Jacquemus' Riviera romance

By

Godfrey Deeny

Published
Sep 25, 2018

How’s about a little respect for Simon Porte Jacquemus?

He’s without doubt the most commercially successful young French designer this decade but somehow the local French jury doesn’t ever really give him much credit. Which doesn’t feel right.

Jacquemus is an auto-didact, not the product of any fancy fashion school. Nor does he chase after any grand concept -- instead his fashion is earthy, sexy and direct.

His cast clearly love his sexy and sensual clothes cut to highlight their figure, draped to celebrate beauty. Take stunner Imaan Hammam who opened the show in a mini screen-goddess asymmetrical cocktail with meter-long fringe, glowing with pride as she strutted by.

Streaky denim slip dresses; fringed sarongs in wheat worn with white singlets; and most of all his much-admired striped cotton men’s shirts cut into dashing cocktails. It was all relatively simple but all the better for that. The designer named this collection La Riviera, and these clothes will work perfectly on the Côte d’Azur. 

Staged on two dazzling white catwalks in the garden of the Italian embassy the show garnered a huge cheer and a fun finale. All the models crowded around Simon Porte on the steps of the beautiful mansion, with five dancing on its second-floor balcony.

His muse has alway been his mother, a Provençal beauty who was lost in a car crash. But her spirit lives on in every look. 

There is an expression in French: 'c’est trois fois rien', meaning it looks like very little. But while his mode is deceptively simple, it's really rather great nonetheless.