Initial reaction:

In a derelict hôtel particulier, lined with layers of cheap carpet, we saw Simon Porte Jacquemus add urgency and primitiveness to his innate sense of childish naïveté. The insouciant Jacquemus girl on the street in French suburbia becomes a sexless young child, discovering the world through raw-edged collages exploding on the body in a myriad of shapes. He or she draws on the body and the face and runs around in a paper mask barefoot, seeing reality through a very special dreamers’ lens. “I was obsessed with this raw element,” said Jacquemus. “This time, there was a naïveté – but also a primitivity and an animal instinct. It’s a person who isn’t a man or a woman. It’s someone I dream of.”

Childsplay:

Jacquemus has always centred his label around this idea of childish playfulness. This time around though, he took those childlike qualities to another level. Inspired by Michel Gondry films, Jacquemus' dreams were constructed out of random panelling on the body, cut-out coats, asymmetric lines, giant grommets and cartoonish oversizing. Hands that looked like they were cut out in arts and craft class were draped over nude top halves and brown paper masks made crudely were worn over faces. The designer also collaborated with Berlin-based artist Sebastian Bieniek, known for his surreally drawn double faces so that a few of the models were quite literally made up to look two-faced. It was an abstract take on children who raid their mothers’ dressing tables. All of them walked barefoot through the show. Even Jacquemus himself came out with no shoes on – recalling his own childhood playing in the French countryside. 

Free the nipple, free the mind:

“Being topless is something that’s not accepted in our society but in Africa, it’s totally normal,” said Jacquemus. “I was obsessed with this kind of African element – but there’s nothing ethnic in the collection. It’s just their attitude and their freedom.” #FreeTheNipple made waves last year as a social media hashtag – a conscious movement backed by celebrities, as well as an accompanying documentary directed by Lina Esco. The fashion catwalk is one of the few places where topless nudity isn’t a rarity. Here though, Jacquemus was explicit in the way he paraded breasts but the intention wasn’t to shock but to communicate a childish sort of freedom – like when you were five and you didn’t mind having baths with other children. It was less a comment on government censorship but more a way for the designer to express his childlike character, and as he pointed out, toplessness is very much accepted in other cultures so why are we in the West still hung up about it?