Celebrities on the runway seem to be a thing this European men’s season — Isabelle Adjani smouldered in her tightly belted black trenchcoat and oversize black sunglasses on the Ami Paris runway.
Laetitia Casta and Emily Ratajkowski also stalked the vast gray carpet laid out at the Palais Brongniart, formerly home to the French stock exchange, while the likes of Catherine Deneuve, Isabelle Huppert and Pierre Niney looked on.
Intent on bringing the “street spirit” back into fashion, Alexandre Mattiussi made the Paris Metro the theme of the show, dispatching old-school “carte orange” subway cards and tickets as the invitation, and installing turnstiles at the entrance.
“It’s one of the only places in the city where everybody congregates,” Mattuissi said of the subway during a preview, rattling off the range of archetypes he’s seen on the underground: “Grandmothers, sometimes an actress, kids going to school, kids coming home from parties at six in the morning, people going to work.”
Wait, actresses, really? “I saw once Louis Garrel, Virginie Ledoyen, quite a long time ago, Christine and the Queens — before she was famous,” he said with a chuckle.
To be sure, the beautiful straphangers in the make-believe Ami Paris station looked terrific in Mattuissi’s generously sized overcoats, pinstripe suits, classy shearlings and lingerie-like dresses. Fluffy boas, sequin shirt cuffs and sterling silver baubles in collaboration with London jeweler Alan Crocetti added glamor to a collection that skewed dressy, featuring glossy his-and-hers leopard-print coats, burnout velvet shirts and daring color combinations like orange and fuchsia.
The clothes did not break any new style ground, but were handsome enough and inviting with their variety of fits: from rib-hugging leather bomber jackets to a voluptuous parka layered over a jeans jacket.
Making a case for observing people on the subway, Mattuissi asserted that “this is where things in fashion happen, more so than in the fashion system, as it was before. You know fashion can be very restrictive and very pretentious and very exclusive. But you know, the most important thing for me is to see people wearing my clothes.”
