Guests at Jacquemus's show in the hilltop village of Saint-Paul-de-Vence in southern France found an unexpected gift with their invitation: a miniature sweater designed to hang over the shoulders, at preppy style.
In a teaser film, actress Kristin Davis, also known as Park Avenue Princess Charlotte York Goldenblatt in “Sex and the City” and the follow-up series “And Just Like That…”, is shown unpacking the shawl with a tongue-in-cheek band ASMR sound.
“It was a way to have fun with the quiet trend of luxury,” Simon Porte Jacquemus explained before the show at the Fondation Maeght, an art foundation filled with statues of artists such as Alberto Giacometti and Joan Miró.
By his own admission, Jacquemus is anything but quiet luxury. “We are pop luxury,” said the designer, known for his sensual Mediterranean aesthetic bathed in vibrant colors.
With Monday's showing, it brought together many of its signature ingredients: a cinematic location (the weather was helpfully perfect) and a host of celebrity guests, led by Julia Roberts, radiant in a custom-made black coat dress with subtly rounded sleeves.
“That was so impressive,” the actress said while congratulating Jacquemus after the show.
Jenna Lyons dared with a black pantsuit of inflated proportions. “I feel like a sculpture,” declared the former creative director of J. Crew and “Real Housewife.” Meanwhile, Davis played against type in an oversized lemon-yellow suit.
“I love Jacquemus and they always send him to work and I always want to use him, but he's really not very Charlotte,” she lamented. “It's nice to be able to do something that's a little less Charlotte and more something I can enjoy.”
Kylie Jenner and her daughter Stormi Webster, dressed in matching red outfits, joined rappers Aminé and Jack Harlow in the front row. But what followed was one of the designer's most restrained collections to date, signaling a more exclusive direction for his 15-year-old brand.
Gigi Hadid opened the show in a cream, crocodile-print trench coat with a scoop neckline, followed by Emily Ratajkowksi in a black shirt dress with bulging hips that filled her tiny figure.
“I've never said 'bourgeois' in 15 years in fashion, but this time I wanted something so bourgeois and, at the same time, an opposite idea: the artist,” Jacquemus said.
On his mood board were French style icons like Catherine Deneuve in “Belle de Jour” and Isabelle Adjani in “Subway,” alongside Giacometti in his shabby suit and Salvador Dali, in an oddly feminine leopard-skin coat.
Giacometti's elongated figures were echoed in pencil-thin knit column dresses, while jackets and shirts came with surreal details like raised collars or expanded waistbands. There was an equestrian undertone to some of the looks, such as black jodhpurs worn with a bandeau top or dresses with small black trains.
Jacquemus said he paid close attention to the fabrications, from the sweaters with sleeves tied at the chest to the trompe-l'oeil double-heeled shoes. With that, he wanted to address criticism that suggests it's all image. “I have products, I have beautiful factories in Italy,” he insisted.
As usual, a selection of items were available to order online immediately after the show. An Obra trench coat in imitation leopard is priced at 2,390 euros, while the double sandals in leopard and fuchsia sell for 850 euros.
Jacquemus said he wasn't worried about distancing himself from the would-be luxury consumers who had snapped up his Chiquito handbags and bucket hats.
“I think Jacquemus's next trip will be super natural. I still want to maintain the relationship I have with my client and the audience because that's who I am. I always take the price into account when I design. It’s my balance between entrepreneur and designer,” he said.
A hands-on leader involved in all aspects of his business, he has so far opposed joining forces with one of the industry's giants, apart from a brief flirtation with Spanish fragrance and fashion giant Puig.
And despite a cryptic post in December titled “Chez Hubert de Givenchy,” he ended speculation that he could join LVMH-owned French luxury house Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, which is without a creative director following the departure. by Matthew M. Williams. “No. I have a big house to take care of,” he objected.
Rather, he was paying homage to Givenchy's impeccable taste. “The way he did everything was very modern,” said Jacquemus, who bought a Picasso and a Miró at Christie's sale of the late couturier's estate in 2022.
With an ever-growing art collection of his own and plans to open his first permanent stores abroad, Jacquemus is clearly hoping to join the pantheon of legendary French designers. And while he may lack Givenchy's aristocratic elegance, he has vision and perseverance to spare, like another of his personal style icons, Pierre Cardin.
“What I want to achieve in my life is to make the company better and better, not bigger and bigger,” he said. “I know what I sell now in the store, but I still need to dream because I dream big.”
