Marine Serre predicts the future. Last season, the sight of masked models might have felt sligtly too dark and painfully dystopian. Today, the threat of corona virus paralyses Europe, and people go crazy for masks. For autumn-winter 2020, Serre also sent out a number of “protection-wear” looks, but this time, some rays of bright future are seen on the horizon. “It’s quite stormy right now,” she said, “yet we have to see a future in that. It’s about finding ourselves there—understanding it and embracing it.” The designer tumbled deep down into the futurist wormhole, exploring fashion on a distant future planet. Her every-age-imaginable model cast, even feauturing the models’ actual kids, underscored that it’s about more than her own generation: we are really all in this together. There was a series of sandy denim pieces with a distressed scorched effect, allowing some new kind of warped beauty to emerge; their hue also riffed back to Frank Herbert’s “Dune”, which Serre quoted on her invitation, inspired, she said, by its depiction of new communities emerging in a radically different world. Much of the collection was about perfecting existing silhouettes and focusing on Serre’s commitment to upcycling, which, she said, now accounts for fifty percent of her business (other brands, take notes!). The weaving of past, present and future together was there all the time: you could see it in the hourglass shape of a trio of collaged houndstooth coats for any gender; intricately constructed outerwear conjured out of leather and fake fur bedspreads; a passage of looks utilizing white lace trim tablecloths; the jewellery was made from pre-used stuff like vintage rings. Serre’s collection was a powerful celebration of what could come out of today’s state of the world.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.