It was important to me that it was in a museum, to have something that shows the collective imagination. And to have something where people weren’t sure if there were going to be people walking, or where to sit or look.”The “museum” was a gallery of re-mastered old masters on the top floor (amongst which the looks were photographed). Each of them variously redirected, decolonized and replaced the original iconography to link up with Serre’s work. One example: a neo-classical painting of Diana the Huntress whose half-moon diadem is paralleled by the instantly-recognizable Marine Serre crescent-moon brand print.Cut to her opener. A series of black and white lozenge and crescent-moon patterned recycled wool jacquard tailoring—grown up coats and matching trousers —looked chic and polished.More themes came through: tartan scarves patchworked into tweed coats, collaged upcycled knits. Toile de Jouy quilted bed clothes and camouflage prints were turned into neatly-finished, attractive clothing. Serre is clearly focused on proving there’s nothing rough-and-ready about the second life she’s giving to pieces of defunct garments or deadstock.That’s another big difference between now and the ’90s. In the olden days of ‘deconstructionism’ it was deemed cool to leave threads hanging and to wear DIY amateurism on your sleeve. Not now. Marine Serre’s look is professional—a convincing case of “I can’t believe it’s not new fashion.”But she’s intent on sharing how she does this.
The need for transparency and education are other parts of her impressive worldview and drive to accelerate change in her generation. On the first floor of the building she had installed an atelier with members of her teams of sorters, cutters and sewers at work, demonstrating how her pieces are made. “I feel I have a responsibility to give access to this savoir faire,” she said, preternaturally calm in the eye of the swirling storm of guests. All weekend, she was planning to open the doors of the installations and exhibition to the public. “For free, you know?”
5 March 2022
The serenity of the Marine Serre show photographs completely belie the mayhem of what was happening two floors below, and earlier in a very nasty door-crush. Suffice it to say that young people in Paris will scramble and wait, packed uncomfortably together, to witness whatever Serre will do. It felt almost like a throwback to the hysteria of the underground French fashion scene that swirled around the likes of Jean-Paul Gaultier, Martin Margiela and Xuly.Bët in the good old ’90s. But then again, much cleaner.If Serre is a female inheritor of what male designers did to deconstruct and democratize Paris fashion once upon a time, the big difference is how she delves far deeper into cultural and environmental ethics. Challenging the form of the fashion show—and who is invited—is part of that. “What was important was to open the boundaries,” she said. “To show a different way to do a show. It was important to me that it was in a museum, to have something that shows the collective imagination. And to have something where people weren’t sure if there were going to be people walking, or where to sit or look.”The “museum” was a gallery of re-mastered old masters on the top floor (amongst which the looks were photographed). Each of them variously redirected, decolonized and replaced the original iconography to link up with Serre’s work. One example: a neo-classical painting of Diana the Huntress whose half-moon diadem is paralleled by the instantly-recognizable Marine Serre crescent-moon brand print.Cut to her opener. A series of black and white lozenge and crescent-moon patterned recycled wool jacquard tailoring—grown up coats and matching trousers —looked chic and polished.More themes came through: tartan scarves patchworked into tweed coats, collaged upcycled knits. Toile de Jouy quilted bed clothes and camouflage prints were turned into neatly-finished, attractive clothing. Serre is clearly focused on proving there’s nothing rough-and-ready about the second life she’s giving to pieces of defunct garments or deadstock.That’s another big difference between now and the ’90s. In the olden days of ‘deconstructionism’ it was deemed cool to leave threads hanging and to wear DIY amateurism on your sleeve. Not now. Marine Serre’s look is professional—a convincing case of “I can’t believe it’s not new fashion.”But she’s intent on sharing how she does this.
The need for transparency and education are other parts of her impressive worldview and drive to accelerate change in her generation. On the first floor of the building she had installed an atelier with members of her teams of sorters, cutters and sewers at work, demonstrating how her pieces are made. “I feel I have a responsibility to give access to this savoir faire,” she said, preternaturally calm in the eye of the swirling storm of guests. All weekend, she was planning to open the doors of the installations and exhibition to the public. “For free, you know?”
