“After the Apocalypse…Maybe You Try to Make a Wedding Dress”: Marine Serre Discusses Her Spring 2020 Collection
Marine Serre does not mince words. The designer called her Spring 2020 collection “Marée Noire”—French for oil spill—and set her show on a wild hillside near the Hippodrome de Paris in the drizzling rain. A cast of real-world models walked over a swamp on a runway wrapped in black to look like oil. The internet went wild for the second dude out, a middle-aged man with hollowed-out cheekbones and a grimace that could put Willem Dafoe out of business. Days later, in her studio on the outskirts of Paris’s 19th arrondissement, Serre reflected on the potency of her set: “If it had been roses,” she said of the brush around the runway, “I wouldn’t have had the show there.”
Serre’s willingness to add a little aggression, maybe even viciousness, to her runway presentations is part of what catapulted her to the international stage as one of fashion’s more provocative young designers. Her intensity is matched by a deep thoughtfulness: Serre is a passionate and knowledgable environmentalist and has, since launching her brand in 2016, worked dutifully to upcycle 50% of her garments, each year working to increase that number. That all wouldn’t matter, of course, if she wasn’t a deft tailor and draper, working out the problems of how to turn used neoprene wetsuits into Grecian-tinged dresses or hotel towels into miniskirt suits. What materials Serre and her atelier have, they use, and when they run out, production is over. “That’s the thing about upcycling, we don’t have to make too much. And when the [resources] stop, you don’t force it,” she said.
It’s not just the corseted dresses made from bed sheets, the granny scarves draped into bridal-worthy finery, and the metal jewelry strung together from seashells and ocean-weathered soda cans that Serre and co. have recycled either. In the studio, nearly every object and every surface comes from somewhere else. The shoes and bags are displayed in a meat case spliced with a vintage dresser. The pipes guests sat on during the runway show have since become plinths for jewelry. Chairs and tables scattered throughout are Frankenstein’d; motorcycle wheels combine with mid-century tabletops, and hand trucks serve as the back to dinette chairs. Just before the Vogue team arrived, A$AP Rocky had passed through, trying to buy up every piece of furniture while picking out a Marée Noire trench to wear out in Paris that night.
Maybe the furniture will go up for sale soon. Maybe Serre will launch a program to buy back her previous season garments. Maybe she’ll even let customers send in their unwanted wares for her to transform into something new. The potential of what Serre can rebuild, recycle, and recreate seems endless. But for now, she’d like to reveal a little bit of her process and some of the story of her Spring 2020 collection. “After the apocalypse…maybe you try to make a wedding dress,” she said, nodding at pieces mashed up from scarves, blankets, wetsuits, and tablecloths.
Watch how she transformed these used materials and more into one of Spring 2020’s most compelling collections, exclusively on Vogue’s IGTV, here.
Originally Appeared on Vogue
