Vetements sets catwalk in a flea market

As part of Paris Men’s Fashion Week, French fashion brand Vetements (which recently shifted their headquarters to Zurich) set their Autumn/Winter 2018 show at the world’s oldest antiques market, Paul Bert Serpette.

The collection was an open homage to Maison Martin Margiela, the label where Vetements’ Head Designer Demna Gvasalia spent his early years. Gvasalia believes the fashion industry’s debt to Margiela is unacknowledged. “That’s one of the elephants in the room,” he is reported as saying. “Everything is an appropriation. References are there to feed us, but not in order to copy. They feed us in order to create something new.”

The collection had lots of surly sloganed T-shirts – from “I don’t care, thanks” to “I’m not deaf, I’m just ignoring you” – and a range of printed garments, from camouflage trousers to Marilyn Manson shorts to patent boots bearing designs of postcards of Zurich. Along with lots of layers, there were also scarves tied around shoulders, jumpers and shirts tied around waists and coats worn on top of coats!

Vogue aptly describes the collection as being “flea market chic.”