As the industry grapples with difficult market conditions and ongoing geopolitical turmoil, EgonLab’s Kevin Nompeix and Florentin Glémarec feel it’s not the time to play it safe.
“Calling the collection ‘Lazarus’ comes from an observation we made about our world, in an industry in crisis, which pushed us to be less and less creative just to survive and make a profit,” Nompeix said before the duo’s fall show. “It’s really a moment of awareness where we want to become ourselves again.”
Likening asserting one’s identity to a necessary “positive rebellion,” he said they wanted to embrace EgonLab’s pursuit of experimentation mixed with pointed social commentary. The latter yielded a collaboration with dating platform Tinder that Nompeix said was about “spreading love in a world that’s becoming darker and darker.”
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Cue a sharply tailored collection that circled back to their earlier urban-punk playbook, peppered with experimental flourishes such as feathers and allover studding. Thrown in were Tinder T-shirts and sweatshirts.
The opening look featured a petrol sleeveless top covered in feathers, worn with sharply tailored slacks, followed by an EgonLab-typical outsized suit with wide shoulders and a nipped-in waist amplified by side-buttoning.
Throughout the lineup the pair played with doubled-up layers, peeling back the waistband of a pair of black trousers to reveal a plaid duplicate underneath; cutting suits from creased fabric that opened up with every move to show a contrasting second color, and denims zhuzhed up with asymmetric folded panels.
Half a dozen looks from their growing women’s offering were slotted in, ranging from a masculine-inspired shirt and tailored cargo trouser look to dramatic draped column dresses that seemed to slide off the body. They added to the impression of an evolution, not a revolution.