Antonin Tron originally thought to hold this show in his own studio, but Lucien Pagès, his PR, counseled against it: trop compliqué. Instead, we sat on the stairs in a Palais de Tokyo basement space in which were clustered the mannequins the designer imported from his studio. That hinted at the simple-sounding and ingeniously achieved conceit of this collection, which was to make it entirely with materials that were already present in Tron’s workspace. While many of these materials were conventional enough fabrics given a zhoosh of fresh treatment for the season, a few were hilariously surprising. The top and dress made from a grid of connected spent Nespresso pods made you concerned for Tron’s heart rate and wonder at his dexterity. Other unorthodox materials included used kiteboarding sails he’d collected from his surf buds and hoarded in order to give them this new life. “I’m a mad draper,” Tron said backstage. “I manipulate fabrics all the time, put them on dummies…this was a draping frenzy.”
There were patched-together worn-out band and activism T-shirts (including one printed with the Extinction Rebellion logo); vegan leather; a jersey coated with something indigo to create a leather-y, denim-y sheen; and an overdyed past-collection deadstock snake print. From this, Tron fashioned pieces that were sexy and old-world glamorous in their sumptuously draped obeisance to the bodies they contained. In a show that featured a closing look that paid homage to both Madame Grès and a masked-model approach to Martin Margiela, Tron convincingly combined his passions for the métier of the first and philosophy of the second: The result was a collection that was beautiful and, if “moral” is not quite the right word, then decidedly anti-decadent. Sexy, sustainable—with not a hint of greenwash—and highly caffeinated too, this was all good.
