If ever there was a sign that distinctions between menswear and womenswear have become irrelevant, it s to be found in Paris Faith Connexion. The brand has two showrooms in its Rue Tronchet hôtel particulier, but clothes flow freely between them, with store buyers picking up women s washed silk shirts for their men s department and men s denim jackets for their women s floors. In most cases, the only difference between what hangs on the guys racks and the girls racks is a few extra inches in the shoulders and the inseam and a few less at the waist. Sizing is one thing. Faith s gender-bender pièce de résistance, this season at least, was a sequin hoodie with a trompe l oeil beaded cardigan stitched over the top. They photographed it on a male model so pretty he d send most females into a jealous rage. (An aside: If you want to experience jealous rage, find a pic of Daria Werbowy at the Paris Vogue dinner in the brand s parachute silk jumpsuit gown. How do you feel now?)
But Faith Connexion is connecting with retailers for a reason besides fashion s current fixation on androgyny. It mostly has to do with that other obsession of ours: youth. More specifically: wasted youth. The tattered and torn jeans, the bleached-out flannel pajama pants, bondage jumpsuits dripping in D-rings and straps, leather jackets hand-painted with skulls, skirts made from shirts tied so cavalierly at the hips it looks like you could give one sleeve a tug and the little thing would drop to your ankles. If there s a collection more alienating to the over-55 set, we can t think of it. Everybody else, of course, is on a quest to look permanently 25. Faith has that demographic—and all of the wannabes—nailed.
