3 March 2026 |
Is it fashion or is it art? At Marine Serre AW26, it’s quite happily both.
Titled The Grace of Time, the collection wasn’t shown on a runway but as a series of painterly tableaus – a lookbook that read like a deck of tarot cards. Each image came stamped with Roman numerals and French titles – La Scribe, La Vénus, Aurore & Crépuscule – and was composed like a museum piece.
The Louvre loomed large, unsurprisingly. The headline act was a full puzzle Mona Lisa dress, built from thousands of interlocking pieces and varnished to a glossy finish – witty, painstaking and slightly mad. In another regal frame, a model sat with a cat on her lap in a structured off-the-shoulder bodice and textured black bubble skirt, all cinched and poised. Elsewhere, a model leashed two French bulldogs and held an antiquey spear, wearing a sheer mesh overlay with a fluffy hem over a simple black sports bra and shorts, a scarf tied tight at her head with a crescent moon earring peeking through. La Fortune shimmered past in chained silver medallions, armour disguised as eveningwear.
Serre’s signatures were all there – corseted waists recalling classical sculpture, sculpted jersey cut close to the body, technical fabrics spliced with upcycled silk scarves, pannier-like hips inflated beneath crisp white shirts, all-over moon prints anchoring catsuits and second-skin dresses. Even the sheer mesh and precise cut-outs felt deliberate rather than decorative, revealing flashes of skin without losing that sense of control.
This was fashion as paintings, with all the wit, tension and layered detail you’d hope for, proving Serre’s work lingers long in the mind as much as the eye.
Photography by Arash Khaksari.
