Charles de Vilmorin Couture Fall 2023
Charles de Vilmorin started with a blank page. A diaphanous wisp of a white dress was a fitting clean slate for the young designer to mark his return to the runway since parting ways with the house of Rochas in April.
Out came a trio of white looks. A fringed jacket and shorts combination had a touch of cowboy swing, a set of nearly identical models was bound together in a single piece sporting fanciful swan headdresses, followed by a cocooning puffer cape that evoked a protective wrap.
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The first looks were a departure for de Vilmorin, who made his debut in 2020 and became known for his explosively vibrant collections. As de Vilmorin seemed to process through his emotions, he injected bits of red, green and purple into kimono-like shapes and subtle dragon drawings, or bucking horses, as if fighting his way into color.
It was a story arc rendered in volume and ways of giving new proportions to the body.
Caped sleeves trailed like wings, surrealist heads exploded from a model’s torso or were carried as an accessory, a white bird wrapped around the arm. A jacket of mirrored shards hid the hands, but featured three sleeves.
Perhaps the short tenure at Rochas took its toll on him. “I was not, in the past year, in a very good mood so I didn’t want to make something very joyful. I wanted something quite dark and precise,” he said after the show. “It’s about the pressure of creation.”
De Vilmorin drew on three main themes of ethereal white, sharp black and Japanese kabuki and dragon influences. He paired it with moody piano music to create a tense mood.
“It’s like a war because all of these characters are not in a very good way,” he said. De Vilmorin, who will head the jury of the next Hyères International Festival of Fashion, is emerging from the darkness, his ebullient spirit intact. He is looking forward to the future at the helm of his own line. “I think the next collection will be very colorful.”
Launch Gallery: Charles de Vilmorin Couture Fall 2023
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