6 March 2022
No one ever said that the re-entry into an IRL Fashion Week was going to be easy. For spring 2022, Marine Serre decided to create a film,Ostal 24, which she made with past collaborators Sacha Barbin and Ryan Doubiago. There was a screening of it held in the Marais tonight, and that’s where the not easy part comes in; the crush from an understandably enthusiastic crowd eager to get in was not for the faint of heart. The previous day at Serre’s northern Paris atelier, however, was a stark contrast; all was calm. It was a chance to preview the collection, entitled Fichu pour Fichu, which Serre would unveil via video.There were “popcorn” tops in all their Björkian splendor and beloved of any ’90s rave kid, repurposed into gorgeous billowing dresses and layered-up bobbly tees, perhaps to be worn with wide pants cut from an industrial-strength mix of wool and cotton. Vividly hued bath towels and linen tea towels were upcycled into coats, shirts, and apron-like skirts. Overdyed pink vintage denim and tees got deconstructed and then reconstructed panel by panel into jaunty vests, collaged dresses, and high-waist jeans.What immediately registers about all this: how quickly and assuredly Serre continues to build on the strikingly original look she has created for her label. She seems to move at light speed, leaping ahead far beyond the timespan of a single season, especially on the drive to utilize sustainable fabric: With Fichu pour Fichu, 45% of the materials are regenerated, while another 45% are recycled, the most Serre has ever used. It’s done with a sense of nimble and concrete purpose that bigger nonindependent brands with a lot more resources to draw on could do with emulating.Many of these pieces are showcased inOstal 24’s 13-minute or so run time, a production haunting in its beauty, and from which seeps a gentle, quiet yearning sense of emotion. For Serre, live event or not,Ostal 24is the real focus on telling the story of spring 2022. “It marks a moment, and it marks me,” Serre said. “Also, a film lasts longer than a show; it can live on the internet. If you are alone, or in the city, or in the countryside…you have access. A lot of people can see it. I really like that.”
27 September 2021
Marine Serre’s fall 2021 collection, dubbed “Core,” wasn’t heralded by a short movie or a runway show, not even a virtual one, but by a website, www.marineserrecore.com, which went live at her regular spot on the Paris schedule: 10:30 a.m. CET, on the first Tuesday of the city’s show calendar. Somehow, in the turmoil of our topsy-turvy world, there’s something reassuring about that; not that reassurance has ever really been part of the Serre narrative. She’s a fearless questioner—of herself as much as of anyone else—and a pragmatic doer. It’s easy to imagine Serre being energized by having to find her place, and that of her label, in the maelstrom in which we currently find ourselves. The website, then, is a chronicle of all that goes into her designs, and ergo her view of the world, as much as it is a reveal of her new collection. And because this is Serre, someone who always prefers to use a “we” over a “me,” Core is also a rather joyful and life-affirming celebration of family, friends, and community.“Core means the core of the brand, in much the same way as the idea of the core of a computer,” Serre said during a preview a few days ago. “It’s all of the memory; how everything connects. Pragmatically,” she went on to say, “it’s been three years since we began. We’ve been doing a lot, being an extremely creative brand; we felt the urge to talk, ring the bell, raise the alarm, and reflect that in what we’ve created. This is maybe another moment. An opportunity to look at the interesting processes we’ve put in place; to really think about the garments and the materials we make them from—the transformation of those is really part of our creativity.”The collection is essentially a blueprint of all that Serre has accomplished since she launched the label; the latest reimaginings of her archetypes. It’s also a pretty breathtaking and brilliant statement of what can be achieved in the space of three short years; what can emerge when you harness talent with a clear sense of purpose and convictions about what constitutes your values. “What I’ve always disliked about fashion is trends,” she said. “When you know who you are, you don’t need to change faces every morning.”
