Jeanne Friot presented her Spring/Summer 2024 collection, Sirens, today at the Palais De Tokyo.
Sirens are the mermaid’s mythological evil twin. Although similar in appearance, the siren’s intentions are far more sinister. As they perch themselves upon rocks in tempestuous waters, their enchanting song lures sailors to an untimely death. They embody danger, temptation and supernatural sensuality.
Friot’s Doc-Marten clad “sirens” are the picture of boot-stomping sensuality in denim, leather, chainmail, and sparkling mesh. Under blue-tinted light their iridescent makeup glimmers and compliments a wet-hair look with metallic turquoise and magenta highlights. Long denim and leather belts wrap around and bind the models bodies, dangling off as if they were seaweed wrapped around to cover them just enough to pass for PG-13. Gender coded tailoring is out of the question and gender itself is virtually indistinguishable across looks. Chainmail seashell dresses are suspended by breast and breast-less bodies alike, and as the models walk out the pieces sound uncannily like camera shutters rapidly firing. They certainly are alluring.
It seems that a skimpy, dark, and glam iteration of “sexy” is taking this fashion week by storm, and I wonder if Friot’s ode to sirens is foreshadowing an underlying darkness, and reiterating that “sexy” must be adapted to our contemporary strides in gender politics, for fear of regressing back into the problematic and limiting elements of porno/heroin chic…
Ciao for now,
Rianna
