Newfound Maturity at Jacquemus

PARIS, France — With his new show, Simon Porte Jacquemus returned to the Paris Event Center, the illogically-placed, almost out of town venue where he staged one of his first, very pretentious shows — the one with the white horse and giant red ball. The idea of another endless car ride at the end of the world immediately put you down. Was Jacquemus back at the youthful arrogance of his debut?

Actually, he was not. The collection was worth the stressful ride and it was pervaded by a lot of emotion that replaced the forced conceptualism of the past. Jacquemus keeps growing, and the more he does the more his clothes reconcile with the women's body. Despite the stiff fabrications and sculpted lines, they were very sensual, and elegant.

The designer, in the press notes, quoted an encounter with Christian Lacroix in his youth, and an eccentric uncle. More useful were the last sentences, where he expressed the idea of letting a very sophisticated Parisian woman fall in love with a gipsy. So what? The collection was a fusion of Lacroix's spanish-inflected joy and pure Balenciaga stiffness. It worked, not last because despite being quite inventive, the pieces looked real, and wearable.

The color palette was probably a tad too somber, but it upped the classy ante. Jacquemus is definitely not a flash in the pan. Getting more sensitive in the choice of the venues will be just another sign of newfound maturity.