2 March 2021
Two things came up in conversation with Marine Serre during a Zoom preview of Amor Fati, her impressive spring 2021 collection. Firstly, she discussed the movie that she made to showcase it with directors Sacha Barbin and Ryan Doubiago and composer Pierre Rousseau. The short film is compelling. It’s both unsettlingly dystopian in its depiction of menacing clinical interiors andDune-like acrid skies and emotionally affirming in its choreography of human kinship and community. Two people, the Iranian-Dutch singer Sevdaliza and Juliet Merie, Serre’s good friend and long-time collaborator, interact with a series of people from intense worlds, who are clothed in the collection’s second-skin face-shielding bodysuits, sapphire and cobalt blue utility jackets and cargo pants, and sharply delineated tailoring rendered in a covetable new lozenge jacquard version of her leitmotif crescent moon. And, secondly, Serre mentioned that she had been thinking about how bike usage is up by 30% in Paris, the city that she calls home. (More on that factoid later.)Essentially, it’s Serre’s oscillation between these two points, creative ambition and practical exigency, that make her one of the most vital designers of the moment. And not that any of us need reminding, but what a moment. Previous runway shows of Serre’s have proved to be a portent of where we find ourselves these days; a grind-you-down series of political, social, and environmental crises that also ask us to rise up to question and challenge the status quo. Serre’s clothes have been doing that too, pulling apart, quite literally, all the old and outdated constructs of “luxury” and “status” and “power.” Instead, in their prizing of human craft and cultural relevance, she has prioritized a recalibration of our values, through her inventive and emotional upcycling and recycling experiments, for scarf dresses, paneled sweaters, and hourglass coats alike.Amor Fati, she said, was created during lockdown, and that pause allowed her even more creative agency while also giving her a chance to think about the trajectory of what she’s doing. “It gave me some time to reflect,” she said. “It’s not easy. Things are changing faster than we can.” One thing she decided to do to counteract that: reaffirm her signatures and explore how they could interact with our ever-evolving lives.
There are plenty of those terrific multi-pocketed utilitarian pieces of hers, for both men and women, in biodegradable nylon or recycled moiré, rigorously sculpted into graphic shapes. Serre’s upcycling experiments led her to work with carpeting, using it for tassel-edged skirts, shorts, and half-zip anoraks, the fabric’s almost baroque decorativeness in stark contrast to the functionality of the pieces it’s used for.That’s where that Parisian bicycle usage came in. For all Serre’s marrying of cerebral impulse and craftsmanship, she’s also deeply pragmatic. “You don’t need a midiskirt if you can’t bike in it,” she said. “You need to be able to function in the clothes, otherwise you might as well just wear a tee and jogging pants.” That sense of using creativity to inform her realist’s view of the world could also be seen in her accessories, what with the whistles, bottle openers, and a cape-like visor, also made from the upcycled carpet, and a neat commentary on the face shield’s newfound ubiquity. (There is also footwear that’s the result of a new collaboration with Jimmy Choo.) Though perhaps the most poignant of all is a compass, worn as a choker by Merie at the very outset of the movie. In that close-up of Merie’s neck, the pointer of the compass flickers this way and that, uncertain as to what direction it will finally land. Could there be a more haunting image for where we find ourselves now?
29 September 2020
“The hardest part is to keep calm in the eye of the storm,” Marine Serre was saying backstage just before her show Tuesday morning, while looking to be the very picture of calmness herself. “Things are changing so fast. Everyone is trying to run, and you’re trying to stay still, but the wind pushes you to run anyway. But I am trying to keep calm and focus on creativity.” Her ability to hold steady yet push her creative impulses into the stratosphere might be Serre’s greatest gift; a designer whose work—as evinced by her brilliant fall 2020 collection—is by turns unflinchingly honest in its depictions of our helter-skelter world, yet is also always able to find a serene sense of hope about where we’re heading. “It’s quite stormy right now,” she went on to say, “yet we have to see a future in that. It’s about finding ourselves there—understanding it and embracing it.”Understanding it and embracing it has been Serre’s modus operandi ever since she first started. Of course, the idea of where we are going carries some pretty portentous threats that would challenge even the most optimistic among us: man-made environmental calamity, hateful far-right populism, and, most recently, the emergence of the coronavirus, which saw many of the fashion industry who’d been in Milan depart Italy with advanced paranoia about contracting it—Serre’s perennial use of face masks, present again this show, took on a whole new meaning. (For those looking to try to relax, her venue did, however, feature near-ground-level seating on antique rugs, like a ’90s-rave chill-out zone; there’s a “when we go low, we get high” joke in there somewhere.)
