Out of a blinking purple haze, the first model emerged, shrouded head-to-toe in a bodystocking, embellished with luminescent crescent moons. The crescent, of course, has become shorthand for 27-year-old Paris-based designer Marine Serre’s eponymous brand that is quickly establishing itself as one of the hottest tickets on the Paris Fashion Week schedule. Against a whirring backdrop of purple, pink and lime strobe lights, Serre showcased her latest AW19 offering in an incandescent underground cellar — and as with her past two collections, Serre boldly lived up to the hype.
While you might be forgiven for thinking that Serre is purely a designer for the Instagram generation — Kendall Jenner is a huge fan, apparently — there is a lot more to her than the catchy yet simple iconography of a crescent moon. Since her graduation collection, Serre has sought to weave a political agenda through her clothes, responding to the wave of terrorist attacks in Europe in recent years as well as the detrimental effects of climate change.
Indeed, her AW19 collection is titled Radiation — a clear reference to the dangerous burn-out swiftly facing our planet. Following in a recent spate of collections featuring all manner of balaclavas and masks, Serre similarly sent her models down the runway in glinting silver face paint and gas mask style face coverings. Tartan clashed with her swooping moons and models clasped at spherical handbags resembling pewter thuribles jangling from metallic chains.
Besides from the irresistible playfulness of Serre’s easily recognisable motifs, there was a sense of darkness or foreboding lingering in the padded overcoats, concealed headwear, inky cat-eyes, clanging chain belts, mid-calf boots and anti-establishment berets. For all the extraterrestrial dreaminess of her moons, Serre wants to say something that’s firmly rooted on this earth. The looks are fierce — in the actual sense of the word — ensembles to be worn in the event of impending environmental or nuclear disaster. Acid green hinted at a poisoned landscape; a sheath of aluminium foil in the case of emergency.
But here and there, a glow of light emanated. Towards the latter half of the collection, a few looks glimmered in “Living Coral” — Pantone’s colour of the year, naturally associated with the ecosystem and with vulnerable coral reefs, emitting “the desired, familiar, and energising aspects of a colour found in nature”. Referring to her brand as “FutureWear,” Serre is not sticking her head in the sand when it comes to climate change. As with her previous collections, Radiation relies heavily on garment upcycling, the reuse of everyday items and encompassing a sustainable ethos.
While her AW19 collection may suggest warning, apocalypse and disaster, more than anything it’s about survival rather than defeat. The planet may be heating up at record-breaking speed, but Serre seems to think that there’s still something we can do about it — and maybe that’s just the hope we need.