The Kooples (Q9314)
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
French fashion retailer
| Language | Label | Description | Also known as |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | The Kooples |
French fashion retailer |
Statements
1 reference
1 reference
Alexandre Elicha said his Spring lineup for the Kooples “mixed grunge with the baroque.” What he meant by that was that there was a slightly more freewheeling, almost Italian verve mixed in with the label’s typical rock ’n’ roll aesthetic. This was evinced most with an intricate, horse-bit–patterned shirt, worn big and breezy, under a heavy bomber and over racing-stripe track pants. Lounge lizard, then, as opposed to dive-bar regular.To the point about loose shirting: Elicha mentioned that he is “working more and more on volumes. There are only two sizes of, say, a jacket, so you chose what works for you.” An outsize series of denim coats—one with great, exaggerated shredded detailing around its hem—and bowling jackets stood out. In fact, some of the jackets had metal clips on the collars, which were actually the tops of lighters. They were attached for a glint of subversion.The Kooples’s music-savvy consumer won’t be left wanting: Elicha obtained the rights to use iconic images from the band the Sex Pistols, including their pseudo-ransom-note font, on tees, hoodies, and more.
20 June 2018
Pulling from the visual richness and conscious bad taste of horror and gore movies ranging from the 1930s to the 1980s, Alexandre Elicha’s Fall collection for The Kooples had reels of splashy graphic kick. T-shirts were emblazoned with the crudely appealing graphics of old movie posters, and a sweater with a distressed collar had the wordnightmareknitted onto its front; the designer cited films likeNosferatuandA Nightmare on Elm Streetas inspirations.Beyond that quick-sell merchandise, the fashion story at The Kooples this season was one of an opened-up, oversize top, worn over still-skinny pants. There were elements of distressing, too, including on tartan sweaters. Tartan played a big role; the collection’s best piece was an XL bomber in faux fur but lined with the plaid. Other examples of outerwear, like aviator jackets and topcoats, had built-in volume. It was refreshing to see the brand step into a softer key, in a way (despite those slasher tees).Elicha’s edit—always sharp—was amped up by lightweight basketball-inspired sneakers and loads of punk jewelry. “It’s actually very grunge, but still with modern streetwear,” he explained. When pressed as to his favorite horror character, he said with a devilish flash of the teeth: “Freddy Krueger.”
17 January 2018
Mid-photo shoot, The Kooples’s creative director of menswear, Alexandre Elicha, turned and said: “It’s a bad boy look with urban elegance.” And while it was hard to tell if that was true from the images flashing across the screen, what was notable and apparent was a refreshed line of thought in The Kooples’s story: a pivot away from black skinny jeans and tight tailoring into something more of-the-moment (even if that moment has been going on for a while now).Elicha’s Spring lineup was more in line with streetwear trends of late than prior seasons. There were step-hem jeans for guys (not mad about it, but clearly there’s a Vetements influence here), big plaid oversize coats, knitwear with snakes on the sleeves (not mad about it, but clearly there’s a Gucci influence here), some great Starter-type windbreakers, and button-down shirts with custom-made tattoo prints. A rock ’n’ roll bass still thrummed throughout, but this collection was less assigned to that category than it was a broadening of it—there are customers out there, lots of them, who want a big logo and a graphic hemline and all the other streetwear tropes that’ve been made popular by higher-end houses in recent years. Elicha does tend to overcomplicate his explanations, though—this time, a five-section breakdown, each inspired, in one way or another, by Jim Jarmusch’s filmography. Straightforward and intentional, in these arenas, The Kooples did well today.
26 June 2017
The Kooples’s menswear artistic director (and cofounder) Alexandre Elicha explained today that he is working under a new set of rules for Fall 2017: a six-narrative collection, to be delivered, one story at a time, over the six months of the autumn/winter block. Smart. Steady.A sextet of musical categories and references subsequently informed his thinking. Overall, Fall’s lineup is called After the Show—Elicha’s imagining of a late-night party at a manor house, where blouse-y jackets and raw-edged denim à la the Doors might mingle with a razor-sharp velvet perfecto, courtesy of Japanese rock (or, as the designer noted, “the Yakuza”). This being the Kooples, there was a wide swath to take in—leather jackets with military bric-a-brac, houndstooth and herringbone knits and outerwear, Jimi Hendrix–esque elaborate long coats and more—but there’s one particular point to note: Elicha styled his looks predominantly with brogues. It was yet another sign of fashion’s weathervane shift away from the athletic-street to something more upscale and mixed. Yet, then again, the Kooples has, in its nine-year history, always been about blending casual insouciance with a dressier sort of bohemianism. The brand’s customers will more than likely be eager for a ticket to this after-party.
23 January 2017
If you’re European (or indeed British), you probably don’t need to meetThe Kooplesbecause you’re already long-acquainted. Since its foundation in 2008 by three Parisian brothers Raphaël, Laurent, and Alexandre Elicha, this “haute street” label has become a pretty ubiquitous retailer this side of the Atlantic. Its portfolio of stores in France runs to the hundreds, and the empire has extended widely across this continent. Beyond its post-Dior Hedi, pre -YSL Hedi origin aesthetic, the brand became so big so fast thanks also to a concept encapsulated in its name: Collections for both genders and marketing campaigns focused on duos, often real-life couples or siblings or others. The whole ‘stealing a shirt from your boyfriend’s wardrobe’ thing—and indeed the prefix ‘boyfriend’ within as a trend signifier—can be partially ascribed to The Kooples.There is one relationship, however, that The Kooples would clearly dearly love to strengthen, its own with the US. (On the other side of the Atlantic The Kooples has just five stores, as well as its retail partners). To help it achieve that, the Elichas have this season recruited a man who is emblematic of both New York and the wider world around it: Waris Ahluwalia. As frère Alexandre accurately summated at a presentation held at Paris’s museum of man: “There is a big positivity to Waris; something very cool, something we like very much. So we started working together on this collection.”As Waris himself explained as we walked through podium-placed duos of male models—some twins, some looky-likeys, some simply complementarily affined—he has acted as cipher rather than designer. Waris said: “It’s quite an experience having a house design a season for you to wear. All I do is travel—I’m on a plane every other day—and there’s this feeling of India, Asia, and Japan, places of real traditions. They are always talking about the idea of rock ’n’ roll but asides—forget the look—what is rock ’n’ roll? The core of it? It’s a way of life. It’s sincerity, it’s fluidity, right? So I wanted to add that into the clothes. A relaxedness. We were able to open it up with that fluidity and soften.”While there were a couple of waistcoat and black jacket looks on show, what was most notable here was a broadening of The Kooples’s proposition. This eye was most drawn to the Japanese ‘workwear’ sourced indigo section of patchwork denim pieces, including one standout reversible bomber, worn with paisley and micro dotted foulard shirting.
Elsewhere an interesting ice-pick sharp, shawl-collared shirting striped jacket and some silkily raffish day pajama wear exerted significant pull. This customer has never been much drawn to The Kooples proposition previously, but the addition of Waris has attractively widened its aperture.
25 June 2016