FROM THE DEPTHS OF THE DOOMSCROLL WITH LOVE 

“Everybody on Earth Is Feeling the Exact Same Thing as You” goes the title of Douglas Coupland’s seminal essay on relationships in the digital age, which serves as a prescient parallel to Courrèges Autumn/Winter 23. “People are more connected than they’ve ever been before - except they’ve been tricked into thinking they’re more isolated than ever. How did that happen?”, Coupland contemplates. Nearly a decade on, this is the same double-edged dilemma that Courrèges’ artistic director Nicolas Di Felice is confronted with as he watches his friends text each other from opposite ends of a bar.  

Permeating every modicum of our lives, it is the voracious capacity of our hand-held devices not just to consume but to control us that forms the impetus for this collection. In reflecting our modern condition back upon us, Courrèges uncovers alternative possibilities of moving and being.  

Pristinely cut suit coats, thick fleece hoodies and oversized shearling and leather jackets assume total dominance over the human form, their exaggerated shapes protruding outwards as if to form a barrier against unseen forces. But wait! Tactful side slits also transform these outerwear pieces into capes, granting us unprecedented access to our precious keyboards. Building upon such elements of contemporaneity with curious naval cut-outs, slinky silhouettes and diaphanous mesh fabrics, Courrèges observes how we instinctively conceal and reveal ourselves through the clothing we wear, garments acting both as our shield and our cardinal mode of expression.  

“A ceremony of light and enlightenment…lighting the way to the other within ourselves. Through the dark, through the smoke and mirrors, I see you.” -  Courrèges

Channelling Di Felice’s game of hide-and-seek, LN-CC transposes the collection from runway to bedroom and revels in the thrilling dichotomy between public and private. Collective victims of the doomscroll, none of us can deny the soothing impulse of being chronically online from the comfort of our homes. The personas we curate for others gradually collapsing into the intimate spaces we reserve for ourselves, giving way to an increasingly hybridised existence.  

As we get under Courrèges sheets for Autumn/Winter 23, we find ourselves yearning for a life we perhaps no longer quite remember. Accustomed to projecting our fears and desires into the void, we are now urged to look inwards instead for the answer to the question we really want to ask: who are we?