Courrèges trades midnight for midday. Drew Henry, a designer trained in the discreet studios of some of the most spotlit names in Paris and London, succeeds Nicolas Di Felice, whose sleek, body close revival ended at its peak. Henry throws open the shutters, letting in colour, ease and a buoyant air, with a first collection that returns to Courrèges’s founding decade and propels its optimism into next spring.
Named in March and in post since May, Drew Henry sharpened his eye and hand at Celine’s Phoebe Philo, JW Anderson, Philo’s own label and Burberry. He has always been drawn, he said, to work that feels modern, useful and direct. The collection holds him to it. Pockets and belts earn the word useful, saturated tones the word direct, and ample cuts that cross between genders the word modern. Promise kept!
A pale yellow skirt suit wears a white Peter Pan collar, a rounded pocket piped around a silver button and a wide white belt, discipline in the cut and mischief at the hem. A red sequinned tunic sits over cuffed trousers in pale gold, and a cream top, inked in navy like a doodle slipped off the page, lets its long bands trail. Elsewhere, a beige trench opens on legs laced with blooms, and a white coat repeats the gesture on a man, tender, slightly absurd and worn with a straight face.
What binds the looks is an unforced assurance. Apricot and bright orange, red, canary yellow, chartreuse, grass green, baby blue and navy follow one another on tailoring shaped at the waist and roomy everywhere else, with sleeveless vests, wide trousers, flats and boots, and belts left loose. The cut is serious and the mood is not, a freedom to wear what makes you happy without having to justify it.
The House that dressed the future in the sixties lets the decades take a seat. Chairs from different eras line the runway, each with its own history, and the fifty looks that pass between them follow suit. Past and present sit side by side without ceremony, and Courrèges feels livelier for it.
