Initial reaction:
Newly installed creative director Julie de Libran took the Parisian bookish girl who loiters around bookstores in Saint-Germain-des-Prés and let her run wild in mirrored silver leather, counterbalanced with navy mohair knits, patchwork furs and bohemian velvet – a signature of Sonia Rykiel collections right from the start. The famous Rykiel stripes were rendered in sequins and chain fringing, and metallic leaf motif appliqué tops added even more razzle-dazzle to a collection centred around Rykiel’s original quote about the power of our reflection. “Beauty is no accident, it’s invented, reflected, it’s dialogue with the mirror. The one true dialogue.” The Rykiel girls strode through a transformed library-cum-boutique and seemed like they felt pretty good about their reflections, as they shimmied about in sultry incarnations of the label’s house codes.
The Rykiel girl (and boy):
Once again the casting was mixed up to reflect de Libran’s intellectual femme, with star sibling turns from Olympia Campbell (sister of Edie), Lottie Moss (half sister to Kate), as well as sister duo Elizabeth Jagger and Georgia May Jagger and Keith Richards’ grand daughter Ella Richards. Their connections with a glamour-ridden rock ’n’ roll lifestyle parlayed into the way they strutted in their flares, shearling collared suede coats and velvet minidresses. Four boys, two of which were brothers of Josephine Le Tutour and Ophélie Guillermand demonstrated that Rykiel striped sweaters need not be gender bound.
Left Bank libraries:
The Rykiel boutique was transformed into an exhaustive bookstore – as de Libran worked with publisher Thomas Lenthal and artist André Saraiva to create a literary café (Pop-ups in London and Tokyo will follow in a similar vein). Downstairs, the shelves were stuffed with novels both in French and English whilst upstairs, were all the key visual arts coffee table tomes. The changing rooms even had erotic novels where you could inspect your reflection – chiming in with Rykiel’s sentiment about mirrors and dialogue. This cultivation of a self-aware intellectual seemed appropriate for a brand that is rooted in Left Bank beat generation intellectualism with Rykiel’s original poor boy sweaters and her friendship group of literary figures.
