Each Paris Couture Week, since Jean Paul Gaultier retired in 2020, he welcomes a new designer to take the strings of his prestigious atelier and pull them any way they want. In the past few years Simone Rocha, Nicolas Di Felice, Glenn Martens, and Olivier Rousteing have been just a few of the names to take a turn heading up JPG’s Haute Couture collections, each bringing their own flair and personality to the designs they create.
This season, Gaultier tapped emerging Brussels-born, Paris-based designer, Ludovic de Saint Sernin - and we have to say he delivered. One thing to know about Ludovic de Saint Sernin is that his designs exude sex - he’s well known for his mesh gowns, eyelet details, corseted fits, and tiny underwear. And a favourite among celebrities, de Saint Sernin has dressed plenty, including Dua Lipa, Ashley Graham, FKA Twigs, Troye Sivan, Kim Kardashian, and Kylie Jenner.
JPG’s link ups for Haute Couture week always expect his guest designers to bring plenty of their own personality and style to the collection, so Ludovic de Saint Sernin turned up the heat and turned on the crowd. Titled “Le Naufrage” - a French phrase that loosely translates to “the shipwreck” - the show had a nautical theme, welcoming guests including the likes of Hunter Schafer, Rachel Sennot, Rick Owens and Michèle Lamy, and Lisa Rinna into its show space to the sounds waves crashing.
Opening the show was a pale sea foam-hued dress, corseted with a tight lace-detail bodice and a skirt made of glittering fish net. This was followed by a few similarly cinched-waist, corseted looks with sculpted panels and de Saint Sernin’s familiar eyelets becoming a common theme.
Whilst almost every look so far had played with an oceanic colour scheme of pale blues and frothy whites (with wooden brown thrown in to represent shards of boat), the first real nod to “Le Naufrage” was a mini dress with a ship's wheel on each side of the bust. This was followed by a distressed black gown with ripped material up the side - clearly a reference to the “wreck.”
The show was packed with nautical references hinting at the shipwreck in its name, including plenty of fish net, ship wheels on busts, ropes draped across models arms, and distressed, ripped details to make it look like you’d just clambered out of the ocean. One look was even accessorised with a model of a ship worn on top of the model’s head - a reference to the same style that Marie Antoinette allegedly once wore (although a lot of people argue she didn’t).
The most on-the-nose shipwreck reference to come down the runway was a white gown shaped by twisted brown ropes - we call it shipwreck survivor’s couture - followed by the survivor's saviour himself: an angel, wearing golden wings, a blue train, and Ludovic de Saint Sernin’s iconic tiny leather pants (ofc). Themes of “Le Naufrage” continued to appear as the show continued on, seen as glittering ropes twisted around models arms and fish net gowns, before we were abruptly brought back to reality, with Amelia Grey in a fitted grey leather fit - a frilled top and tight bottoms croc-embossed matching set.
The collection closed with a series of more typically “Ludovic de Saint Sernin”-style looks - still with some references to “Le Naufrage,” but less on the nose. Alex Consani walked in a floor-length crimson gown, almost completely open at the top aside from one sash of fabric and a cursive detail that read the name of the collection. The closing looks were a refreshing reminder of Ludovic de Saint Sernin’s raw talent - like a breath of air after holding your breath under water, it was fun to experience his take on the nautical world, but the finalé looks really resonated with his personal style.
Featured image via Getty©
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