Men hold sway in Paris with LGN, Walter Van Beirendonck, Bluemarble

Men, especially male designers, are making their voice heard at Paris Fashion Week. The second day of runway shows for the Fall/Winter 2024-25 menswear collections featured an explosive mix of different styles and approaches, imaginatively reinventing the male canon: from LGN Louis Gabriel Nouchi’s austere couture elegance, to Walter Van Beirendonck’s creative, eccentric exuberance, and Bluemarble’s increasingly sophisticated streetwear.

LGN Louis Gabriel Nouchi was awarded the prestigious ANDAM Prize 2023 last June, and on Wednesday it drew a crowd at its Parisian runway show, taking advantage of the large audience to launch its first womenswear collection. Nouchi did introduce a few women’s looks in the past, but he has upped the ante this season, presenting a well-matched selection of five looks. His philosophy was to avoid adopting a clichéd view of the female body, but rather to “transpose men’s proportions into a feminine register.”

The launch was even more timely given that next winter’s LGN Louis Gabriel Nouchi collection was inspired by Bel Ami, a novel by Guy de Maupassant. “It was the ideal time to launch our [womenswear] project, since the novel depicts a man who succeeds in climbing up society’s ladder thanks to women, and the latter are central figures in the story. Also, many of our clients have been asking [for womenswear],” said Nouchi, who as usual put suits and tailoring centre-stage.

His feminine silhouette wasn’t androgynous but quite masculine, featuring ample, flowing trousers, long overcoats dropping down to the ankles, and a handful of statement items, like the superb trousers and tops in bouclé wool. Nouchi’s women even sported jacket-and-shorts sets, worn soberly with high socks, as their male counterparts did.

The collection was characterised by a sombre palette, with many total looks in black and midnight blue. Nouchi subtly combined couture items with more sensual garments, like the fitted culotte-body suit worn under a pair of trousers. Skintight sweaters and even a Fantômas-style jumpsuit fitted in neatly with Nouchi’s austere, classic menswear wardrobe.

As they climbed into the upper reaches, Nouchi’s ambitious men gradually enhanced their wardrobe with fur tops and scarves, made exclusively with textile materials, or wore striking items like a white suit in feather-light, ultra-fine leather, or a glittering gold lamé ensemble. The suits became increasingly sophisticated, like the double-breasted ones in jacquard silk with shawl collar.

“There is also a connection to money, described through our collaboration with the Paris Mint, which led us to create a jewellery collection,” said Nouchi. He sought to symbolise the success of Bel Ami’s main character by adding a series of golden accents to the looks, like the coin set into a tie, gold-coloured socks, and a bracelet made of an armful of coins.
 

Walter Van Beirendonck has once again tapped his most daring, exuberant creative vein, dreaming up an army of wacky creatures, part humanoid, part extra-terrestrial. They all seemed a little lost, wandering amidst the remnants of our planet, seeking humans to sympathise with. One thing was clear. These eccentric characters hailing from the darkest reaches of the galaxy were all ardently anti-war, like Van Beirendonck himself. For years, he has been denouncing the horrors of armed conflict, and has tried once more to broadcast a peaceful message. One of the models pointed his finger to a patch on his top, inscribed with the words ‘Stop War’. Another made a V with his raised fingers, the universal peace sign. Military style was ubiquitous in the collection, evident in the khaki ensembles and in accessories like gas masks and shoes with thick lug soles.

Each of Van Beirendonck’s gentle monsters strode forward to his own music, politely introducing himself to the audience. “My name is Pierre-Louis,” “I come from space,” “I was born in the Ivory Coast,” and so on. The ensuing, cheerful cacophony, their words mixing with end-to-end tracks from what undoubtedly is the Belgian designer’s ideal playlist, was entirely appropriate to the collection. Van Beirendonck blended the most diverse styles, and included fresh takes on some of the statement items he has designed in the last 30 years, joyfully looting his label’s archive.

The result was a volcanic mix of styles, colours and patterns. Assorted floral prints, some romantic, some with a 1970s vibe, were matched with damask wallpaper fabrics and, depending on the looks, featured alongside camo effects and tweed or tartan jackets and trousers in all the colours of the rainbow. Van Beirendonck pierced through the fabric on the sides of some tunics and extra-long coats, opening portholes for belts to slip through.

Oversize sweaters with fluorescent streaks riffed on the label’s signature pop art aesthetic. A knitted serpent with grey and orange stripes snaked around a model’s neck like a scarf. The collection included sumptuous knitted items fringed with colourful wool tassels, and futuristic garments with suction pads. Van Beirendonck playfully redefined the silhouettes’ volumes, inflating the garments in the shoulders and arms as though for added protection, and equipping the models with gigantic hats, like a sink-sized top hat, and cavalry-style red chapkas and military kepis within which heads disappeared. All the hats were made 30 years ago by renowned milliner Stephen Jones.

Peace signs also cropped up on sweaters at Bluemarble, alongside huge furry hats worn with Zorro-style masks. The label by Anthony Alvarez continues to thrive, judging by the many rap artists who attended the runway show on Wednesday, inside the former C&A department store in rue de Rivoli, which recently closed down and has been completely gutted.

The collection’s first and last three looks were highly Instagrammable, with their screen-sized bags and huge hats matched with flamboyant fake-fur maxi coats. But aside from these, the US-born French-Filipino designer has focused on trousers and jeans for next winter, re-fashioning them in all sorts of uber-chic versions.

Loose, lined trousers were the collection’s centre-piece, some of them decorated with glittering stones, others covered in sequins, others enhanced with embroidered pearls, and silver or bronze inserts. Distressed jeans became extremely chic with their darned rips. Another variation on the theme were the short overtrousers with pockets, layered over tone-on-tone jeans.

The must-have item was a two-in-one t-shirt/shirt, both practical and handsome, the undershirt climbing up the torso to become a shirt.