Six years ago to this very date, Ludovic de Saint Sernin debuted off-schedule during Paris Fashion Week. Today, as he took the closing slot on the menswear calendar in the courtyard of the magnificent Musée des Archives Nationales, the likes of Rick Owens, Daniel Roseberry, Olivier Rousteing, and Carine Roitfeld watched from the front row. Needless to say, De Saint Sernin has come a long way.
Most recently, he became the name on everyone’s lips after leaving Ann Demeulemeester following a one-season stint. There were high expectations for this show tonight, his first after news of his departure from the house broke. But rather than putting on a forceful display of dominance, De Saint Sernin opted for a subtle and affecting refresh. “I wanted to do a reset for this season and go back to what LdSS means,” he said backstage after the show to a crowd of reporters and his fellow designer supporters. “This collection I feel is the quintessential LdSS universe, it represents ideas of beauty, sensuality, love and freedom, and the message to dare to be yourself.”
The overarching theme for this delivery was the idea of an ephemeral summer romance, which De Saint Sernin contextualized with his first eight looks, all of which featured jewelry made in collaboration with the New York artist Diego Villarreal Vagujhelyi. These white brass pieces evoked memories of the touch of an elusive lover, De Saint Sernin said. There was a tension in the way the pieces bound the hands of models while highlighting the absence of implicit touch. Not one to do away with a theatrical gesture (it was hard to avoid looking back at the poses and motions in his Ann Demeulemeester collection), De Saint Sernin here offered a sophisticated, erotic, and romantic messaging, one he would have benefited from stretching throughout the show.
De Saint Sernin’s clothes are sexy and alluring in the way they project the same sense of undoneness as a person at the end of a long summer day. He was at his best today when he offered the most range: A mermaid skirt in feather-weight Japanese tweed that came as both a solo piece and with a leather bustier in a dress; his signature tie-around open button downs interpreted in the shape of an edgy and almost punky leather jacket; and a run of sultry barely-there collared boleros interpreted also as cropped shirts. Where the lineup lost steam was in the repetition of silhouettes—eventually the loungy elastic waistband boxer shorts and nonchalant pajama pants, together with the one set of tailored trousers, came across more as a lack of options than as a directional offering.
De Saint Sernin certainly put his signature lexicon on display here, recurring to the unabashedly gay and often queer and libidinous design vernacular he’s established and become known for. Though when he evoked his debut and the few collections that followed and established his point of view, one could not help but look back.
What de Saint Sernin was doing at that time helped set the tone for the many conversations we’ve had about queerness and gender on the runways since—particularly in the menswear space. But much has changed since 2017: The designer’s soft and lusty genderful approach has trickled into other, more mainstream collections, and the clothes that once seemed remarkably niche and esoteric have become commonplace on and off the runway. De Saint Sernin has changed, too. It’s hard to forget his viral towel-skirt and sheer wet looks from spring 2020; the undeniable allure of his shrunken, bursting-at-the-close satin jacket from fall 2019; or his leather and eyelet fabrications from fall 2018 and spring 2019. He was more experimental back then with his cut and fabrications. As he’s evolved and savvily transformed his brand into a buzzy name and blossoming business, it would be interesting to see him revisit some of those initial raw creative concepts with his now more mature—and commercially viable—design outlook.
There is no question that De Saint Sernin has established himself as a distinct designer over the course of the last six years. His vision is focused and alluring in its sincere and nuanced interpretation of lust (even if it’s not all-encompassing: a single slightly-larger-than-standard model does not make a runway size-inclusive). As he looks ahead to the next six years, now is the time to take on bigger challenges. The world has been built, now what does the universe look like?
