Paris (AFP)

The new stylist of Courrèges, Nicolas Di Felice, presented Wednesday an optimistic collection for the "youth who cannot dance", health crisis obliges, while Gabriela Hearst made the bet of a sustainable fashion at Chloé.

The Courrèges fashion show broadcast online, like all the presentations this week of women's ready-to-wear in Paris, was filmed at La Station-Gare des Mines in Aubervilliers (Seine-Saint-Denis), a place of dance and epicenter of the counter-culture.

A white cube in this industrial wasteland that served as the framework for this collection evokes the obsession for white and the graphic silhouettes of the avant-garde André Courrèges, founder of the house.

Minimalist and almost entirely monochrome, in black and white, Nicolas Di Felice's first collection revisits the great classics of the house such as trapeze mini-dresses, the theme of circles and variations around vinyl, the house's emblematic material with oversized collars.

New silhouettes settle in this very wearable collection with high waisted pants, denim jackets, bombers, caps and thigh high boots.

The collection is "a vibrant letter to today's youth, those who cannot dance", underlines the house in the note accompanying the presentation.

Nicolas Di Felice was appointed artistic director of Courrèges in September to breathe new life into the Parisian house, famous in the 1960s for its futuristic style.

The 37-year-old designer, a graduate of La Cambre in Brussels and worked through Balenciaga, Dior and Louis Vuitton alongside Nicolas Ghesquière, succeeds the German Yolanda Zobel who left the house in January 2020 after two years of freshly welcomed collections, despite its commitment to cease plastic production.

- Neither viscose nor polyester-

In her first collection for Chloé, Gabriela Hearst, an American designer of Uruguayan origin, defends a "sense of utility in every piece" and makes radical environmental commitments.

"A shift towards low-impact raw materials has made the collection four times more durable than last year," the house said in a statement.

It has decided to eliminate synthetic virgin fibers such as polyester or artificial cellulosic fibers (viscose), to source recycled, reused and organic denim.

Over 50% of silk comes from organic farming and over 80% of cashmere yarns for knitting are recycled.

The bags are lined with natural linen.

In the video, the models come out of the Lipp brewery, a mythical place in Saint-Germain-des-Prés where the founder of the house, Gaby Aghion, born 100 years ago to the day, presented her first collections.

They walk the cobblestones in casual outfits like striped fringed dresses or a poncho integrated into a puffer jacket.

The shoes, from boots to slippers and Moonboots to moccasins, respond to comfort, while interpreting classic shapes with character such as a scalloped edge of recycled cashmere ankle boots.

© 2021 AFP