“vanitas vanitatum et omnia vanitas”

The explosive French translation of the title of this capstone piece would read ‘Les Hommes en Dentelle’ and for anyone with even a faint or flawed knowledge of French it would be immediately clear that each and all connotations with what ‘dentelle’ stands for is normally always associated with that which what is universally known as being 100 % feminine. But not in this case, as BDMOTP boldly presents to you “Men in Lace”, a first collection by young Parisian créateur / designer Maxime Ephritikhine.

It has nothing to do with gender equality, or genderless-ness for that matter, that today, in 2014, men also CAN wear lace, and feel comfortable with sensuality, lightness, fairness, touch, and transparency–naye, it has something to do with vanity, and with the fact, that only vanity, can make a shallow man proud, an old man young again, and a dirty man feel clean. Such is the power of vanity, also in man, or especially in man perhaps, because rarely does man feel he was born with natural beauty!

—Soft you now, the fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons be all my sins remember’d.—

(Hamlet Act 3, Scene 1)

It was therefore a true discovery and a phantom delight when BDMOTP was privileged enough to attend a runway show outside the Louvre in Paris last month covering the graduation ceremony for one of Paris’ famous fashion schools – Mod’Art – and when by chance among a host of collections for women there was a single one being shown for men: The new and first collection of young designer Maxime Ephritikhine, his final graduation project walking the Paris runways.

And of course MEN IN LACE being a strange & bold idea to present to a global audience–which could only come from the cold and time worn streets of Paris, BDMOTP took the chance to interview this very promising ‘créateur’ and while asking for pictures of which you can here see and read the rather marvelous result.

Our approach was to ask Maxime about his concept and his idea, so here is the creator’s statement on his first collection – a portrait of the artist in his very own words:

“This first collection is theatrical ; it is an illustration of vanity. The clothes are part of the wardrobe of some baroque personalities who have lost everything. They roam in a very dark forest in the cold winter with what is left and what they used to have. They may have lost their influence and their wealth but something magnificent still remains in them, they have a theatrical attitude as if they didn’t want to let go of their rich past. It’s the translation of an opposition, of the vanity of life.

In this collection, garments are for the most part natural because this is a guarantee of a high level of quality and also because nature is one of the most important sources of inspiration. So it is important in a world where everything is going and moving so fast to keep something that reminds us where we are from and where we belong. Silk in many different aspects, cotton, wool, viscose are the main materials. For this collection Black and White are the main ‘colours’, they illustrate the conflicts, opposition and the ambiguity of the collection. On one side we have light and purity illustrated with multiples shades of white going from very optical, to ghost white, ivory and white smoke. On the other side we have shadows, the dark, roughness and dirt illustrated with many different shades of black like midnight black, licorice, onyx and jet.”

On the runway Maxime’s work had something that reminded of ‘Games of Thrones’ and we asked him about it afterwards, and he confirmed the style of his collection to be one that belongs to a world of dreams, a realm of fantasy, to the abode of undifferentiated consciousness still – Ladies & Gentlemen: The Abode of MEN IN LACE.

A privilege of women, now made available for men!

This is so very Game of Thrones

Posted by Sandro Joo and photos by Leon Fernando and Xiafeng Wang.