Hide the telltale sound of latex by turning up the volume on the soundtrack and you’d be forgiven for thinking Arthur Avellano has abandoned his signature material at his spring show.
Take matte stovepipe “jeans,” or a hooded robe-coat that seemed cut from astrakhan. Save for the padded lining of one bomber blouson, it’s “still all latex, all the time,” he said backstage before the show. “It’s about giving the impression it’s something else entirely.”
Since winning the Pierre Bergé Prize at the 2023 ANDAM last June, the Parisian designer has been firing on all cylinders.
Not only is he in the award’s mentoring program while still producing latex and silicone pieces for prominent French houses but he’s also created costumes for a ballet currently performed at the Palais Garnier opera house.
In the middle of all that, he developed the collection presented on the final day of Paris Fashion Week.
He pushed further in metallics, developing platinum and gold hues, and also introduced a new take on the snakeskin effect seen last season — “it’s a raised pattern rather than a form of embossing and I like that better,” he added — as well as those faux-textile options. There was also footwear, with custom latex-covered Ugg slippers.
So if there was an air of familiarity to these sci-fi space opera silhouettes with dramatic trains and opulent hoods, marching amid concrete columns in the Institut du Monde Arabe, it was intentional.
“I would rather perfect the universe I already have, rather than create a new one for each season,” he said.
