Heatwave. Courrèges SS26

October 19, 2025 | Design & Culture by Ed

Nicolas Di Felice’s spring–summer 2026 collection for Courrèges was a cool exercise in modern-day inventiveness and A-line chic. By inventiveness, I mean the collection’s spotlight-stealing face coverings – which, as it turns out, are functional UV blockers. The designer encountered this kind of accessory while traveling in Thailand. In his reinterpretation, the fabric is attached to peaked caps, draped elegantly across the face, and tucked into the waistband of an unmistakably Courrèges miniskirt. André would no doubt applaud the concept – and the brand’s clientele is more than ready for any heatwave.

Interestingly, in a summer season where many designers embraced layering and coverage (like Bottega Veneta’s Louise Trotter), Di Felice’s offering feels refreshingly wearable – something you’d actually want to put on when the weather turns stiflingly hot. The collection is global-warming-ready in other ways, too: think breezy slits on sand-colored maxi dresses and leather jackets with cut-out sleeves that, from afar, appeared to be melting.

The shape of a car windshield inspired rounded solar face shields, rising from the closing looks – dresses and tops that seemed to merge futurism with functionality. And while rising temperatures are nothing to celebrate, Courrèges’s creative director managed to approach the theme with wit and a distinctly desirable sense of style.

ED’s SELECTION:

COURREGES Heritage Embroidered Crepe Mock-neck Mini Dress

COURREGES Satin Shirt

COURREGES Asymmetrical Lace-trimmed Satin Mini Dress

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Haute Sharpness. Jean Paul Gaultier AW24 Couture

June 27, 2024June 27, 2024 | Design & Culture by Ed

The rather mild haute couture week in Paris suddenly heated up near its end, all thanks to Nicolas Di Felice‘s guest collection for Jean Paul Gaultier. It was absolutely refreshing to see the designer outside the context of Courrèges, and with the tools of couture in his hands. The French enfant terrible of fashion made a strong impression on the Belgian designer when he was a teen: “for me and for so many queer, different people from the countryside – from everywhere in the world – he represented Paris, a city where everything is possible. He was really the first one to celebrate different people. Everybody remembers this about him and it’s a good thing, because he actually did it.” The collection told a story about a Paris arriviste, who wears covered up clothes: jackets and dresses with long sleeves, long skirts, and necklines that climb up the face. Slowly, as the show progressed, the head emerged, then the shoulders, and by the end, dresses were peeling off the hips and hands were tucked into the gaps in the fabric in an erotic gesture. The motif of adaptability-to-the-body returned throughout the collection, and it was masterfully applied in a gorgeous slip dress that was worn undone to the waist, exposing a sleeveless shell underneath on which hooks-and-eyes were applied like studs. Di Felice chose to reference Gaultier’s subtler moments, especially his precise technique of cut and sharp, yet feminine tailoring. Everything synced so well. Now imagine Di Felice do haute couture at Courrèges!

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Men’s – Potent. Courrèges SS25

June 22, 2024 | Design & Culture by Ed

There’s an incredibly potent, sensual energy about this latest Courrèges collection by Nicolas Di Felice. While the spring-summer 2025 menswear collection drew in part from a series of illustrations of a Courrèges summer 1970 collection of groovy cut-out tunics and banded detailing on short dresses, the contemporary designer is far from being a nostalgia-ist, pushing the brand into future, not futurism. “I really need to work the clothes on the body. Something might seem simple,” he went on to say, “but we really do fit everything; we work on them – the jackets, the skirts, the trenches, even the simplest pieces – from A to Z.” And it really shows this season, especially in the masterfully engineered bibbed tops (the front panels of fabric supported by a body of invisible mesh) worn with killer, kicky pants. Then, there’s all the scuba-inspired leatherwork that’s dangerously chic. Also, note the collars of Di Felice’s trenches in cotton and leather (just soooooo good) falling onto one shoulder and sleeve; the same detailing gets added to roomier, blouson versions cropped at the hips. And that 1970 collection of Andre Courrèges’ provides the motif of a looped band over the chest, which delivers a geometric flash of skin on tanks and dresses that work right across the gender spectrum.

