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As a scrum of well-wishers dispersed an hour after Ludovic de Saint Sernin’s show ended on Sunday night, the Parisian designer turned to a slight woman watching from the sidelines. “My mom,” he said, embracing Laurence de Saint Sernin.
Ludovic de Saint Sernin, at 33, is seven years into building an ambitious brand that has become a touchstone for the LGBTQ+ community and others who value its proud dark-night seductiveness. This latest collection, he said afterwards, “felt like a reintroduction of myself” after a brief stint at Ann Demeulemeester ended abruptly last year.
Laurence de Saint Sernin appears not so much surprised as relieved to see her son arrive at this juncture. She knew her child would be a fashion designer when he was “two-and-a-half or three,” she said. “He was always drawing women with long dresses,” she said, “and very few clothes”.
LDSS, as its fans know it, is the latest European label to make a guest appearance at New York Fashion Week, a semi-tradition that began when Marni showed up under the Manhattan Bridge as fashion made a return from the pandemic. It was a one-off rather than a relocation. The brand will be back home showing in Paris next season, which De Saint Sernin had to keep reminding people about since he felt so at home in America. And he was warmly received at New York Fashion Week, where a Paris-based designer’s presence draws particular buzz.
The US — mainly New York and Los Angeles — is his biggest market, he said, worth about 30 per cent of revenue. Sixteen per cent of his Instagram followers are located in the US, versus 8 per cent in France, where people, he says, are more “shy” than Americans. His clothes, which include accoutrements appropriate for a dungeon as well as an after-hours club, are not for shy people.
De Saint Sernin is building a brand as a sociopolitical movement. “I think LDSS has the potential to be the first queer global brand,” he said. “I want to be as loud as possible and reach as many people as possible.”
His brief segue last year as creative director of Ann Demeulemeester was initially well received and heralded as a love letter in the founder’s honour. But he departed the brand two months after showing at Paris Fashion Week, in what was reported as management differences. He says his tenure reset his approach to his own label by making it clear he needs to focus on his job as creative director.
He now can afford a team. “Seven years into the brand, I’m finally able to be the creative director of my brand. I don’t have to be CMO, CFO, CEO, or community manager,” he said.
Still, he’d love another shot at designing a big brand. “100 per cent. Of course!” he said unequivocally. “Once you have the right set-up, you’re able to deliver equally as powerful a message for both brands. I’m curious to see what I would do somewhere else.”
The pure sex and daring moves of his deep-cut bumster leather pants and headgear bring to mind Helmut Lang, which is not currently looking for a designer. “He was always a reference for me,” De Saint Sernin said, lighting up at the mention of Lang. “I discovered him when I was a fashion student.”
Another reason LDSS feels so at home in New York is that the collection was inspired by the photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. The designer partnered with the late photographer’s foundation this season, which is what brought him to New York, and spent six months this year digging through its archives, finding inspiration in photographs of flowers and bird details that made their way into embellishments on transparent wispy tops and gowns to balance out the black leather.
Much like Mapplethorpe, whose work was banned and pilloried as much as it was revered, De Saint Sernin’s collections inspire strong feelings. That’s what he was aiming for after reading Just Kids, Patti Smith’s book about her youthful friendship with Mapplethorpe.
“I just knew that there wasn’t something in the industry that reflected where I was as a person. I couldn’t fully identify with any other brand. And so I was like well, probably someone else feels the same. That’s when I did the first collection. And it resonated with so many people — I discovered I could be my most authentic self and open and be proud of it. Thanks to Robert’s story.”
Success in fashion requires an alchemy of luck, financial acuity, marketing savvy and creative acumen. What’s more, designers these days have to be their brand.
By the time of the show on Sunday night, De Saint Sernin had already sold his collection in Paris several weeks before. He was looking forward to a dinner at the Wine Room at the Standard Grill on New York’s High Line, followed by an afterparty there at Boom. In the following days, there would be a less formal showroom, with meetings with Saks Fifth Avenue and other retailers — mostly follow-ups from Paris.
But for the moment, after his models finished their final walk, De Saint Sernin had one more point to make. Some designers give a brief wave, and some dash out to take a bow. De Saint Sernin strode his entire four-sided runway, looking as determined as a fighter to hold that space for as long as he could.
“Sometimes I get really shy,” he says. “And I decided that I was just gonna be owning the space and let people have it.”
“When you first start out, you don’t think of yourself as having to sculpt an image of who you are in the public eye,” he added. “And that’s as important as the work that you do.”
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