Lemaire's New Romantic Girls

PARIS, France— It's something of an automatic ritual that fashion reviewers trot backstage before or after a show to grill designers about their whys and wherefores, but there is occasionally a revelatory moment when you realise that the clothes themselves gain little extra from that exchange, so clearly do they speak for themselves on the catwalk. That's usually the case with Christophe Lemaire and Sarah-Linh Tran, whose cryptic pre-show statements about the line they create together betray a reluctance to calcify their clothing into soundbite verbiage.

Their new collection had the signature mix of sensible and sensual that makes Lemaire's clothes so endlessly fascinating. The duo often start from the most practical foundation which they subtly augment. Lemaire felt that "opulent workwear" was an apt description for the sleeveless, collarless tops and their partner skirts, or the blue trouser suit with the cargo-pocketed pants that was almost Mao-like in its buttoned-up straightforwardness. The "opulence" was in the fabric, a cotton satin that, in its brown incarnation, was glossy chocolate-y goodness.

Lemaire and Tran did murmur a guideline or two: “new wave girls”, “the poetry of reality”. It might even have been more “new romantic girls” with the billowing sleeves and newly rounded silhouettes. But the romance in Lemaire’s clothes is not frilly or historical. It’s seeded with the realities of the couple’s own relationship, and it’s all the more appealing for it. The little it-takes-two twist this time was the action in back, like apron ties on skirts, or zips running down the spine of jackets. There was — and not for the first time — a muted eroticism in such touches.