EXCLUSIVE: Jacquemus to Present First Men’s Collection in South of France

CLOSING ACT: He’s already the opening act of Paris Women’s Fashion Week, and now Simon Porte Jacquemus is to close Paris Men’s Fashion Week, with his own event set the day after the official season ends – and somewhere far, far away from the City of Light.

The maverick designer will present the first men’s collection under his Jacquemus label in a yet-to-be-disclosed southern French city on June 25.

Among the possible locations, Porte Jacquemus, whose sun-soaked universe is deeply inspired by his upbringing in Provence, has deep ties with Marseille, where he spent much of his youth. The designer already presented a catwalk show there last May, as the special guest of the city’s OpenMyMed festival.

For that he had models in looks from his spring 2017 women’s collection walk across a soaring flat footbridge linking the open-air Place d’Armes in the Fort Saint Jean, a 17th century military complex with panoramic views over the port of Marseille, to the Rudy Ricciotti-designed main building of the Museum for Europe and the Mediterranean (MuCEM).

“I grew up 40 minutes away from Marseille, but I was obsessed with the place. I would take three buses to get there to go swimming. If you look at the sea there, you think you’re in Greece. It’s really special to me,” Porte Jacquemus said at a press conference revealing the event. Guests were served Pastis.

Whether he plans to lure the fashion pack back to that city once again remains to be seen. In the meantime, the designer has shared an inspirational teaser for the men’s line. The shot he took is of French rugby player Yoann Maestri, “the first Jacquemus man,” in a pair of white shorts, with a matching white dog, on rocks by azure waters.

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