A lot of soul-searching has been going on among designers since the last round of Paris shows ended in the first week of October 2023. “I really had to think when I started designing this collection. The social and political context was really not inspiring, and pretty sad,” said Nicolas Di Felice. “I thought, ‘Okay, what do you want, what do you need, now?’ It was, ‘I just want to be in the arms of someone.’ So I’m working on human touch; human connection. A bit more sensuality, even sexuality.”
That’s, for a start, how he came up with the placement of a pocket, just above the pubis, in this Courrèges pre-collection. Frank sexuality, filtered through a minimalist, modernist design logic is very much Di Felice’s thing. The fact that he can turn it into everyday wear—not only for club encounters—is one of the secrets of his burgeoning success in reviving this brand, and firing up its relevance for 2020s shoppers.
Amongst the references in this collection were Querelle, the classic homoerotic Fassbinder movie in which the eponymous protagonist is a Belgian sailor. (Di Felice happens to be Belgian.) Cue: the appearance of a wide-leg sailor-pant silhouette from the beginning of his men’s lookbook. Fluid, wide leg trousers are fashionable right now: QED.
Was Andre Courrèges’s work kinky? Depends who’s looking. Di Felice made a mental connection between the space-age couture helmets and vinyl Courrèges presented in the 1960s and gimp masks and fetish wear. There were some balaclava hood-type looks and (as always) many iterations of the signature black vinyl throughout the menswear and the women’s collections. Pieces were strategically slashed and suggestively zippered.
What’s for certain is that one thing will lead to another. Di Felice typically starts his ideas for the season ahead in his pre-collections. We’ll be seeing more of these concepts just around the corner in February.
