Casablanca, the art of storytelling with Bode and Marine Serre
After a concert by Louis Vuitton’s Rosalia star or the Japanese girl group 1966 Quartet performing Beatles hits for Kenzo on Thursday, designers sped up the action on the Paris catwalks this weekend. Men’s Week was an opportunity for several houses to go out of their way to amplify their stories. From Casablanca’s call for peace, to Bode’s theater stage, to Marine Serre’s democratic parade-rave party.
Casablanca: peace and jet-set speeches
Parisian brand Casablanca moved to a pavilion at the Porte de Versailles Exhibition Center on Saturday to present its autumn-winter 2023/24 collection. As soon as you enter, you can read the sign “Sülh namina” (for the sake of peace) written in large letters against a rainbow background. Inside, the brand landed a life-size fighter jet on a giant colorful checkered stage.
Last October, Balenciaga chose a giant field of mud to denounce war and the plight of refugees. Casablanca instead opts for comfortable lounges with what appears to be a large international organization with the United Nations flags flying in the background. As if he were going to speak at a plenary session, designer Charaf Tater appeared in a jacket on the podium where a table with a microphone was placed to give a speech in favor of peace and youth.
“Last year, my friend Maya told me an incredible story about young people in Syria who were willing to risk everything to experience joy. They were doing something you and I would take for granted: partying. For them, celebrating was an act of bravery and courage. ‘Resistance,'” he states and invites us to “treat refugees not as numbers, but as equal human beings without hierarchy or discrimination.”
“Today we have a simple choice. Accept the tragedy or use our platform to spread an important message. I’m not saying that fashion is the solution, but we have to use our voices to shout loudly and do what we want. Create a better world,” the Franco-Moroccan says the designer. “This collection is about that. A performance inspired by courage, reflecting the pain and beauty I witnessed in the battlefield. I stand before you, and if I talk, maybe you will talk about it. And maybe. If what you see affects you, together we can inspire change for peace.”
With a delay of a good hour, the show begins, presenting a lavish collection for jetset enthusiasts, which is somewhat at odds with the speech we just heard. I’m not sure the golden youth targeted by the brand care about refugees. In Casablanca, men wear smart suits, blazers or two-button jackets, white gloves, and elegant travel bags. They sometimes wear a ceremonial uniform, a pure white, officer’s collared jacket, with medals hung across the chest.
The primary colors of the checkerboard surrounding the scene come in bright tiles or colored ribbons in various fabrics. Comfortable cashmere coats feature the brand’s heart-shaped logo in graphic mode. The Casablanca man naturally goes to the most exclusive winter sports resorts in plush tracksuits, ultra-white ski suits, snow boots, a balaclava or stuffed hat and a long knitted scarf. On the slopes, she takes care of her style with embroidered denims, dyed silk shirts, open knit dresses. For the evening, she pulls out all the stops with a brocade suit and a majestic hat encrusted with colorful glittering stones,
Bode: A family weekend on Cape Cod
For her second parade in Paris (the first was held in 2019 before the pandemic), Emily Adams Bode made a big splash on Saturday by demanding something else from the Châtelet theater. He installed on the stage a scenery worthy of the greatest plays ever performed there, all to a full house! The parade was also an opportunity for the young woman who launched her menswear brand in 2016 to celebrate the launch of womenswear in style, inspired by her mother’s family.
She has always been passionate about collecting old fabrics – household linens, vintage embroideries, lace tablecloths, tapestries, shirts – and reusing them in her creations to create unique pieces “with a story and an emotional character”. By Ralph Lauren and Marc Jacobs, they increasingly rely on their own family’s personal stories or the family history of other relatives to create their collections.
On Saturday night, he brought his uncle on stage to introduce “this parade about family, about sisters, about Emily’s mother.” Not without emotion, man
He paid tribute to his wife Nancy, who died last October, as well as Janet, his sister and the designer’s mother. Emily Bode recreated on stage the residence in the coastal village of Woods Hole, Cape Cod, where her mother lived and worked in the 1970s, a dining room with portraits on the wall and a vestibule with several jackets and hats. wall, and on the porch next to the dog bowls, overturned pots and garden hose.
The mannequins leave the house to go through the yard to the tool shed and out of the garden. Everything is quintessentially rural Americana, with cowboy fringed leather jackets, relaxed velvet suits, frock jackets and ethnic patterned jacquard sweaters, especially the wardrobe. Some jackets and trousers are embroidered with flowers, precious embellishments adorn several garments, while vintage fabrics form patchwork coats, one of the brand’s classics.
For women, the Atlanta-based designer envisions a more chic and glamorous dressing room with long dresses and dresses that sparkle with the old-fashioned charm of yesteryear. Many extremely elegant models refer especially to the Roaring 1920. The collection does not even lack a Christmas tree dress in green tulle! Everything is done with precision and elegance. High-profile costumes that have their place on the theater stage.
Marine Serre: rave party at La Villette
Deniz Serre, in turn, invited his guests to the Grande Halle de la Villette, specifically allowing 1,000 people from within the community to participate in the parade, even though the latter were huddled together and standing behind barriers, hardly able to see anything. Only buyers, VIPs and journalists were seated on center stage at the foot of three large metal cage-like towers filled with worn and discarded clothes.
Smoke bombs, red lights, traffic lights, loud music… The French designer imagined a rave party animated by night fauna, whose faces were sometimes completely obscured by dark wool woven balaclavas that extended to endless ponytails or completely covered faces.
The collection, as always, prides itself on clothes made from recycled materials. White cotton tablecloths or cushion covers are transformed into dresses or fancy suits, decorated with messages and illustrations found here and there. Jackets, skirts and trousers are made from a variety of faded and distressed denim. This collection continues to use the brand’s great classics, the moiré fabric, as well as the half-moon print skinny jumpsuits.
Note that these cool biker styles in white and black leather: a strapless dress, over-the-knee pants, and a jacket worn with a simple bodysuit and a pair of à la C tightswoman. A number of looks, combined with elements of bright orange wool curls on the basis of black vinyl or artificial leather, are particularly eye-catching.
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