Serre stands just over five feet tall, with short, cropped hair that frames a sly smile. Her petite frame is hunched over a laptop next to her sister Justine when I arrive, and her demeanour is all business. Hanging on the far wall are the two collections responsible for her win, “15-21” and “Radical Call for Love,” designed during her student days at La Cambre-Mode in Brussels.
A jury of industry legends had decided her fate, among them Karl Lagerfeld(whose own career launched after winning a design prize in 1954) and Louis Vuitton’s Nicolas Ghesquière. Serre, who joined Balenciaga as a design assistant in March, hadn’t expected to win. In fact, she didn’t think she was established enough to apply in the first place, despite the interest in her graduate collection from such influential stockists as The Broken Arm boutique in Paris and H. Lorenzo in Los Angeles. It was a scout from the French luxury group who asked the designer in January to participate in the competition against 1,200 other hopefuls. “[Our decision] was quite unanimous,” Ghesquière told Vogue shortly after her name was read. “It was the way she represents dressing today: the sports clothes, the body consciousness, and a kind of romanticism and femininity. It really speaks of [this] generation.”
Serre thinks her win bodes well for emerging talent in an industry that is increasingly shaped by the corporate parent companies like LVMH and Kering that financially back the major fashion houses. “That this big and huge company is actually giving a chance to someone like me, who is independent of them… I think it gives a lot of hope to people,” says Serre. “It’s hard for a lot of designers today because things move so quickly. I don’t want to do it only to make money.”
A jury of industry legends had decided her fate, among them Karl Lagerfeld(whose own career launched after winning a design prize in 1954) and Louis Vuitton’s Nicolas Ghesquière. Serre, who joined Balenciaga as a design assistant in March, hadn’t expected to win. In fact, she didn’t think she was established enough to apply in the first place, despite the interest in her graduate collection from such influential stockists as The Broken Arm boutique in Paris and H. Lorenzo in Los Angeles. It was a scout from the French luxury group who asked the designer in January to participate in the competition against 1,200 other hopefuls. “[Our decision] was quite unanimous,” Ghesquière told Vogue shortly after her name was read. “It was the way she represents dressing today: the sports clothes, the body consciousness, and a kind of romanticism and femininity. It really speaks of [this] generation.”
Serre thinks her win bodes well for emerging talent in an industry that is increasingly shaped by the corporate parent companies like LVMH and Kering that financially back the major fashion houses. “That this big and huge company is actually giving a chance to someone like me, who is independent of them… I think it gives a lot of hope to people,” says Serre. “It’s hard for a lot of designers today because things move so quickly. I don’t want to do it only to make money.”
Serre’s designs contain multitudes. The two collections she’s produced to date deftly combine a range of techniques, silhouettes and fabrics, from lycra and velcro to screen-printed moiré. Much of her genius lies in the details. The tag inside one especially remarkable coat, with an open collar that brings to mind the work of Cristóbal Balenciaga, reads: “Orange Recovery Blanket, Satin Ribbon, Brussels, 2015.” The lapels of another jacket are fastened by small, tear-drop shaped French porcelain doorknobs. Her pairing of colour is masterful, too: The bell sleeves of a tailored camel coat lined in a burnished orange, a kelly green sports top contrasted with a skirt of sky blue. Like that other great alchemist of colour, Raf Simons, Serre doesn’t draw. That is because she “never sees things flat,” she says. “It’s important for me that you should dress directly and see how it fits on someone real.”
While her collars and colour palettes are plenty worthy of admiration, it’s Serre’s adroit fusion of styles, periods and references - a mish-mash of karakous, kaftans and other 19th-century silhouettes, combined with the materials and cuts of Nineties sportswear - that makes her work unlike anything else on the runways. It’s encapsulated in the crescent moon that appears throughout “Radical Call for Love” - equal parts modern sports logo and Islamic art reference. The moon is also the symbol of the woman, and Serre revels in the plethora of meaning. “It’s something for me that is a beautiful form, and then in another way it’s referring to a sportswear brand. So it’s also just playing with what is fashion today and playing also with branding,” says Serre. “I think it’s really beautiful, I’m not making a joke. I have irony, but I also think irony can be serious.” She plans to use the symbol again in her next collection, which she’s hoping to debut in January 2018.
The initial inspiration for “Radical Call for Love” came from the terrorist attacks in Brussels and Paris between 2015-2016 and Serre’s desire to braid the tensions of the East and West into something beautiful - a peace offering of sorts. Serre lived in Marseille and Brussels before moving to Paris in September 2016. All of the clothing and shoes in the lineup - 35 designs in total, three that have been added since its initial debut at La Cambre - are made either in a little atelier in Brussels or in France. One thousand pieces from the collection will be stocked for Autumn/Winter 2017 by Dover Street Market and Opening Ceremony. Isabelle Huppert and Ariana Grande have both been photographed in pieces.
Buyers have been watching Serre with keen interest for months. Guillaume Steinmetz, Anaïs Lafarge, and Romain Joste, the three founders of The Broken Arm in Paris, say it’s difficult to explain what exactly drew them to the young designer, “because the collection of Marine has generated for us an irrational emotion,” they wrote in an e-mail to Vogue. “Ninety-nine percent of the time another designer who tried to mix this kind of fabric with this kind of colours will do something that is too much, but not with her, she is an equilibrist. You can't really explain or define why you like it. That's exactly what we are looking for, when it's a little bit uncomfortable, not easy to catch.”
Buyers have been watching Serre with keen interest for months. Guillaume Steinmetz, Anaïs Lafarge, and Romain Joste, the three founders of The Broken Arm in Paris, say it’s difficult to explain what exactly drew them to the young designer, “because the collection of Marine has generated for us an irrational emotion,” they wrote in an e-mail to Vogue. “Ninety-nine percent of the time another designer who tried to mix this kind of fabric with this kind of colours will do something that is too much, but not with her, she is an equilibrist. You can't really explain or define why you like it. That's exactly what we are looking for, when it's a little bit uncomfortable, not easy to catch.”
The next few months will be big ones for the designer, who will leave her role at Balenciaga after its next show and put a team together to start on her next collection. (“Come on, I cannot have two jobs at the same time, it’s impossible!” she says with a laugh.) But first, a brief pause. After a year of mounting accolades, press requests and industry acclaim, Serre will take a much-needed holiday in the Pyrenees - with only the open sky and crescent moon for distraction.
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