Maison Martin Margiela SS15
Last week Paris chimed with freedom, leading the Menswear S/S 2015 collections on a journey through time, fusing youth rebellion with surf and graffiti. Paris’s cutting rooms were all about creating movement, though it was less directed at how a man moves in his clothes and more towards what his body alone is capable of withstanding. Embroidered mesh second skins and wetsuits bound couture with performance and trompe l’oeil graphics were refracted in a playful and radical way that, despite their lust for youth, showed the physical strength to build and dismantle structures. Here, we present some of our favourite shows from the week. Read more in our Paris menswear roundup part two.
Gosha Rubchinskiy SS15
Gosha Rubchinskiy
Showing in Paris for the first time this season, Gosha Rubchinskiy has a vision so clearly set that his collection images could serve as an archival imprint of today’s youth culture spirit. Rubchinskiy’s native Russia permeates his youth motif in this S/S 2015 collection, entitled Arctica. Rubchinskiy presented a silhouette of slim, high cut jogging pants mashed up with tucked, gingham checked dress shirts and boxy, workwear-inspired denim jackets. Alien graphics, camo, baseball caps and beanies were all staples for skater dudes, who wore their socks pulled up, teamed with leather blazers inset with patchworked panels.
The red leather jacket represented a pivotal element, portraying Gosha Rubchinskiy’s vision but produced by Comme des Garçons, support that shows real enthusiasm from the longstanding fashion house. The single pane of neon LED lights that ran across the bare-boned industrial space vibed with his musical collaborators, Sereja Sirotkin & band from Moscow, which was produced by Dmitriy Emelyanov with a beat that took over Paris’s 11th arrondissement with the radical authenticity of post-Soviet young blood.
Julien David Mens SS15
Julien David
Images of early nineties athletes and musicians such as Christian Hosoi, Anthony Kiedis, Michael Hutchence and Corey Glover were present in Julien David’s S/S 2015 collection. Recalling surf gear, classic suiting and a hazy Californian utopia, this show marked Julien David’s collaboration with Quiksilver, for which he interpreted the brand’s 1970s iconic air in a capsule collection that upheld the spirit of the artists, surfers, and skaters who laid the groundwork of pop culture. The recycled, water-repellant Repreve fabrics headed up a collection of paraffin-coated rain jackets, tuxedo details, and surf embroidered seersucker cotton suits. Graphics played with the eye in frills and bowties printed onto quick-dry T-shirts.
A full brass band, visible only in shadows through an opaque screen, was the accompanying sound to Julien David’s runway show that set a stomp to each model’s walk. The designer worked his own youth back into the collection with his memories as a child growing up in Paris wearing Quiksilver and dreaming of California life, which inspired his reinterpretation of the classic Quiksilver Ghetto Dog print, drawn with a pixellated edge that recalled arcade hangouts of the 90s.
Maison Martin Margiela SS15
Maison Martin Margiela
High-flying academia aligned with Maison Martin Margiela’s S/S 2015 show at Université Pierre et Marie Curie, where white lab coats uniformed Margiela’s crew between the lofty halls of the scientific institution’s pre-show scene.Varsity jackets and sneakers were torn apart and reordered and the body was emphasized with silhouettes of opposite extremes, oversized parachute trench coats and nude body suits embroidered with university crests.
Margiela’s typical preciseness was evident in the scalpel-cut trousers that were sliced at the knees. Simple jersey and cotton in navy and khaki rang through the university’s erected 1970s stone pillars outlining the collection’s themes of freedom and movement. Each piece upheld Margiela’s precise formula of zippers, frayed silk, technical tulle, contorted shapes, detached collars, oversaturated colours, and sponged, embellished treatments.
Boris Bidjan Saberi SS15
Boris Bidjan Saberi
Function and performance were the aim for the militant endurance of Boris Bidjan Saberi’s S/S 2015 collection. A protective leather layer laced across the body and tied cashmere and hand-knitted mesh together with a technical edge. The skin caps were a product of Boris’s incessant pursuit of radical textile innovation which manifested in a mouldable resin that he developed hand-in-hand with his makeup artist Tan Binh Nguyen. The models leaned into every corner like planks with physical dexterity.
The music? Heavy-hitting bass from electronic composer Ben Frost’s live “Venter” performance, inspired by Bidjan Saberi’s recent foray into costume design for Frost’s opera “The Wasp Factory”. Boris Bidjan Saberi’s beautiful handwork and skillfully crafted pieces amplify his technical alchemy with every season.
Watch out for our interview with Boris Bidjan Saberi later this week.
Givenchy Mens SS15
Givenchy
Dutch artist Paul Veroude was commissioned to create a piece of art for Ricardo Tisci’s military-inspired collection, aiming to evoke an air of idealism in which faith and romance supersede the fight. Veroude’s stunning art piece, “Exploded Views”, took shape from a deconstructed 1964 Cessna F172E airplane. Each mechanical piece was reassembled into a striking skeletal structure that hung as the show’s centrepiece at Halle Freyssinet, a massive 1920s railway depot located on the fringes of Paris’ industrial district. Traditional workwear was prominent throughout the collection and reaffirmed Tisci’s signature bomber jacket and multi-pocket cargo trousers which kept vigorous utilitarianism in line with precise tailoring that included vests and blazers, in a strictly monochrome palette. V-neck sweaters, clean polo T-shirts, tank tops and white dress shirts held their rightful place throughout the collection. The runway brought an overarching sense of magical realism to the collection’s fluidity with couture embroidery strewn with flowers and pearls that showcased the house’s artistic collaboration and balanced the chasm between engineering mastery and explosive vibrancy.
Henrik Vibskov SS15
Henrik Vibskov
Henrik Vibskov’s S/S 2015 collection, entitled “The Sticky Brick Fingers” was a product of the mindful magic that zig-zagged references to Mongolian monks, weird things happening in water and rotating cement mixers. 10 dancers from the Norwegian National Ballet performed a wet and wild dance in a shallow pool that took the runway’s focal point. The performance alone invoked Vibskov’s wondrous world of monk-like headpieces that circled the pool in a dreamy vision as if pulling wisdom from the water. These waves were prominently reflected throughout the collection in recurring patterns. Classic Vibksov deconstruction techniques played among the double-faced jersey in patterns cut intricately in three dimensions. Round and curved patterns were reassembled in knits paired with dropped-crotch shorts and trousers. Here, Vibskov’s inspirations of concrete buildings and construction mechanics that affect human physicality are clear.
See more of looks from our favourite collections below
Text by Katherine Koniecki
Want more Paris Mens SS15? Check out the second part of our Paris Menswear Week Roundup.