Jacquemus A/W 2018

Mood board: Simon Porte Jacquemus has certainly come a long way. From showing a collection of naive, purposefully childlike collections worn by his friend and presented in a swimming pool, his shows have evolved to become what we saw last night: an event at the Petit Palais — one of Paris’s landmarks — filled with photographers and attended by a who’s who of fashion people (even Christian Lacroix, one of the designer’s heroes, was there). Most of them were stealthily speculating what the ‘#newjob’ the designer has been going on about for months on social media could be. Some of us had heard Céline a while ago. Maybe Courrèges? Could it possibly be… Chanel? Well, neither. According to the designer’s sweatshirt when he took his bow after the show — yes, the official announcement came via his sweatshirt — he will be presenting a menswear collection for the very first time next June, a decision he has taken 'because he is finally in love'. Way to get the whole fashion sphere stirred.

Best in show: In 2017, a collection titled ‘Le Souk’ could potentially be a cultural appropriation catastrophe. Nothing further from the truth here. Jacquemus carefully veered away from any reference to Yves Saint Laurent or from taking too literally the shapes or adornments of traditional Moroccan fashion, distilling it instead almost into a structure to be covered by pared-down timeless French chic. In his hands, djellabas turned into extra long dresses, full of lightness but also of texture and body. Long skirts had extra sexy slits — we have to thank the designer for bringing the sexy French woman back, we had missed her — and accessories became extra pure, free of any superfluous adornment.

Sound bite: As the designer explained backstage, the collection was originally intended to be a summer one, and the idea came to him after taking a trip to Morocco following his prior show: ‘I got lost in the souks with just one thing on my mind: I want to make it my next summer collection. I came back to Paris and made my winter of it; my winter collection. Not wasting any more time, my warm winter.’ With all those those light coats, hopefully next winter will be milder than this one.