Gauchere (Q4122)
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Gauchere is a fashion house from FMD.
| Language | Label | Description | Also known as |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | Gauchere |
Gauchere is a fashion house from FMD. |
Statements
A go-to among minimalists since the brand was founded a decade ago, Gauchere this season stepped away from the runway, instead staging its spring collection in its airy Haussmannian showroom opposite the Louvre.It was a smart move, not least because the season’s inspiration was vibrations and electricity, or as designer Marie-Christine Statz put it, “A tremor with varying degrees of intensity, with a mix of materials so the movement happens within the pieces.” Given the incremental details, in person was the best possible format for unexpected pairings and silhouettes that explored larger volumes within smaller ones and twist effects not shown here. The designer described it as “two tectonic plates colliding and creating a twist between both layers.”A case in point was a simple-looking white tank topstitched to its black tulle overlayer, which Statz called “two pieces living together on the body in a different way.” Suiting, one of the brand’s strengths, offered up a color-blocked proposition in a mix of khaki, white, and black. Semitransparent nylons kept company with silk and cotton fabric shot through with metallic fibers that created a deliberately wrinkled effect. For evening, dresses in jersey, such as in Look 11, rose to the occasion. Linen separates, graphic pairings, mesh, and transparency with leather or coated fabrics neatly blended romance and strength.
27 September 2024
Fall tends to be Marie-Christine Statz’s season, and with this outing she seemed to have newfound confidence.“Lots of people are talking about women at the moment, what we want and how we want things,” she said backstage before the show, adding that she wanted to explore the dialogue between softness and hardness as expressions of character, while also delving deeper into various facets of what we say through clothing.Her main talking point was a subtle formalization of casual dress, with a nod to neo-Brutalism and Bauhaus. Tailoring is Statz’s strong suit, and here she offered up jackets that, while ample, skewed less boxy than in recent seasons, plus several workhorse pieces in leather, both real and faux—a vegan leather coat, for example, combined attitude with lightness and ease of wear. The knitwear, here worked into body-skimming columns, seemed to bow to the rules of tailoring as well. Even her new triangular pouch bag came with a deliberate twist, just to keep it from being too structured, the designer explained.Panels that can trail or wrap is a salient trend in Paris this season. One Gauchere version is a free-floating lapel on a black tuxedo coat; another wraps like a scarf on an overcoat in soft gray wool. Statz also gamely fused the padding trend with transparency on a pale yellow funnel neck number, worked it into leather trim on a sleeveless black knit top, and sent out a couple of padded, quilted skirts that sit squarely on the hipbones. Just how those trends land—here and elsewhere—remains to be seen, but when it comes to dressing for life out there in the real world, Gauchere’s take is as convincing as any.
1 March 2024
The ’90s may be back in a big way, but that era has always been home base for Gauchere, where Marie-Christine Statz has been exploring “progressive minimalism” and turning out slightly unconventional yet reliably covetable pieces for exactly a decade now.This season, the designer said she found inspiration in “that vibrant, fragmented kind of feeling” that seems to hover in the air these days. “I feel like we have these split realities between a digital existence and something that feels more Old World,” she said during an interview backstage before the show. “It’s like, how do you walk into a hurricane?”A few different ways, as it turns out, and with the help of a new stylist. Using her signature tailoring as a baseline, Statz worked with torn, twisted, pleated, ruched and 3D details placed slightly off-kilter to turn conventionally minimalistic pieces—a tank shirt, a crop top, a shift— into something a tad edgier. Leather and leather-like effects were a strong point, whether in actual skin (a periwinkle trench; a spare, glossy jacket) or black coated cotton. She also went out of her way to show more flesh: wispy chiffon skirts catered to the naked dressing trend, as did short shorts slipped almost invisibly under long, boxy jackets. One of next season’s essentials is bound to be a black column dress, and here it came with a plunging back. Accessories-wise, twisted, pillow-shaped clutches and sunglasses by Ahlem took the brand into new territory.While the overall effect felt a bit intense, there were plenty of pieces here that will get good mileage. Good thing there was just enough color—butter yellow, lavender, red—to remind us we’re talking about spring.
