This season, Florentin Glémarec and Kévin Nompeix decided to tackle the one addiction that afflicts us all—screen time—and its evil corollary, a sense of belonging in the world (or not). It’s always one post away. “Screens force the younger generations to use filters more and more, which means conforming to canons of beauty imposed by society,” Nompeix explained backstage. “When you look at that closer, you realize that it can be a source of depression for a lot of people.”
For that reason, Egonlab this season partnered with Psycom, a public organization that focuses on caring for those with mental health issues. The fall collection, called “Only Lovers Left Alive,” was also an attempt to sound the alarm, he said. “It’s a message of optimism. You have to learn to love yourself before trying to correspond to all these standards.”
On the runway, the duo explored dysmorphia and the tension between distortion, tailoring, and draping, with oversized shoulders, slender waists, and fluid details punctuated here and there by chunky metal brooches. “It’s as if the clothes were translating the tortured inner thoughts of its wearer,” Glémarec offered. Some pieces reprised the flat face of a dark screen, as on a glossy black fringed overcoat or trousers.
Sparkle, shine, and retro fonts are coming on strong this season, and the duo stepped in with a sharp-looking oxblood overcoat, a checked jacket slicked with sequins and signature patches big enough to still pop on small devices. Likewise, they said their new UGGextreme boots in molded leather were designed to reinforce a message of self-protection.
Putting aside for a moment the ongoing conversation around fashion’s power to heal and reinvent, this collection seemed more mature; its proposition was certainly more broadly commercial. But most of all, the designers’ intent seems to be about sharing a personal life lesson: that the process of becoming whomever you want to be means that your own (unfiltered) image is the right one.
