Isabel Marant is the quintessential Parisian brand, but for spring creative director Kim Bekker found her inspiration a world away, in LA. There, she came across a ’60s book of photographs by Sam Haskins showing women bathed in hazy light, dressed or undressed. “The colors were almost translucent,” Bekker said backstage before the show.
The shift from last season, in tone and in venue, was deliberate. And welcome. Now set in the gardens at the Palais Royal, and despite just as many eager fans cramming the Place Colette outside, the show projected a sense of ease.
“This girl is more pure, which felt very important to me,” said Bekker. “She needed to be more of a toned-down woman, but it’s also a way of creating a silhouette.”
In practice, that came from the brand’s signature style of layering—by turns disheveled, semidressed, and sultry—in a sun-faded palette of beige, sage, white, black, pink, and lilac. Short, floaty dresses came in hand-drawn florals and paisley, a nod to the summer 2013 archives, now refreshed with bead and button trim that shimmied as models sauntered down the garden pathway.
Some of the strongest looks were in black-and-white, a way of “breaking down pattern,” said Bekker. She had British and French style icons in mind, and it was easy to picture front-row guest Lou Doillon or her mother, the late Jane Birkin, on the French Riviera in one of these macramé dresses, which will likely be the stars of spring shoots. “It’s the clash between the modernity of now and the vintage that she’s collected in her wardrobe,” Bekker offered.
For the past couple of seasons, the designer has also been reviving the capri pant, now trimmed with macramé fringe and shown with a featherweight leather blouson. New shapes had soft, rounded shoulders, as on a white eyelet bomber and a jacket in “bubbly” double-layered cotton worn over English eyelet trousers. Prints were fully embroidered with delicate beading, and macramé added texture, right down to the slouchy “cleavage” flats.
Bringing more craft into the story felt like the right move; that kind of handiwork is something only humans can create. But even that intention couldn’t disguise a collection that felt tentative. Craft is fertile terrain. Now let’s see where Bekker takes it next.
