In 2020, the pandemic seemed to open a breach: an opportunity to imagine something else, a better world. It was at that moment that the brand was founded, driven by the belief that care would follow shock.
Five years later, the outlook is bleak. In the United States, Renée Nicole Good — a queer woman, poet, mother, and wife — was shot dead on January 6 by a federal ICE agent. The rights of LGBTQIA+ and racialized people are being systematically erased from institutions. In Europe, the backlash is equally visible: in the United Kingdom, trans women are now legally excluded from the legal definition of the word “woman.”
This climate is paralyzing. Culture and creation are often among the first to be impacted; paradoxically, they are also expected to remain alert, to endure, and to sound the alarm. This eighth collection is therefore titled AWAKE.
In response to contemporary attempts to freeze bodies — to mold them, render them legible, compliant, and normalized — the show embraces movement. Dance becomes a central movement: a reclamation of the body as a political space, at a time when disinformation regimes demonstrate that words alone no longer suffice, and that expression must also pass through the body. The choreography, created by Maud Le Pladec with the dancers of the Ballet de Lorraine, extends a constant of the brand’s approach: building collective strength without erasing individuality. Each body asserts its own way of moving, existing, and resisting.
Here, dance, a symbol of queer celebration, is neither a naïve escape nor a simple release. It suspends everyday order to open a strategic interstice: a space in which norms shift and bodies are reimagined. Nightlife, dance, and celebration — already present in the first collection, Love Is Love (2022) — re-emerge as historically vital spaces for queer communities: refuges and laboratories of freedom.
For this celebration, the brand’s codes are reconfigured and intensified. Historic tartans are infused with sequins; deliberately oversized red coats envelop rather than constrain the body; kilts shift in proportion, lengthened or widened, while feathered jeans introduce tension between the everyday and ornament. Belts appear where they are least expected — on bustier dresses, subverting eveningwear codes, or at the collar of a coat. The hybrid sneaker developed with Both, inspired by the ballet flat, extends this focus on movement. Houndstooth tailoring enters into dialogue with knee-length skirts, in tribute to my grandmother, Micheline, who passed away recently and who passed on to me a love of clothing — as self-care and as a means of expression. A central figure in my desire to work in fashion, this collection is dedicated to her.
AWAKE unfolds as a moment of spectacle and joy — not as a denial of the present, but as a source of strength to move forward. History repeatedly reminds us that in times of regression, collective action remains one of the few forces capable of resistance. To prohibition, we respond with community; to exclusion, with the construction of more inclusive futures, grounded in the plurality of bodies, genders, and sexualities.
The ballerina sneakers from the AWAKE collection are designed by Both, a brand recognized for its hybrid and minimalist aesthetic and its commitment to sustainable innovation.
The show’s beauty look was created by Make Up For Ever, partner of this presentation.
The music is an original composition by Chloé.
The brand warmly thanks Maud Le Pladec and the Ballet de Lorraine for their artistic collaboration, as well as the Théâtre du Rond-Point for hosting this first official runway show included in the brand’s calendar.
Jeanne Friot warmly thanks Maud Le Pladec and the Ballet de Lorraine for their artistic collaboration, as well as the Théâtre du Rond-Point for hosting the brand first runway show on the official Paris Fashion Week Show Calendar.
