An air of realism and restraint floated at Patou, where Guillaume Henry did away with much of the volume and embellishments after asking himself what he would wear.
“[Previous seasons] were more of a designer fantasy, connected to the moment and my mood at the time. Here, I’m trying to do something very close to who I am, not just as a designer but as a person, too,” he said at a preview.
The story wasn’t ultimately about him although he — and we — could do much worse than the well-cut coats with a sailor collar, glossy windbreakers, little cropped puffers on offer or the profusion of knits that had Henry admitting he’d “adored the idea of knitwear as proper clothes” this time around.
Two model friends he dubbed the “Patou Two,” an outdoorsy aesthete and a cocooning homebody, were captured at his house in the countryside just outside Paris. One had a penchant for a dark earthy palette of beige, olive green and blacks, while the other reached for the blues, lilacs and pinks of flowers. Both made a case for comfortable dressing and Henry’s idea that “by playing with the layers [of this realistic wardrobe], you can be someone else.”
While the ensemble made for simpler fare, witty touches kept things fun. These included removable metallic button covers adding a touch of pizazz to a button-down shirt; festival-worthy colorful rain boots done in collaboration with traditional French natural-rubber boot-makers Le Chameau, and even tiny Patou outfits worn by a fuzzy Pomeranian dog. Those weren’t formally in the lineup, but Henry looked like he could eventually be persuaded to change that.