Paris menswear season opens with a Berluti teaser

By

Godfrey Deeny

Published
Jan 19, 2021

It says a great deal about the current Covid confusion in fashion weeks when the Paris menswear season for fall 2021, the biggest annual series of menswear collections in the world, began on Tuesday with a teaser.

 
The source of the leg puller: the house of Berluti, who unveiled a clip of a mere one minute and one second, entitled Living Apart Together, with the added missive that one would have to wait a further six weeks to see anything more. Until March 5, in fact, where there would be a rendez-vous “to discover the full story of the ≠Berluti Winter 2021-2022 collection by Kris Van Assche,” according the brand’s Instagram account.
 
Maybe we should rename the teaser 'Showing Together Apart'?  After this curious method to kick off the six-day Paris menswear catwalk season, which ends Sunday evening, Jan. 24.
 
Instead, the 126-year-old house is planning a live presentation in Shanghai in March. And, given travel restrictions, neither Berluti designer Kris Van Assche nor any of his Paris team will attend that event in China. Instead they will extend this teaser to a 10-screen format.
 
For this fashion amuse-bouche Van Assche teamed up with Russian artist Lev Khesin, whose multi-layered silicone daub paintings were used to great effect in some dashing mohair sweaters.
 
The designer’s pal Yoann Lemoine, AKA French indie rocker Woodkid, was hired as sound designer for the mini clip which was helmed by video director Olivier Casamayou. The teaser had a pop constructionist feel, with quirky graphics, though nothing worthy of Rodchenko, you understand.
 
The precious little fashion one could see did look strong. A very natty burnished leather jerkin in the house’s signature patina; the same material used in some square-toed brothel creepers that marched across the white pop art flooring.
 
Van Assche is a skilled colorist, playing smartly with Egyptian blue pants; dip dyed Clongowes Wood College purple and Olympic blue shirts; or fuchsia trousers worn under retro check raincoats. Quite why he fitted out his cast in abstract daub print felt cloche hats was hard to understand, until he showed one with a matching mohair sweater in Khesin’s great colors.
 
Berluti, a company within the LVMH luxury behemoth, controls 10 stores in China, where it will shortly open a pop-up on WeChat. We are sure fans in China and elsewhere will dig this collection when they, finally, get to see it. Though it certainly didn’t start the Paris collections with a bang.