29 September 2023
Marie-Christine Statz is not one for radical change. Where some designers delight in switching tack season to season, she prefers to stick to her brand’s DNA, which is essentially about precise tailoring. Even so, this season felt different. “This time I wanted to put a three-dimensionality into my work, and really push the idea of the body inside the piece, and how the piece works with the body,” the designer said during a backstage preview.On the runway, those thoughts emerged via slashes on overcoats and blazers sliced to provoke thought about the body and how it moves inside the clothes. Statz is always attentive to the mix of materials, and here she studiously paired sheer with opaque, thick wools and transparency. In a collection that skewed oversize, there were a handful of numbers that will very likely resonate with the Gauchere base—a crop top or midi dress in shiny black sequins; a couple of long black dresses, one with a bare back; an oversized leather jacket, a transparent antiqued gold knit number.For prints, Statz used an untitled work by the artist Camille Henrot as a springboard for the color palette, reproducing its grass green stripes on a boxy shirt in canvas-like, sand-colored viscose. Placed slits on a midi skirt and top, for example, spoke to the concept of reframing artwork in movement. Using two-dimensional art in a three-dimensional way led designer and artist to explore prints that, Statz noted, looked “like something Basquiat might have worn in the ’80s, like a super-sexy peignoir or pajamas, but revisited for women.” Lean in, and you see that those prints—smaller on a black base, larger on white—have an erotic charge. Though Statz’s customers are probably not accustomed to such provocative gambits, these hyper-sexualized times call for fearless moves. Even so, the padded-shoulder T-shirts, poncho tops, and knits repurposed from a supplier’s vintage ’90s stock—especially a chunky white, backless number—rang truer.
3 March 2023
Gauchere’s Marie-Christine Statz showed her collection in the Passage des Jacobins, an alley that cuts across the Marché Saint Honoré, a mid-’90s high-ceilinged glass and concrete building which in pre-pandemic times used to be a busy, bustling place. Now it’s almost deserted—shops closed, walls peeling off—and it feels somehow disconnected from its surroundings, as if it were a space of transition.This was what actually appealed to Statz: “This place is a metaphor for the state we seems to be navigating collectively,” she said backstage. “It’s a moment of imperfection, of change, of ambivalence. We don’t know exactly where we’re going to. This is the sentiment I wanted to capture in this collection—a moment of metamorphosis.”Cut-outs, twisted fabrics and irregular pleating conveyed a sense of impermanence. The lean, minimalist silhouette was broken up through gathered seams, creating “bubbles” or pouches of fabrics in backless tops worn with high-waisted slender trousers, or in the bodice of ankle-grazing dresses. While the ascendancy of Statz’s look is definitely minimal, tailoring and construction are at the core of the design she’s drawn to. She still favors an oversized pantsuit, with slightly jutting shoulders and loose, wide-leg trousers. Skin-baring cut-outs on bodycon tunics and on lanky dresses hinted at a sense of vulnerability.The absence of decoration and the monochromatic palette of black, grey, rust and off-white were broken up by gradient tones of orange and blue airbrushed on a black-lace-encrusted slipdress, and by the abstract graphic motifs French artist Camille Henrot painted directly on masculine chemises and slouchy denim trousers, providing a welcome jolt of visual vitality.
29 September 2022
Before her show, staged under the arcades on the Rue de Rivoli, where her studio is located, Marie-Christine Statz made a comment about the state of the world that pretty much says it all: “We’re waiting for a point where we can count on something.”So much has changed in the past two years, she added, that her twin inspirations were simply intuition and the zeitgeist. “There’s an energy coming back, but for me it’s no longer about looking to the future, but looking at what’s happening right now—it’s all we have,” she said.In less than 10 years, Gauchere has developed a loyal following for its chic, minimalist aesthetic. Building on that, Statz stuck to a restrained, mostly monochrome palette of black, deep blue, burgundy, anthracite and taupe to further explore what the brand stands for: tailoring and materials, plus a savvy dose of texture that’s clean, unfussy and interesting.Her opening look, for example, was a halter top that can be worn hooked over a shoulder or left long, an idea that returned on a faux minimalist, layered dress. Oversized suiting with slightly sloped shoulders nodded to budding interest in the brand among men, and was shown paired with bandeaux and fluid, high-waisted trousers. Three-dimensional fabrics brought the texture, for example fuzzy tech yarns. Patent leather gave a jean-style jacket gloss. Denim was chosen for its new-gen, water-wise washes.Gradient prints on silk twill, in sunset colors or in khaki to black, offered a metaphor for the particular blurriness of this moment, when one day seeps into the next and we can no longer recall exactly whether something happened yesterday, last week, or last season. Sculptural evening dresses—like a trio of black gowns or fully sequined minidress in black or white—made the case for less is more, today and many moons from now.But her own account, Statz “doesn’t do crazy.” In times like these, that’s a considerable advantage, and one that her growing base is grateful to count on.
4 March 2022
Gauchere’s pre-fall collection is about “emotions and intuition” said designer Marie-Christine Statz. That may sound a little vague, but Statz has a keen sense of vibes and as always, she’s channeling an intentional, decisive, and somewhat sexy mood. Her tailoring remains sharp for pre-fall, with soft shapes anchored by bold shoulders. The curved lines and cut-outs started last season continue, sinuously wrapping around the body.The big shift Gauchere followers will notice is the new attention to texture. The collection looks fluffier, cozier, and warmer—at least best I can tell through a Zoom window—than before. There are lilac bouclés and a new fuzzy yarn called “Bear” used in marigold skirts and black, super-oversize hoodies. Even Statz’s eveningwear, a tank and skirt made entirely of ruby sequins, has a liquid, easy feel to it. Nothing too fussy or precious.To hammer her message home, she photographed the lookbook just outside her atelier on Paris’s bustling Rue de Rivoli. Statz and the team ran upstairs to dress models between each shot, capturing a slice of life in the process. Consider it proof that these clothes travel well, for walking around a city or running up flights of narrow French stairs.
