Chloé Nardin is putting the fuckboy archetype to bed

Chloé Nardin has tamed the libidinous Playboy bunny into a kind, countryside critter. Once impregnated with all kinds of masculine desire – bow tie taut and ears tapered to a burlesque pointe – that curvaceous logo now appears across Nardin’s brand like a rustic coat of arms or a parish cartoon. But the ascendant menswear designer isn’t interested in deconstructing or subverting laddish stereotypes: she actually thinks there’s something quite sweet about being a ladies’ man who is as guileless as a black-and-white illustration. “I love the idea of a flirt,” Nardin says, dialling in from a frenzied showroom in Paris. “And I don’t find that idea aggressive because they can be soft and romantic and self-aware. I’m not trying to undermine or emasculate men, either. I just think they’re nice, which is why I call my customers ‘bunnies’.”

A former Louis Vuitton and Burberry model, Nardin was raised on the outskirts of Paris before moving to London in 2016 to study womenswear at Central Saint Martins. She describes herself as “a suburban Tumblr kid” turned “product designer” who cares more about the physical qualities of a garment (ie; cut, fabric, colour) than what it might ‘represent’. “That’s why I transitioned into menswear when doing an MA,” she says. “There tends to be so much focus on ‘the girl’ when you’re designing for women, but I don’t necessarily have a muse. I think my approach is much nerdier than that. In fact, it’s almost denatured.” And so the rosebud of her latest collection didn’t come from a speculative place of emotion, but an inanimate pile of deadstock kindergarten fabrics, poplin sets, and baby jerseys surfaced in naïve teddy bear motifs. 

“I always start with a collection of childrenswear and nightwear but this season I was particularly inspired by vintage toys and old circus costumes that repurpose military outfits,” she explains. These antique, playbox accents help to soften the “guarded and masculine” attitude that so often collects around streetwear: star-shaped buttons on columnar knits, velvet tunics with drop-shoulder epaulettes, or tiered peasant skirts worn over tracksuit bottoms. “Sometimes I struggle to boil down what my work means but I know that men see themselves reflected within it.” Given all the tasselled beanies and nightgowns on offer, is the allure perhaps rooted in the masculine urge to sleep in a nightcap and snore like ‘honk shoo honk shoo’ until being awoken by a noise and inspecting the house with a little candle holder? 

Or is the appeal of Nardin’s clothing intrinsic to a generation of people that find it increasingly impossible to operate like an adult? Hence the popularity of brands like Heaven, Kiko Kostadinov, Cormio, and Chopova Lowena that sell coming-of-age fantasies to 30-something aesthetes with Mubi accounts (like the 1990s manga series that inspired Nardin’s collection). “You don’t really know if it’s meant for kids or adults and I love that idea” – she’s referring to Berserk but could just as feasibly be describing her skin-tight pyjama tops and denim babydoll blouses. Pieces that are “tough and soft”, similar to the rival allies of her beloved knight’s tale. “Griffiths is femme and blonde, while Guts, who I named the collection after, is aggressive and represses his emotions. There’s a second, homoerotic reading but it’s about growing and opening up.” 

As much as Nardin’s focus is concentrated on the granular details of design, clothing acquires symbolic value the second it gets embodied on the street. “It’s like working in reverse,” she says. “It doesn’t have to start out ‘human’ but streetwear is a charged arena so I know I need to be careful with the political aspects of it.” But she was also raised in one of the most densely-populated suburbs of Paris and so to ignore the realities of how certain demographics dress would be to blackball huge swathes of people. All the long-line tunics, for example, recall the traditional thobes that young Muslims like to style with sneakers for mosque. “I’m not here to speak on things I don’t own but I want to give a loyal representation of what I know of French culture and it’s impossible to do that without paying visual tribute to North Africa or the Middle East.” 

“I’m fascinated with the history of these regions, it’s just so rich and the silhouettes are so stunning,” she adds. “I don’t talk about this in interviews because I don’t want to pretend that I’m an advocate, but it’s the most challenging and perhaps interesting part of my work.” There’s no formula to getting it right but a lifetime of social observation has planted seeds in Nardin’s mind that have begun to propagate and cross-breed and demonstrate the pluralities of modern life: kind men in multicultural, medieval streetwear designed by a French woman. But it’s been an organic and subconscious process and that’s how the compost heap grows. “My worldview is inclusive of many things and I’m not trying to make a deliberate statement on them,” she says. “No. No, no, no, no. That’s not my place.”