Courrèges Menswear F/W 2022.23 Paris

[vogue28]

VOGUE.COM

 

[Nomar]

I'm a self-admitted Courrèges addict at this point. I can't get enough of this.

 

[thiago:)]

Very commercial and easy to wear (maybe a bit lazy at this point), but I'll take it.

 

[THD96]

It's strong in term of selling you the mood of collection through the styling, the models, and the photography. But it's rather weak offering in term of fashion. This is just commercial clothes built on his previous collections. He already established his vision for the house. Now it's time to evolve. While this is still good, it will get boring soon.

 

[dior_couture1245]

Wow. This was necessary.


Not.

 

[RedSmokeRise]

Kind of a letdown. I was expecting the same energy as the women's SS22.

 

[jeanclaude]

Courrèges hip-hop streetwear?? A desperate move to try to appeal to youngsters (graffiti background included).

 

[LadyJunon]

Because I have quite a lot to say about this collection and Nicolas di Felice at Courrèges in general, I'll arrange my thoughts into three parts.

Nicolas di Felice has obviously developed his design language for Courrèges that feels modern and up to date. The mix of Courrèges codes and his 90's/00's references lead him to create collections that please both the fashion bubble and his customers.

His first collection, FW'21, introduced himself as a designer and reintroduced Courrèges as a 21st century brand, creating a fluent design language. The next two collections solidified and expanded on that language with the SS'22 collection being the second best that season (Theyskens snatched everyone's wig that season).

This collection however, while good, is his weakest. While stronger than most of the other brands at Kering/Artemis, it seems somewhat stagnant with a good chunk of the looks being derivatives of those from his first three collections.

Some of it is done in a way that feels interesting and new, like the white coat-dress in look 2 and the silver dress in look 3. The coat in look 15 is good, the thigh high stocking-boot hybrids are hot and I like the bootcut jeans in the closing look. Some of it not so much. The tank tops are sad, boring versions of those from the SS'22 Men's collection and seemed like something off a queer, sexy, edgy Instagram brand rather than Courrèges or Di Felice.

If they wanted to do sexy, edgy and queer, they should have remade that jumpsuit that closed the SS'22 Men's show in black, maybe in a slightly transparent mesh. It was also a missed opportunity that they didn't reuse the gorgeous capes and coats from the SS'22 show (cool and androgynous) or the trio of trailing dress that closed that same show (an interesting Courrèges interpretation of the 90s slip dress).

The cast is half models, half influencer/street-casting, and it shows in two distinct ways. The first is that some of the cast seemed to be awkward uncomfortable in front of the camera (the dudes in looks 7 and 18), while others tried to do too much (the woman in look 9).

A second is that some of the clothes also didn't fit, since whoever is in charge of fittings failed to acknowledge that a influencer might not necessarily have runway model dimensions. All of the guys in the oversized pants have their hems dragging on the floor and the dress in look 9 is too tight around the wearer's bust. This is an immense shame considering that both Courrèges and Di Felice have history at the ateliers of Balenciaga (be it under different creative directors).

In terms of setting, I don't get why instead of a full show, they just did a lookbook and a weird one minute film on Instagram. Since they went digital again this season, I was expecting they'd work with La Mode En Images again and make a cool digital show in the form of the first two shows, maybe inside a box with a white floor and graffitied walls.

Overall, the collection was good, but underwhelming. I hope that Di Felice hasn't stagnated since it would not only be a shame for him so early as a creative director, but it could become detrimental to the growth of of the increasingly popular, but relatively small Courrèges. Luckily, he seems to recognise this and, accordingly to Vogue Runway, has promised a "braver" collection for the shows in March.

 

[GivenchyAddict]

This designer seems very limited imo. He has nothing to offer more than monochromatic looks. The looks feel very déjà vu.

I was sold at the beginning but now I am done even though it is still the beginning...

 

[YohjiAddict]

Nothing impressive. If it weren’t for the women’s looks, this collection would have captured my attention for ten seconds or less.

 

[perhydrol]

I feel conflicted about this collection. While I still believe that Di Felice is a really good designer and this incarnation of Courreges will finally make it, this collection feels really undone in a way. I can see some ideas from his previous collection, but they don't really hit the mark. Some silhouettes are really nice, but the graffiti in the background destroys their coolness.

Actually with this pre-fall offering I'm convinced that they should do co-ed shows. The same ideas would work for all genders in a more natural way during the same season yet with this concept of menswear everything feels delayed.

I don't know, I hope they will sort this out soon because something must be wrong when Nicolas himself sees that this collection is too basic, even for the standards of a pre-collection.

 

[Deleted member 141309]

I think I have to be explained by somebody why is this good, because all I see is a slight elevated ASOS that Instagram fu*kbois would eat up, but I cannot imagine this on anybody with some sophistication. I don't see anything interesting, elevated or even unusual, just a trendy mishmash of TikTok's and Instagram's most popular in "fashion" circles.

 

[reese06]

This is just urban streetwear styled on waifs with flats to "make it fashion". So cliche and surface level.

This is quite lazy in terms of design. The women's shoes are nice though.