3 February 2022
We’re at the point in the spring 2022 season where trends emerge. Some are painstakingly obvious—black strappy things, shocks of neon, heaps of fringe—but the one of interest to Gauchere’s Marie-Christine Statz will be hard to sum up in the trend report: emotion. In her spring collection, Statz tries to illustrate the intangible ways clothing makes us feel, how it relates to our bodies, and why it remains the ultimate vehicle for expression. She’s not the only designer thinking this way—Mike Eckhaus and Zoe Latta, Dimitra Petsa, and even Olivier Rousteing at Balmain are all trying to make clothing to evoke a state of mind rather than perform an obvious social or logistical function.Statz enlisted Palais Galliera director Miren Arzalluz to help. The women are friends and Arzalluz is a wearer of Gauchere. A video she narrates starts out, “My love of clothes interests me profoundly, only it is not love… and what it is, I must discover.”To reflect the bond between wearer and wardrobe, Statz’s garments are more sensual than usual, with curved lines, bias drapes, and little funny details like jewelry buttons on a cardigan and sliced up grass-colored gilets. She’s been revealing a little more bod of late, but here it’s done with a quirkiness that feels less sexual and more cerebral, offering a peek of abdomen or a slice of back between lean, black jackets and trousers. Her best pieces are dresses: One bias black number looks like a blob on the hanger, but is created with an interior string from which the entire dress hangs. It looks sensuous in the images, but just imagining the strange sensation of a dress teetering by a single thread around the body is exciting enough—let alone how it must feel to wear it. Ditto a white long-sleeved column made from thousands of tiny sequins. It must weigh a ton, hugging, pulling, and encasing the body inside it. The frisson between mind, body, and garment hasn’t really been considered enough in our return-to-normal season; one only wishes to have seen this elegant and smart collection from Statz in person and not on Zoom.
30 September 2021
Gauchere’s Marie-Christine Statz is confident that as the world opens up, we will open up too. Her resort 2022 collection is body baring, with circular cutouts and backless pieces woven in among her popular suiting and shirting. It’s a revealing—and refreshing—progression for the brand, the seriousness of some previous seasons melting into a more casual, languid look.Her swerves come with considerable tailoring expertise. A flamingo pink slip is straight in front but bias draped in the back, a cowl revealing the top of the model’s sacrum. Color-block pieces are made more like 360 intarsias, lilac interlocking into lime and beige. Even materials are mismatched: A wide-weave linen fabric meets a double-face crepe on a pair of trousers. As for her tailoring, she’s stripped away the lapels and buttons from jackets, instead fastening them with Velcro or a thin leather belt.But even with an excess of skin, Gauchere’s lines are clean and austere. It’s not a Hot Girl Summer look—but that’s also Statz’s point. After prodding from retailers, she’s recut her collection to be more unisex; resort 2022 is neither men’s nor women’s but graded to fit all types of bodies. It’s an inclusive move that is sure to turn a new swathe of customers on to Statz’s serene tailoring.
15 July 2021
Marie-Christine Statz set her fall 2021 collection in the Centre Pompidou, the beacon of postmodernism in Paris’s Les Halles neighborhood. The last show set in the museum wasn’t really set there at all; Louis Vuitton flexed its powers and created a mock-up of the Pompidou inside the Louvre in 2019. The spirit of that Vuitton collection and Statz’s latest for Gauchere are the same: the way women on the street dress.Of course, the world has changed in innumerable ways since 2019. Statz is an exacting tailor, and her vision of modern female dress hinged on a dropped and deflated shoulder, which gave models a friendly prowess. Navy suits and brushed mohair turtlenecks followed the same line—slightly aggressive but easy. In a nod to current behavior in Beaubourg, Statz’s models passed each other in the Pompidou’s corridors and on escalators but did not acknowledge one another. “They are crossing but not interacting,” she said over a video chat. “They are locked in and isolated in their own worlds.”Their clothing will have a freeing effect. Even with such a no-fuss attitude, Statz found ways to inject warmth. She cut a swinging tank dress in a spongy, nubbly knit and color-blocked shades of azure and grass within a single spritely look. On their feet, models wore sneakers as part of a collaboration with Li-Ning or Gauchere’s first foray into its own footwear: pillowy slides and pumps that are stuffed to have a cushy, exaggerated effect. “Structure, but with a softness to it,” Statz called it. As we begin to venture out into the world again, that proposition certainly has legs.
5 March 2021