25 February 2020
Marine Serre sent out umbrellas as invitations this season, a boon to Fashion Week commuters in Paris, where the forecast calls for rain over the next eight days. For Serre, such erratic weather patterns are far more than just an inconvenience to guests at her show, helden plein airin the grounds of a racetrack; they’re a reminder that climate change is real.The industry is beginning to wake up to that reality too. Just days after the U.N. Climate Action Summit kicked off in New York this week, Kering announced its entire group would be going carbon neutral, and it’s been almost a month since President Emmanuel Macron unveiled his “Fashion Pact” at the G7 summit, asustainability initiativeto which 150 brands have signed on. Serre is part of a new wave of young designers who’ve taken matters into their own hands by quietly and intuitively embedding sustainable values into the seams of their clothes.The title of her latest collection, Marée Noire, means oil spill in English, though the literal translation has an even more ominous ring to it: black tide. The show began at the toll of what sounded like a death knell with a series of slick all-black looks that included recycled plastic raincoats accessorized with reclaimed metal hardware belts, seashells hung on hoop earrings, and reusable water canister holders. Speaking before the show, Serre explained that the collection was conceived as the aftermath of an apocalypse in which only a handful of people have survived devastating climate wars and mass extinction. Though the designer rarely works in black, this season the funereal tones made perfect sense. The opening look, an elegant black moire knee-length bubble skirt paired with a terrific utilitarian zippered jacket-cum-cape lit the way both figuratively and literally, with an infrared light strung around the model’s neck.That passage gave way to an impressive lineup of suiting created with an extreme terrain in mind. Serre’s distinctive logo has quickly become a global calling card, instantly recognizable on her signature second-skin leggings and turtleneck shirts. Reimagined as a tonal paisley print, the distinctive crescent moon brought a rich polish to her expertly cut brown and burgundy coats and slim trousers. They were proof that she can wield the power of tailoring with the same ease as she does branding.Serre recently moved to an expansive new studio in the 19th arrondissement.
With the new space, she’s been able to ramp up her commitment to sustainability. Now, 50 percent of her collection is made from upcycled materials, and the remainder is produced locally with fabric sourced from French mills. Fashioned from an exquisite tapestry of vintage crochet table cloths, the lace slips, wool shawls, and ethereal white dresses were a great example, offering an alternative to the idea of luxury that was forward-thinking and thoroughly soulful. Whatever future awaits the fashion world (or the planet in general!), it’s special and considered designs like these that will stand the test of time.
24 September 2019
Clad in a fleecy leopard jacket, her eyelids flashing with a vivid electric blue, Marine Serre is talking in the gloom of her subterranean show venue, a former wine cellar on the outermost edges of Paris, about her Fall 2019 collection, titled Radiation. It was a stomping yet soaring vision of warriors from the future emerging from the pitch blackness in seamed leather coats, sculpted parkas, and achingly romantic paneled dresses trailing psychedelic pastel-hued scarves and fronds of fake fur, under which were worn head-to-toe bodysuits—bodysuits which suggested surrendering to inner kink as much as they did protection from the elements. “It’s after the apocalypse; a group of friends are underground—a community coming together,” Serre said. “It’s a safe zone in which a new world is being created, a future world, and a new way to see fashion.”If you are stuck in the depths after everything has gone to hell, community building, let me give you a word of advice: Serre is precisely the kind of fearless and industrious individual you’d be mightily glad to have around. (And if you happened to be in a working wine cellar, so much the better, right?) Ever since her first runway show a mere one year ago, she has proved herself to be a designer who is highly adept at forging a new idea of fashion, one that’s sustainable, accountable, and, given her considerable talents, pretty darn remarkable. The thing with Serre is this: She never flinches from confronting what’s going on in the world through her work, yet she retains an essential optimism about what might transpire once we’re in a (hopefully) better place. Like several others this season, she plunged herself into darkness, groping around for a way out into the light at a time when everyone is clearly beset with doing the same. “I’m trying to find a new belief,” she went on to say. “I feel this collection is a bit hard because, to have a new belief, you have to be hard.”It was harder than past seasons, for sure, and even more accomplished than her previous efforts; this one played out like she’d pushed herself to the extreme. Consider the way she nimbly nipped and sliced plaid into an hourglass-waisted coat or suit; the transforming of granny-plaid scarves into a strapless minidress or a poncho that was just shy of trailing the floor; and yet more of her fetish-y black stretch bodysuits, covered with gleaming and glinting detritus of life—microchips, coins, the stuff we (let’s be honest) foolishly hold dear.
