This season marked the first time original founders Études Studio’s Aurélien Arbet and Jérémie Egry put on a runway show without their longtime collaborator José Lamali, who parted ways with the brand earlier this year. Backstage before the show, they explained how working as a duo had allowed them to sharpen their identity further. What resulted was an assured collection of confident pieces that, though it felt right at home in the city, also answered the call of the great outdoors. “We both grew up in the Alps and now we live in Paris, so it’s always very nice for us to create that tension,” said Egry.
Ever skilled at drawing throughlines from art to fashion, this time the pair took Land Art—the nature-focused movement that blurred the lines between outdoor landscapes and the creative process—to inform the collection. A picture of Nancy Holt behind the camera (looking incredible in a dark hoodie and blue bootcut jeans in the 1970s) was a prominent influence on the silhouettes and atmosphere, as were the artist’s tubular concrete Sun Tunnels in Utah. “We liked her look very much,” said Arbet. “It was elegant, but [there was] also something quite comfortable and utilitarian.”
An earthy palette of muddy brown, clays, and beiges carried the bulk of the collection, alongside some dark bleached denim pieces and plenty of comfy-looking pleated pants. “For us it’s very important to find the right balance between elegance, workwear, and more deconstructed silhouettes,” said Egry. “We really took this moment and this season to find a matching point between outdoor workwear and soft tailoring.” The workwear theme came through with painter pants, zip-laden tool belts, and hooded bomber jackets, lending an overall vibe that spoke well to the post-gorpcore mood that menswear is in at the moment, helped along by those mirrored wraparound shades.
The runway itself was set in a gigantic swirl (a nod to Robert Smithson’s spiral jetty, also in Utah), and the models made their way through the audience in circular fashion to live music played on large metal canisters and other upcycled instruments from François Dufeil. The most striking point of inspiration came in the bright-printed coats, shirts, and scarves smattered with organic square patterns made in collaboration with the Busan-born, Colorado-based artist Maia Ruth Lee. Created by binding fabric bundles with rope, painting them, and pressing them onto the canvas, they resembled aerial views of sprawling landscapes that became a kind of rural cartography made clothing. This wasn’t a collection that broke radical new terrain, but it did provide a roadmap for how to dress well for your environment, wherever that might be.
