Carven Resort 2014
Long before street-style bloggers, there was Malick Sidibé, a Malian photographer known for documenting the look and popular culture of affluent African teenagers in the Sixties. A coffee-table book of his work inspired Guillaume Henry this season. “There was something lazy yet cool about their style, how they would put flat shoes on with a quite formal cocktail dress,” Henry said backstage before the presentation. “I wanted to offer that contrast of casual versus elegant.” The resulting collection captured that vibe with many easy-to-wear pieces, often made from humble materials. A little black dress, for example, was woven from plastic and shown with geometric-pattern flat sandals and a matching ladylike handbag, while a sculptural, rounded coat was made of straw. Henry showed these with dramatic metal and stone jewelry, which reminded him of the pieces songstress Nina Simone used to wear during that era.
