Courrèges. Fall 2023 - Paris Fashion Week

Nicolas di Felice revamp of Courrèges continues on, to which the Belgium designer has returned both Courrèges 1960s futurist themes and its amorous overtures, all in homage to the late André Courrèges fashion house.    While simultaneously incorporating the contemporary elements of our current aesthetics or at least commenting on aspects that reflect this paradoxical society that we all subscribe too.   And it is to Di Felice's credit that he has be able to meld the fusion of the said themes onto Courrèges's luxury template.  Which if one is to look at this objectively would be a hard task, pertaining to the fact that despite Courrèges being an established brand name, has struggled over the last decade to solidify itself into the competitiveness of the designer fashion market. 

Everything is in disarray at the moment post the 2020 pandemic, from economic, geopolitical and sociological.  Rationale has seem to have gone out the window, which maybe reflective as a catalyst, and warning that society is breaking down.  And if we are to look at Science Fiction as a reference point, in light of Courrèges's interest of the more utopian concepts of 1960s futurism in all of its technological hope, it was the late designer's idealistic stylization for a counter culture that never was, which in the end was smothered by 1970s hedonism.  Nevertheless the late French designer offered a glimpse of an era through his fashion designs, that many truly believed would be removing the shackles of 1950s conservatism and its stifling family values.  A societal and sexual liberation.  That our current society in all of its confusion, appears to have remodeled  50s idealism with token inclusions, solely as a selling point to the multitudes of digitized markets.    

So, it is refreshing to see Di Felice tweak the obscurity of the Courrèges time-line and as noted in my Fall 2022 review he has certainly risen to the occasion in defining his imprint for Courrèges.    The Fall 2023 collection has further lifted the benchmark,  with the collection more direct and straightforward in its array, utilizing smoke machines, with the opening models walking the runaway staring at their cellphones in a obsessive and mechanical way.   Di Felic has structured the showpiece as a ferment impression to the self absorbed, morphing it into a spiritual perspective towards the closing of the show.  Offering styles that range from modernist to Avant-garde, in a rework of Courrèges's space age inspired looks of yesteryear; mini skirts, vinyl and leather jackets.  Mixed with sheer and amatory styles, the sex appeal, as seen with past Courrèges shows, is evident throughout the collection.   Yet, overall the humanist spiritual slant can be seen, with a mirrored circle sitting middle of the models chests, to which Di Felice decreed in his commentary for his recent collection, the importance of the circle in spiritual mythology.  That it is of a completeness and acknowledgment of the void.  The unknown.  There is no beginning and no end.  The mirror reflecting light, which is the spirit that once we pass, travels for eternity throughout the cosmos.   

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(A.Glass 2023)