Paris Fashion Week: sitting front row at Marine Serre S/S20
There are times when the stars align. Around 10am on the first Tuesday of Paris Fashion Week, it certainly seemed that the elements had come together for Marine Serre’s Spring/Summer 2020 collection. The winner of the 2017 LVMH Prize was showing her collection outdoors at the Hippodrome d’Auteuil. The strong rain that fell could have disturbed the fashion crowd, who were seated on pipelines instead of traditional benches or chairs—Serre is not known for her conventional approach. But the collection would not have had the same impact under a radiant sun! Called “Marée Noire,” it featured masked silhouettes, combinations of utility and military aesthetics, and Serre’s emblematic half-moon pattern. The collection doubled as a warning about the environmental crisis, coming just a few hours after Greta Thunberg’s poignant speech at the UN. (The designer has previously explored mankind’s effect on the environment in her Autumn-Winter 2019 collection, called “Radiation.”) The future of humanity remains uncertain, but the Marine Serre woman stands stylishly at the ready for what’s coming.
