Dear Shaded viewers,
Minimalism, monochrome, clean cuts, and straight lines have been at the core of Courrèges for six decades. While these principles suggest simplicity, Courrèges’ futuristic designs are anything but. Season by season, Creative Director Nicolas di Felice continues the legacy of boundary-pushing through masterful innovation in production techniques, modern technology, and conceptual strength. In this SS25 collection, he reflected on his own propositions and challenged the notion of originality, reminding us that nothing is ever truly new. The Möbius Strip – a long strip twisted and affixed at its ends to form a continuum – serves as a fitting symbol, a little ironically, as the starting point of this collection.
The show opened with a cocoon-shaped leather coat, a circle back to the architecture of a Haute Couture cape designed by André Courrèges for his 1962 winter collection. Its form, enveloping the body with only slits for arms, evolved into a straight tailored neoprene-bonded coat in the following looks. Once shed, elliptical patterns were revealed, looping around the body to appear like separates at first glance. In fact, these fluid, skin-bearing geometries formed one garment that wound and snapped into place. A slim bandeau flowed into a top, a dress, a bodysuit. In a cyclical nature, the design concept was renewed through the introduction of a different texture, material, and dimensionality – a continuous evolution.
Clean bias-cuts of chiffon and silk dresses spiraled around the body, finished with seamless boning that sent ripples through the fabric with each step. Light caught the eye as it reflected off intricate embroidery – bead, after bead, after bead. There was no beginning or end in trousers that were at once skirts: fabric from the outer seam of one leg crossed to the outer of the other, creating an infinity loop. This concept, too, was repeated in various expressions, from sleek, sensual leather to the delicate pleats of chiffon. This constant tension between structure and fluidity in material underscored the freedom when control over the inevitable is released.
At the heart of a white abyss, Di Felice, with scenography director Rémy Brière and Finish artist duo Grönlund-Nisunen, created a tremendous ‘Ocean Drum’. The meditative vibrations of its rolling metal beads intertwined with an isolated chorus of a rave anthem. The soundtrack, designed by Erwan Sene and Di Felice, was in tribute to the certainty that there will always be a next wave.
Di Felice’s existential reflection on the cyclical nature of the universe was fully realised through the repetition of his designs, the endless loops that wound around the body, the fluidity of form and material, and the reverberating sounds cutting through the air. Courrèges SS25 offered a comforting prophecy of eternal renewal, suggesting that in fashion, as in life, everything comes full circle.
Later,
Eliya