One of the latter was worn by the towering and strikingly handsome artist Vladimir McCrary, who used to walk Jean Paul Gaultier’s runways back in the day. Serre certainly shares Gaultier’s unerring ability to hone in on cultural expression and subversion, but with her first four looks, there was another designer on her mind: Karl Lagerfeld. He was someone she admired enormously, she said, “for his joy, his irony, the support he gave to me; he was remarkable—working for 60 years, having fun, and making people laugh but also having serious conversations, too. It was important to honor him.” Respect is rarely a quality mentioned when talking about the talent of designers, but it should be, and Serre has plenty of both.
26 February 2019
If you are not a fan of rave reviews, then perhaps you’d better skip what I’ve got to say about Marine Serre’s outstanding Spring 2019 collection and just go click on some poor designer’s name who you might think is about to get a drubbing. For those of you who are sticking around, here’s what Serre did that was so good. She managed that trickiest of things: a follow-up collection that was just as strong and assured as her debut, if not more so. (Okay, it’s not technically her second collection, but this was her sophomore runway show.)While Serre consolidated her by now well-known trademarks—the collision of the sportif and soft-scarf flou; her crescent moon logo—she also took us into previously uncharted territory: the sharp tailoring of a gleaming white moiré silk skirtsuit, its athletic jacket emblazoned withSpeedon the back, or a navy pantsuit with snaps that ran up the sides of its trousers. If the coming season has seen a move toward thinking about suiting again, Serre gave it the kick (and kickiness) it needed to feel tangible and meaningful to women today who haven’t worn a suit in . . . er, maybe forever? Meanwhile, the toughness and adrenaline rush of Formula 1 racing that inspired the collection was seen in the bright, graphic decals splashed across a pleated dress.What wasn’t immediately evident was how much of this collection—50 percent, Serre said backstage—was created out of upcycled materials, from baroque-swirled or sunflower-emblazoned fleece blankets and cotton sheeting printed in a faded lilac floral or Captain Kirk and Dr. Spock fromStar Trek(I didn’t ask Serre if she was a Trekkie) to a multitude of white tees. The latter were worked into a terrific dress, all trailing panels and effortless cool; fresh and new in look and spirit, but without denying its origins. Ditto the incredible evening gowns crafted out of fishing vests or yet more of those blankets, some of the five looks that closed the show. That’s something else this new generation is busy taking on: ambitious nods to the rarefied world of haute couture. Most dramatic of Serre’s take was a black opera coat, twinkling with . . . key fobs, neatly lined up in rows, amplifying its elegantly pumped-up proportions.
