The first day of the Paris women’s ready-to-wear shows turned the spotlight on young designers. Three shows opened on Monday, expressing three radically different visions. Belgian designer Marie Adam-Leenaerdt was conceptual, the American label Vaquera provocative and the Japanese designer Yusuke Takahashi, making his Paris debut with his label CFCL was a poetic minimalist.
Yusuke Takahashi seduced the audience with a show of great elegance and intensity. The tension built right from the start with a contemporary composition by Hristina Šušak, played live by a string quartet set up on the centre stage. The musicians accompanied their sudden, crescendoing musical tirades with ever-louder howls, while a drum marked the cadence with pauses, like a heartbeat.
The fast footsteps of the models also filled the room with their echoes. The fashion show alternated between moments of tension and (musical) relaxation, just like the collection, which was made entirely from knitwear and punctuated the day.
From sober, refined suits, jackets, pea coats and duffle coats with a refined design, to sheer dresses knitted in ultra-fine yarns, the wardrobe then moved on to more functional pieces, ending on a festive note with wavy dresses in big red and white stripes, others with a velvet effect, and a series of outfits woven with lurex or decorated with big sequins.
A knitwear specialist, Yusuke Takahash founded his Clothing For Contemporary Life (CFCL) label in 2020, the same year he left Issey Miyake. Having just graduated from Bunka Fashion Graduate University in 2010, he immediately joined the famous Japanese fashion house. In 2013, at the age of 27, he was thrust into the limelight, appointed creative director of Issey Miyake Men, a position he held for seven years.
For his label, he has developed a 3D knitting technology that combines traditional techniques with digital technology, enabling him to greatly reduce waste. He also uses recycled yarns.
Marie Adam Leenaerdt entered the official Paris catwalk calendar last season. For her second show, she delivered a highly interesting collection, with a quirky, surrealist touch and a real reflection on clothing. This season, the Belgian designer played around with the theme of the skirt. The skirt is a staple of women’s dressing rooms, and is a common sight in boutiques like the venue chosen for the show, the recently-closed Kookaï store on rue de Rennes.
Skirts were reworked in unexpected proportions. Several models, which were overly wide, were tightened and pinched at the waist, while the excess fabric protruded from the side. A large-pleated tweed skirt was interrupted and transformed into a wrap skirt, revealing the lining. Various satin skirt linings became entangled, transformed into a mini-dress with a train, while a petticoat was transformed into a top.
“I’ve revisited all the archetypes of the skirt, whether velvet, houndstooth, tailored or otherwise, and reworked them into new pieces. Like the puffed skirt transformed into a grand ball gown,” she explains. Here it was metamorphosed into a coat, the waist of the skirt tightening around the neck in the form of a boat neck. The pockets were slit to let the arms through, the waistband became a ribbon threaded through the loops sewn onto the wide collar, and the zip fastening at the bottom of the back was positioned under the neck.
In the same way, the long white denim skirt, pulled up to the neck, became a dress, with its two back pockets set against the shoulder blades. The leather skirt had a new life as a cape. The pleated skirt was split to form a matching, superimposed blouse and skirt.
The designer used a host of inventive details, such as two rows of loops for tying a high or low-waisted coat. As for the classic buttoning of jackets and coats, this was abandoned, with the lapels meeting in the centre and adjoining vertically, as with the buttons facing the sides. A construction that has become her signature? Marie Adam-Leenaerdt has also made a name for herself in accessories, with huge three-in-one bags, shoulder straps that can be detached to serve as belts, and seven-league boots that can be completely unzipped.
A graduate of the Ecole de La Cambre in 2020, the 28-year-old worked for six months at Balenciaga before returning to Brussels to create her own brand. “I want to continue the heritage of Belgian fashion. Its conceptual side is very important to me. I’m also inspired by conceptual art,” confides the designer, who is one of the semi-finalists for the LVMH 2024 Prize.
Working on cuts and constructions, she favours timeless fashion made to last, with very beautiful materials. Launched in 2022, her label is distributed in around fifteen multi-brand stores worldwide, including Stijl in Brussels, Net-a-porter, Ssense, Matches Fashion and Bergdorf Goodman.
As always, Vaquera showed its provocative side with a collection simply entitled “Money”. The two New York designers, Bryn Taubensee and Patric DiCaprio, who launched their brand in 2013, are riding the mob wife trend, imagining fatal mob wives in blinged-out, super-sexy outfits, with big greenbacks shining everywhere. And don’t forget the faux furs and leopard prints.
In stiletto heels, stoles, veiled bibis and fishnet stockings, with a big belt around her waist, the Vaquera woman flaunts herself in unequivocal outfits, unafraid to verge on the vulgar side. She reveals her bare breasts under a tulle top or in the two oval slits cut out of a bodysuit. She also donned cowboy trousers or open-fronted skirts with a view of her underwear, while on some outfits and T-shirts she wore bras with conical breasts sticking out like shells.
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