An Article by Our French Correspondent L.D. (689 words, 4 min. read)
I was there, in the gardens of Versailles, where history breathes through marble and foliage, the past met the future under the warm gaze of Simon Porte Jacquemus. The L’Orangerie, once a sanctuary for the château’s fruit trees, transformed into a portal of intimacy and imagination. The air shimmered with heat and anticipation. And then, the door opened, held by an 8-year-old boy, the boy that Simon once was, opening the gates not just to the show and to the whole world of fashion, but to his soul.
Among the people there we could see Aya Nakamura Inoxtag, Emma Roberts, Matthew McConaughey, Pierre Niney, Jules Koundé or even Tiakola witnessing this unique moment
The Soul of a Peasant, Entwined in Couture
“Le Paysan” (the peasant) was never a costume. It was truth, memory, family. It was the scent of ironed cotton on a Sunday, the rustle of aprons turned inside out, the elegance of his grandmother’s wardrobe. This was not fashion for effect, but for feeling. And we all felt it.
Women floated in linen and tulle, their dresses whispering of harvests and hearths. Jupons swelled like ripe fruits, jackets were corseted from within, and sheer cottons carried the weight of a hundred memories. Poplin and embroidery conjured up vintage linens drying in the sun. Every silhouette, though sculptural, felt like a second skin; like memory worn close to the body.
Men in Poetry, Striped and Rooted
The men — oh, the men — could have stepped out of a Marcel Pagnol novel. Rustic, yes, but dignified like Englishmen the fashion designer used to admire. They wore wide-legged trousers and cropped jackets in milky white and sugared almond hues. Whisper-light leather met herringbone linen. Their shoes sprouted green leaves. Their bags were baskets of vegetables. Their stride was confident but never arrogant, like farmers walking through fields they have known all their lives.
Simon did not just dress his models. He dressed their ghosts, their histories, their inherited grace.
Color as Emotion, Cut as Memory
The collection unfurled like a summer’s day: soft at dawn, cotton-wrapped, gentle in cream and ivory. But then an eruption. Yellows, pinks, blues, like confetti at a Provençal wedding. There were stripes, of course — always stripes — Jacquemus’ secret language of childhood and clarity. There was transparency, too. Dresses so sheer they felt like honesty. As if the garments whispered: this is me. This is how soft and open life can be when you’re not afraid to remember.
Accessories from a Dream Market
Accessories were not afterthoughts. They were the fun punchlines of a story told in fabric. There were berets and shawls knotted like love letters. A purse shaped like a tomato. Leeks in leather. Garlic turned garland. Earrings like peaches and necklaces like ripe harvests. Even the handbags — with those square and round signature pieces — felt as if geometry had been softened by time. His new creation, “Le Valerie,” named after his mother, was a handbag and a hymn.
Jacquemus reminded us that even the most ordinary things — a head of lettuce, a market box — can become holy in the hands of someone who sees with love.
A Homecoming in Every Seam
More than a show, “Le Paysan” was a homecoming. A rural boy’s dream returned full circle to the highest courts of elegance and still, not a trace of pretense. It was humble, like hands stained with harvest, yet majestic like the halls of Versailles. It was Jacquemus saying: You can come from the fields and still belong in palaces. You can hold both dirt and silk in your hands.
The Boy Who Opened the Door
The boy who opened the door at the beginning; he stayed with me. Perhaps he was all of us. The child who dreams, who loves, who remembers. The child who, if allowed, would never stop creating.
In that moment, as the models walked in silence among the citrus trees of Versailles, as linen brushed marble and hearts, we were all that boy. And Simon, with his sun-drenched soul and hands full of thread, let us in.
