Lemaire
It is this same dedication to 'romantic pragmatism' that Christophe Lemaire and Sarah-Lin Tran have lavishly moderated each garment with. Practicality with a poetic inflection—a noir work jacket here, but slim enough to seduce during a rendezvous in the grass, chinese-like smoking slippers there, but with the glint of white sportswear soles.
Even their collaboration with the outerwear company Gloverall, sees the LEMAIRE turn of cloth on a Duffle coat become dreamily bucolic rather than ‘outdoorsy’, with a bouclette wool the colour of sand dunes enticing touch, abandoning the coarseness of the garment’s usual make up.
The appeal of the men’s AW16 collection lies in the way it discreetly reveals. Much of the playfulness revolves around the framing of the collar bone. Nehru collars and black beatnik turtlenecks enclose, but give way to unbuttoned shirts in dirty white and deep V’s that expose. The positioning of a low slung scarf and a hooded cape also help to trace these unlikely erogenous zones.
Despite the whispered gestures and wanderings to the east, the feel of LEMAIRE remains definitively Parisian in its mood. “There is something about people in Paris that is very effortless but still elegant; this idea of never trying too hard to overdress” says Tran. And so the clothes have a feel and a want of being lived in, an intimacy to be developed so that there is an ease in which you wear them at any occasion. Crisply tailored and insouciant enough for the reality of a working life, disheveled and thoughtful enough to dream in, in bed. These are clothes that become your friends and allies over time.
