Lemaire Fall/Winter 2018 in Paris Fashion Week.
There were hints of English suede heads of the Seventies in the larger flare pants and three-quarter lengths worn with boots. Juxtaposed with Moujik pants, caftans and Tibetan coats taken from Tolstoy’s descriptions of humble folks, it was a trademark Lemaire season of zen-meets-workwear.
Amid the clinical crispness, bubblegum pink sweaters, muted overdyed paisleys or marbled swirls — the work of French endpaper artist Atelier La Folie — felt like a thunderclap on a clear day. “We love prints. It’s true that we didn’t do enough of them,” Christophe Lemaire said backstage.
Lemaire and Sarah-Linh Tran have developed a glossary of classic Parisian understatedness in their work — think Yves Saint Laurent, the man and the ultrachic male Parisian. In their hands, an overcoat piled atop a jacket and several other elements do not add much bulk, making their layers more nuance than cold weather strategy. Yet the standouts were undoubtedly those silhouettes in which the volume play was marked: a sheepskin flight jacket, worn with elasticated paisley pants; oversize chimney collars and flowing pants, and a generously proportioned marbled hooded raincoat.
With its flawless execution of classics, this is the kind of lineup that stands up to scrutiny at first glance and through time. In today’s landscape dominated by maximalists, kudos to the pair for keeping to that thin line.
