Sweeping mermaid skirts and gowns with contrasting leather busts are constructed in lightweight, artisanally crafted Japanese tweeds, with the gossamer fabrics also deployed in airy, amply cut tailoring. Open front shirting and dramatically reduced, collared boleros in filmy silk crepe convey sensual confidence and summery ease, a sensibility that also informs a suite of diaphanous, toga-drape dresses.
Front-laced leather corsets echo the facade of the brand’s signature, eyelet-trimmed Cleavage bag. The familiar baguette appears in supple monochrome calfskin, alongsidepatent pops of Calder yellow, green, and navy, with this season also proffering a crossbody iteration of the emblematic accessory.
The staples of Ludovic de Saint Sernin’s material lexicon are adamantly celebrated, with the fundamental role of leather in the brand’s universe resulting in minimal square-cut moto racer jackets, harnessed bralettes and lace-up briefs in supple lambskin. Cropped denim jackets, gilets and relaxed jeans figure in a palette spanning dusty rose, olive, cerulean and taupe, while front-slashed, net-hemmed gowns, halterneck sash tops, and monogrammed totes are crafted in glimmering crystal mesh, generously sponsored by Swarovski, by Ludovic’s own hand.
Jewellery pieces are the product of a collaboration with Vagujhelyi, a brand founded by New York-based artist Diego Villarreal Vagujhelyi. Moulded in clay and cast in raw white brass, courtship cuffs, discipline chokers and knuckle rings conjure the eroticism implicit in the act of surrender, transmuting the choice of physical restriction into a declaration of autonomy, agency and control.
At heart, Lust is a celebratory portrait of queer identity at its most nuanced, most complete; a proud reminder of the values that constitute the foundations of the house of Ludovic de Saint Sernin.