For Fall/Winter 2021, Isabel Marant enlisted film director Simon Cahn who shot a three-minute film in a multi-level open-air parking garage – an impressive, spiraling monument of brutalist architecture – on the outskirts of Paris.
The location gave the footage an otherworldly feel, which was entirely in line with Marant’s vision. The driving force behind the Fall/Winter 2021 collection was the marriage of the past and future that she finds both endearing and powerful. Futurism was the word Isabel Marant used to describe her second women’s collection during the pandemic, which interpreted “the 1980s in 2030 fabrics”.
The folk and libertarian spirit of the 60’s driven by Jimmy Hendrix or Janis Joplin met the techno impulse of the Gabberscene, a subculture that took the nineties by storm. Psychedelic multicolor oral patterns were layered with an electric blue iridescent vinyl fabric, while Texan boots were paired with sportswear pieces and colored yokes in a faded memory of the past, refurbished and saturated from sepia.
This new collection celebrated craftsmanship and cultural heritage through the evocation of memories, narrated by guipure tops and dresses, shearling boleros and embellished belts. This contrast between raw materials and precious details gives the wardrobe its versatile character – from day to night, masculine andfeminine together at the same time.
There’s a hint of folk, but it’s really a mix of a lot of different ideas transposed on a contemporary silhouette – ideas that are completely different within the same collection and show how they work well together
Isabel Marant
