Alastair Nicol
The French designer who won the hearts of fashionistas now he’s opening the next chapter with his first menswear collection featuring a lineup of colorful characters. His first menswear show took place in Marseille.
Simon Porte Jacquemus debuted his menswear line on Monday. Deep personal stories have inspired Jacquemus’s designs ever since he established his namesake brand almost nine years ago. His womenswear collections he calls “biographies”. They represent memories of his late mother who was killed in a car accident when the designer was 18 – and the menswear collection is a continuation of this legacy.
Alastair Nicol
“A year ago I fell in love and it pushed me to speak about men and realise my first menswear collection – it was very spontaneous,” he told Vogue in Paris three days before the show.
“It’s really important to me to be a menswear designer who wears his own clothes,” he says. “I want to be sincere in all I am sharing and selling. I don’t buy expensive pieces for myself, so we are starting with low prices (around €200 for a polo shirt), the same strategy as how I started with the women’s – low prices, strong image.”
Alastair Nicol
Rumors that he was destined to head up the likes of Céline or Versace circled around before Jacquemus announced release of his menswear. Jacquemus never had formal training but he managed to build a brand reputed to have generated over $5million in sales in 2016; in 2015 he received the LVMH Special Prize for young designers.
The business is a family business. “I come from a family of farmers who are all in the south of France,” he says. “In the same barn where we were once doing fruit and vegetables we are now doing Jacquemus delivery worldwide – my father, aunt and best friend are all working for the brand from there.”
Designer shared with Vogue “When you get a call from a big house and they offer you €12 million per year, it makes you think ‘What the fuck!’” he explains. “But I want to be independent, someone who is doing his own thing like bringing people to Marseille – that’s what makes me happy. There are so many designers I admire so much, and it’s hard to say. But I would hate to have their life,” he adds. “My big house is Jacquemus – it’s my mother’s name – and that’s clear for me.”
SEE JACQUEMUS SPRING 2019 MENSWEAR
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