25 September 2018
Marine Serre titled her terrific third collection Manic Soul Machine, a reflection, as she put it, on the roller-coaster ride of the first six months of leading her own label. It’s apt. Even up until a few years ago, the initial half-year for a new designer was a relative doddle; you just had to turn up and produce a second collection to feel like you were in the game. But now, the hyper-speed at which the industry moves means designers like Serre have to deal with not only the voraciousness of the hunger for newness but being able to present to the world a cohesive and consistent image from the get-go as well. It’s yet harder still if you’re someone like Serre, who is not only a significant talent but also self-aware and reflective about how fashion can find its place in today’s world and what it should actually stand for. Consideration of the political, the societal, the cultural, the sexual—they’re as much part of who she is as they are part of making great clothes. Which she does, and then some.Serre continued to explore her hybrid of utilitarian functionality, athletic prowess, and urban protection. She variously riffed on the crescent moon—her signature motif—for bodysuits, some cut high on the face as if the models were participating in the just-finished Winter Olympics; moiré taffeta jackets and pants; perv-chic transparent plastic raincoats, several in blood red; and just when you think you can’t look at jeans anymore, out walked some great denim, namely a godet skirt, quilted biker-ish pants, and an hourglass jacket cut with circular panels and seamed to look like a basketball court. The jacket shape, she said backstage afterward, was designed to convey a stance of toughness.Talking amid throngs of well-wishers—including a rather fabulously hatted Michele Lamy—also allowed Serre to explain the upcycling involved in creating the particularly good scarf pieces that moved with confidence and purpose and looked just as grounded in reality as anything else here. One of the dresses boldly stated “Futurewear” on its fluttering hem, and that just about sums up what’s ultimately appealing about Serre and her designs; a kind of buoyant optimism that is in tune with the moment. Even her accessories—spherical scarf-covered bags—were gymnastic balls, yet they also looked like floatation devices designed to keep our heads above water. Given the questioning, intelligent way that Serre works, there’s no doubt she’ll be able to do the same.
27 February 2018
Tumultuous might be the most apt way to describe the year that Marine Serre just lived through. A recent graduate of the La Cambre design school in Brussels, Serre launched her own label just as that city and her native France were subjected to devastating terror attacks. A matter of months later, she was awarded the 2017 LVMH Prize, despite having only one collection to her name, and a day job in the Balenciaga atelier that she has since given up. While both jarring and surreal, for Serre it was also a moment of glorious, rushing optimism; a chance to really put all of herself out there in the world, in the most positive and fearless of ways. The collection that got her that award was called Radical Call for Love, emblematized by a crescent moon logo, redolent of the Turkish and old Soviet flags; an allusion to migration, national identity, and a rapidly transforming Europe. “I said to myself, What shall I do?” she recalls of launching her label into the world. “It wasn’t the best moment to start, but it also came quite naturally. I talked a lot with my friends, the people around me, and they loved what was behind the logo. It’s political and it’s not political. It’s much more than a crescent moon; it also represents how we all felt. And that’s the way I want to make fashion: I want to engage.”Connecting, emoting, a sense of reflecting life as it’s actually and truly lived; that mind-set—generationally specific (Serre is 25) but now universally aspired to for its positivity and honesty—is also revealed in her sophomore offering. (That first collection, for Fall 2017, is currently on sale at Dover Street Market.) Spring 2018 builds on the tension between conceptual design flourishes and an innate, if elevated, sense of practicality; the crescent leitmotif, for instance, turns up on athletic stretch bodies and leggings, worn with the likes of red moiré “denim” jackets and high-waisted jeans. Elsewhere, Serre reveals the kind of ingenuity that won her that LVMH Prize. Her sinuous frayed-edged dress, constructed out of strips of Byzantine florals intended to echo Iranian carpets, comes worn with a wide black headband fastened with yet another crescent moon in the form of a brooch—terrifically cool but not without sacrificing the sense that it needs to be lived in. “What’s important for me is to be able to connect to contemporary daily life,” says Serre, “that you need to drive, to run.
” So she designed a cocktail dress with straps under the skirt that fasten to the legs and allow the pouf-y volume to be inflated or deflated at the wearer’s whim, a detail familiar to Serre, who has been collecting postwar vintage for years. Yet here the idea is no campy ’50s couture throwback, but a way to harness historical details to be relevant in the here and now. Not so different, then, from everything else in this strong and thought-provoking collection.
18 October 2017