Scoop some Courrèges from my shopping edit!

ED’s DISPATCH:

Courreges Open-back Coated Cotton-blend Mini Dress

Courreges Reedition Appliquéd Ribbed-knit Tank

Courreges Belted Coated Cotton-blend Midi Skirt

Courreges Hyperbole Off-the-shoulder Ribbed Stretch Cotton-jersey Maxi Dress

Courreges Cocoon Convertible Coated Cotton-blend Jacket

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Miseducation. Courrèges SS24

September 29, 2023 | Design & Culture by Ed

As the Courrèges models stepped out onto the spring-summer 2024 set, it cracked. Made of plaster and designed to look like moon rock, artist Remy Brière was responsible for the earth-shattering effect. Brière drew inspiration from the stripped-back strategies of Land Art, echoing the clash of Mind and Nature as models strut past, creating audible, visual fractures beneath their feet. If only Nicolas Di Felice‘s collection was as intriguing as the setting – even though the story behind promised a lot. So, the designer was inspired by the imaginary narrative of a woman graduating from university and going on a road trip. Along the way, she loosens up, becoming more open, less burdened as she ventures into the vast desert. There she discovers a “cult run by mothers” and begins her miseducation. However, I wasn’t convinced any of that was truly captured by the rather unremarkable clothes. Models wore elevated campus-like slouchy polo dresses in cotton piqué, oversized Harrington vests and biker jackets, spliced and zipped asymmetrically. Masculinity flirted with the feminine while funnelled necklines were altered to enhance body posture, and, like Amazonian warriors, the girls loomed large. A modern take on the 1960s space-age aesthetic, sculptural gowns and hybrid cotton canvas pieces could morph from military skirts into sleek hooded mini dresses. On leather armour and silver or glass breastplates, New Age symbols paid homage to the elements of the Earth. What truly speaks to me in this new Courrèges collection is the leather jacket offering. There are really good.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Contemporary. Courrèges AW23

March 2, 2023 | Design & Culture by Ed

Nicolas Di Felice‘s take on Courrèges is truly taking shape. In the autumn-winter 2023 fashion show, emerging from the fog, the first model stared down at the phone in her hands, her face lit up by its LED screen. The brand’s creative director has been thinking about all the time that we spend on our devices. The hoodie the model wore was hunched forward, its volume sort of flattened, and di Felice cut armhole slits into the front, for easier access. There was a leather motorcycle jacket, a tweed coat, and a vinyl caban cut the same way. Di Felice is on his phone as much as the next guy, he admitted. But watching his friends text when they’re sitting at opposite ends of a bar on a night out, rather than walking over to each other for a chat, he realized that our pocket-sized computers are changing more than our postures, they’re changing our lives. “I don’t judge,” he said, “but I question it, and I wanted to try to reflect on it.” There’s a lot of heat around Courrèges. Di Felice excels at the kind of body-baring clothes young women today respond to. Last season looked like the morning after a long night of raving, the girls carrying their sandals in their hands; this season, they’re headed to the office on the metro, in shades of black and gray, and even pinstripes, although in nothing as conventional as your standard pantsuit. Tunics with huge circular pendants suspended from portholes on the chest replaced jackets. They were cut in the same general proportions as the ’60s-ish A-line shifts that followed them. As the show progressed, the black and gray gave way to red and pink, and the straight lines to soft, sexy drapes suspended from wire necklaces, including one or two with the house logo, the collection’s only drawback. The final series of dresses came in silver or iridescent sequins accessorized by those mirrored pendants, right over the solar plexus. With the help of a spotlight, it looked like they were emanating energy, the phone’s LED replaced in the end by inner light.