September 28, 2023 |
As the Courrèges class of ’24 stepped out onto the set, it cracked. Made of plaster and designed to look like moon rock, artist Remy Brière was responsible for the earth-shattering effect. He underlaid the flooring with inflated zig-zagging fireman hoses that deflated in time with the tense, whistling, acidic spaghetti western melody of the show – created by composer Erwan Sene and creative director Nicolas Di Felice himself. Brière drew inspiration from the stripped-back strategies of Land Art, echoing the clash of Mind and Nature as models strut past, creating audible, visual fractures beneath their feet.
Secular house codes were warped when it came to the clothes. Models wore elevated campus-like slouchy polo dresses in cotton piqué, oversized Harrington vests and biker jackets, spliced and zipped asymmetrically. Masculinity flirted with the feminine while funnelled necklines were altered to enhance body posture, and, like Amazonian warriors, the girls loomed large. A modern take on the 1960s space-age aesthetic, sculptural gowns and hybrid cotton canvas pieces could morph from military skirts into sleek hooded mini dresses. On leather armour and silver or glass breastplates, New Age symbols paid homage to the elements of the Earth. The sun, sand and silver came to life within the crystalline vacuum of distorted chemistry, and jewellery morphed and melted into otherworldly body adornments rooted in the phylums of futurism, liquidity and subversion.
Di Felice was inspired by the imaginary narrative of a woman graduating from university and going on a road trip. Along the way, she loosens up, becoming more open, less burdened as she ventures into the vast desert. There she discovers a “cult run by mothers” and begins her miseducation. The Miseducation of Courrèges was a coming-of-age epic, exploring the alchemy of light, movement and imagination, that quite literally broke ground.
Photography by Christina Fragkou.
