With such a state of imbalance in the world, a trend of fashion starts looking back in order to move forward. At Patou, whose ethos under Guillaume Henry is all about providing a practical, playful and high-priced wardrobe for women, he’s working on all the Parisian fashion tropes of the 60s and 70s that are recognizable everywhere .
An A-line mini skirt with a peacoat, knee-high boots, a thin maxi-coat, a little black dress and a little red dress. A short jacket with epaulettes and brass buttons. It’s not that easy to find all these useful, reliable pieces of daywear. Smart-ish daywear in general is an underserved market, and Henry is offering something to solve that.
“I missed telling the story. I want excitement, energy, something efficient,” he said. The collection was almost entirely black, red and grey, with an emphasis on outerwear. See-through dresses with black or red lace revealed more sensual interludes. Yves Saint Laurent certainly stirred things up first – as he did with the thigh-high crocodile boots and motorcycle jacket that got him fired from Christian Dior.
Henry also offered a version of this for today’s younger customers (definitely not in Alligator.) He didn’t want to offer any complicated reasoning for it, which was refreshing in itself. “Just” she shrugged, “I wanted to embrace the love of fashion, the love of apparel, the love of beauty, the love of beauty.”
