Courrèges' Reinvention for Fall/Winter 2021

Is it possible to reintroduce a brand that has already established its aesthetic identity in the history of fashion? Such is the challenge that Courrèges has been facing for some time. In the 1960s, it was one of the supremes of fashion, futuristic for era, and characteristic of French youth. Today—exactly 50 years after the creation by André Courrèges—the company is beginning again with a new artistic director, Nicolas Di Felice—the third to assume the position in the last decade. Trained in the Belgian creative school, Di Felice was Nicholas Ghesquière's right-hand man at Balenciaga and Louis Vuitton, as well as worked under Raf Simons at Christian Dior. A fitting parallel as Mr. Courrèges himself was a disciple of Cristóbal Balenciaga.  For his debut, Di Felice took on the challenge of trying to revive the relevance of Courrèges by merging the brand's historical archive with a woman who was born well after its heyday. The brand's classic go-go boots are still present in its Fall/Winter 2021 collection, and are worn with long dresses and short skirts, structured silhouette jackets and dresses full of cutouts. The use of plastic—which was successful for Courrèges in the 1960s—was excluded due to the ecologically sustainable nature of 2021, and instead the brand developed a new material made almost entirely of plant origin. It was a technical way to restart Courrèges with its new phase.