Returning to his instincts after a single-season-stint at the helm of Ann Demeulemeester, Ludovic de Saint Sernin presented a celebration of queer desire, joy and power for his namesake label’s SS24 outing. Calling the collection Lust, silhouettes were slinky and sexy, constructed from lightweight, artisanally crafted Japanese tweeds, fluid gossamers and filmy silk crepe. Toga-drape dresses and sweeping mermaid skirts and gowns were quintessentially LDSS while robust leather busts brought in a touch of rebellion in a way that was new to the Belgian designer. Leather is an LDSS necessity though, and this season it worked its way into front-laced leather corsets that resembled the brand’s signature, eyelet-trimmed Cleavage baguette (also on display in new patent, monochrome colourways or as a crossbody iteration). There were also minimal square-cut moto racer jackets, harnessed bralettes and lace-up briefs in supple lambskin leather.
At once puritanical and erotic, Lust was an oxymoronic offering: pure white silks danced beside studded leather; long skirts mingled with corseted men’s briefs; modest, roomy tailoring succeeded skin, skin and even more skin. De Saint Sernin described it in the show notes as “an antidote to prudish moralism”, as he “sidesteps lewd stereotypes of queer expression to propose a wardrobe imbued with a libidinal elegance.”
And he did so beautifully. Moulded in clay and cast in raw white brass, supple ensembles were adorned by sensual jewellery born of a collaboration with New York-based brand Vagujhely. Courtship cuffs, discipline chokers and knuckle rings played into the eroticism implicit in the act of surrender, but not as a choice of physical restriction but rather one of autonomy and agency. It was queer nirvana.
Photography by Christina Fragkou.
