When your wondrous creations range from customizable footwear to fur wigs and chairwear, and have been staged on Martin Margiela catwalks as well as Paris’ Centre Pompidou, it takes more than a mere runway to successfully present a new line of clothes. On Friday, design agency Bless, the lovechild of Franco-German duo Desirée Heiss and Ines Kaag presented a show within a show – combining high fashion with acrobatics.
Try to picture the scene: Day Three of Paris fashion week, troops of transcontinental hipsters, from Paris, Berlin, Planet Mars are marching through the 19th arrondissement –that is, Paris’ equivalent of Tottenham, an unlikely attraction for fashionistas– with rare determination. They are all headed to Le 104, a new, gigantic art centre that previously served as the city’s catacombs. Today, this factory-esque space is a platform for local up-and-coming artists of all sorts.
There, in its enormous basement, in a dimly lit room composed of bare cement walls, duos, trios, and groups of performers, dancers and acrobats are gathered in every corner.
Seemingly unaware of the crowd, some are busy walking on their hands, whilst others are climbing up the pipes on the walls; two girls are doing elaborate gymnastics; some just sit and pose. From Tai-Chi to Star Wars-like combat, this blasé group engrossed in their coutured activities would make Andy Warhol weep with joy.
As for the clothes, they stretch from earthy tones and draped garments à la 90s Antwerp designers, to psychedelic, 3D wear. Comfortable enough to dance on your head, tailored enough to compete with this week’s top designers – these lose yet intricately constructed clothes borrow elements from sportswear, comic strips and judo-wear, involving lots of tying and elaborate knotting. The menswear is reminiscent of vintage Yohji Yamamoto or Comme des Garçons for its grey and black layering – this results in an urban nomad type of look, as featured by the very bohemian bearded men inside them.
“Bless clothes fit according to everyone’s need to all 3 genders, including things” is the motto of the company. Indeed, the clothes fit the objects around them: the garments, props and models all become part of the landscape, like a human metaphor rather than a catwalk. Think of Lars von Trier’s Dogville: the farmer-wear comes alive through the characters and raw scenery, and simultaneously creates an imaginary stage for itself. Similarly, the bare space, the dim light and the abstract performance do more for the viewer’s imagination that a spoon-fed catwalk. The designers insist that the clothes combine high fashion with high practicality. What better way to illustrate that than to portray them in an average day for the wearer? That is, an average day doing martial arts in nu-rave clothes inside a basement of course– nouveau nomade indeed.
Le 104: 104 rue d'Aubervilliers / 5 rue Curial, 75019 Paris
Bless: Available at Colette, 213 rue Saint-Honoré, 75001 Paris; or at their boutique, 14 rue Portefoin, 75003 Paris
Photography by Clement Dauvent
