Marine Serre
As the audience sat waiting for the Marine Serre show to begin, the front row grew increasingly restless. News that the show was running nearly an hour late due to the late arrival of Nigerian singer Burna Boy left some perplexed. Since when was the brand, known for its upcycling ethos and edgy fashion sensibility, a magnet for music stars?
The fact is, the Marine Serre label is pivoting to embrace more mainstream personalities as it seeks to make a bigger impact on fashion. Tyga, Noah Cyrus, Soko and G-Eazy were among the celebrities mingling on the darkened set at the Grande Halle de la Villette, where three 26-foot towers of secondhand clothing stood as a reminder of the environmental cost of textile waste — and a model of a zeroimpact show decor, since the clothes will be used in the brand's future collections.
Once again, Serre opened the display to the public, with more than 1,000 invitations snapped up online in less than a minute.
“The house is at a turning point. In the beginning, you establish your codes and you repeat them and you forge them and now we're in a phase where I'm really trying to bring upcycling to the street. In the end it's all connected: opening the show to everyone and working with personalities that I would not have worked with previously,” the designer said in a preview.
Now in its seventh year, her brand has created a recognizable aesthetic with outfits made from upcycled denim, household linens, T-shirts and silk scarves. This season Serre added tote bags to the mix, with an opening sequence of looks made from cream, white and beige cotton totes.
The show notes claimed that each one needs to be used 20,000 times — or roughly 54 years of daily use — to offset its overall impact of production, though it did not explain how those numbers were calculated. At any rate, one imagines that after 54 years of daily use, any cotton bag would be worn down to bare threads. Still, it was food for thought.
Alongside incorporating colorful patterned tapestries, jacquards and brocades into patchwork outfits accented with graphic orange lines, Serre crafted her signature moiré fabric using recycled fishing lines and nets. French singer Yseult joined a diverse cast that included veteran model Mark Vanderloo and magazine publisher and consultant Caroline Issa.
Serre hopes that by bringing more people into her world her climate change activism will gain momentum. “I'm discovering this kind of multiculturalism which ultimately embraces all generations and all cultures,” she added. “I just want to open the doors.”