Lemaire Menswear Spring 2024

The Lemaire team didn’t need a weather shaman to anticipate the Paris skies on Wednesday towards 1 pm. Instead, they doused the enclosed parvis of the Pierre and Marie Curie university campus and played an ambient score composed of rain, city sounds, and birds. As the models arrived at the expansive runway, looking this way and that, walking with purpose (to avoid getting wet, presumably), their light, tonal layers were primed for a summer afternoon downpour. And for all their stylistic idiosyncrasies, they could have belonged in Paris… but also New York, Tokyo, Bangkok, or Vietnam, where a recent trip inspired Christophe Lemaire and Sarah-Linh Tran to explore how travel encourages a more deliberate rapport with what we wear. And as climate change increasingly makes the weather even more unpredictable, their collection transcended a specific point of departure to address a universal hot topic. “We like to design from reality,” said Lemaire. “Like everyone, we’re experiencing global warming and the need for lighter fabric, lighter clothes, protection pieces—and we try to bring that functionality to our work.”