Off-White redefines quiet luxury with its Louvre runway show
A year, almost to the day, has passed since Ib Kamara's last (and very first) parade for Off-White. A baptism of fire that had literally transported us to the planet Mars from the claw launched in 2013 by Virgil Abloh.
Following his death at the end of 2021, Ib Kamara, a 31-year-old stylist at the time and editor-in-chief of Dazed magazine, had been appointed to the estate.
A heavy task that the young man had brilliantly taken up by intelligently highlighting the streetwear codes that made Off-White's success, while infusing his own culture drawn between London and the West Africa from which he comes.
For this second solo iteration, Ib Kamara had invited his guests under the Place du Carrousel in front of the Louvre pyramid in Paris. After splitting the crowd of streetstyle photographers and young fans hoping to see their favorite K-pop star, the small fashion world gradually settled on what seemed to be a giant board game.
A design almost identical to the invitation of the show, also a tray featuring the Off-White cross logo, pawns and dice included in the box.
The latter also enthroned in the middle of space in a giant rhinestone version, just like most of the celebrities invited to the show - including Serena Williams, Halle Bailey, Willow Smith or Mia Khalifa, placed here and there such as the thimble, the shoe or the iron of a joyful part of fashion Monopoly.
Named "Ask Legal" (understand "Ask my lawyer"), Ib Kamara's new collection was "unfiltered" and "very personal" as indicated in the press release in the form of a newspaper deposited on each seat.
For this autumn-winter 2024-2025 show, the young designer had simply divided his wardrobe in two, where some designers prefer to mix the passages between man and woman on the same show.
To start, 29 female silhouettes walked on the game board with a lot of strapped dresses, nylon outerwear topped with faux fur, heeled thigh boots and colorful details drawn from the imagination of the African tradition.
Ib Kamara's Off-White woman is resolutely powerful and self-confident, a bias that has been firmly claimed by the designer since his arrival at the head of the brand in April 2022.
If the designer's creative energy is indeed present in women, the second part of the parade dedicated to the man seems to have been thought of as a reflection afterwards.
A particularly difficult point to understand as Ib Kamara's first men's wardrobe of March 2023 had offered us an almost perfect mix between precise sartorial and ultra referenced streetwear.
A point of balance that the creator has unfortunately not been able to find through his 30 men's looks that are, at times, damn noisy and particularly heavy to the eye.
We cannot say if it comes from the dubious mixture of pastel green and lavender shades, patterns scattered in the proposal between starry prints and stitched butterflies, or chapkas that sit on the heads of some models, an accessory that we definitely did not want to see back in our wardrobes.
Anyway, Ib Karama seems to have been inspired by the 90s (or even 2000s?) during the design of this second part of the collection. To be noted, however, the interesting tribute to American culture through the omnipresence of references to basketball.
In addition to new sneakers made like the inserts of orange balloons, the brand has also partnered with Wilson to buy bag-style balloon racks.
Despite this, we cannot ignore Ib Kamara's desire to present a fun and resolutely joyful collection. The young creative has the advantage of taking a bold counter-footing in the face of a phenomenon of return to the essentials that can be observed at Gucci and other Ferragamo.
A good way to twist your neck to the quiet luxury movement and light a spark that could indeed ignite the rest of fashion.
[Via GQ France]