Vacation is not only related to being careless, relaxed and decompressed, away from our daily routine. It’s also about these days that seem to separate what has passed from what is coming. If we think about it, the end of vacation marks the start of a new academic year, and everything that it has in store for us. Therefore, we understand that vacation is more than just carefree dives in the water, lack of alarm clocks and uninterrupted time of lying around. Surely, it’s a source of energy that will be stored and used after the vacation period is over but also a landmark of old and new challenges.
If there is one designer who adopts and, at the same time, transmutes the key concept of summer vacation, this is, without any doubt, Simon Porte Jacquemus. He was born in 1990 in the south part of France and, as a result, he cannot deny his love for all the cliché elements that characterize summer holidays; colours like white and blue, the sun, fruit are some of them, as he mentions in his Instagram bio. And even if his vacation as a child was at a small village in Provence, France, where he used to sell lavender to tourists; this couldn’t hold back young Jacquemus from chasing his dream career in the fashion industry. He has said that he was so determined to go to Paris and make his dream come true that, having memorized the Parisian license plate numbers, he approached the cars coming from Paris, so he could sell his lavender to them first.
Entering into adulthood, he wasted no time and he moved to Paris to begin his studies at a fashion design school. Soon he got discouraged by the cruel living circumstances at the ‘City of Light’ and the indifference that he was met with when he tried to connect with his teachers. Two months after that, he decides to leave the fashion design programme and after a short break he formed his company, Jacquemus , at the early age of 19. He had a rough start and that was the reason behind the minimalistic collections that he came out with at the beginning. He had to, as the cost of the materials was unbearable for a fashion designer at the start of his career. Without a budget and relying only on the blog that he had created, sharing not only his work but also what inspired him as a designer, he got the attention of the legendary designer of Comme des Garçons. Rei Kawakubo thought that the designer behind these collections would have a very powerful view of fashion and his own self. Actually, Jacquemus remembers that when he was only 9 years old, he wrote a letter to Jean Paul Gaultier, offering his services and arguing that he would be the youngest designer of the fashion world and that would definitely get the attention of the Media; an underage boy that instinctively knew the clickbait rules and marketing secrets.
His vision for the modern woman is expressed through his collections that radiate freshness and a -je ne sais quoi- sensuality, right out of a Mediterranean resort. He was determined to reintroduce femme fatale to the present which led him to create the most iconic statement accessory, the oversized straw hat called “La Bomba”. This enormous hat, that has become an Instagram phenomenon, instantly became sold out. It was irresistible among it girls and also turned into a product that was copied by other brands.
The boy, that is deeply in love and inspired by summer vacation, released his collection, La Riviera, for summer 2019 at the beautiful garden of the Italian Embassy. Among the fans of his work that were present, two very well-known sexy women wearing Jacquemus from head to toe, Chiara Ferragni and Emily Ratajkowski (while they were also devoted to their self-phones) came to honor him. This collection offers to the retro iconic French Riviera style an edgier 90’s twist, with sexy figures, minimal swimsuits, dresses with a bold cleavage, beige and warm tones and unbelievably beautiful accessories. “The bigger the better” is a quote that is adopted by Jacquemus since after the oversized hats, beaches (and of course Instagram) will be flooded with oversized bags with fringe that scream best seller from the start. Even if we’ll be sentenced to search for our planners for at least half an hour…Well who needs a planner at their summer vacation anyway?
