“Welcome To Fear City” was the lede of a newspaper pamphlet titled ‘A Survival Guide for Visitors to New York City’. It was distributed to intrepid travellers touring the island of Manhattan in the 70s—a time when the boroughs were overrun by organised crime and leaving any neighbourhood outside of Midtown was strictly frowned upon.
It was also a time when one stalwart photographer was disrupting the norm with his distinct black-and-white tone and penchant for shooting erotic subject matter. His name was Robert Mapplethorpe. You might have heard of him. You might be familiar with his body of work—in all its transgressive and intimate carnal glory. You might even know his quotidian rhythms as documented in Patti Smith’s 2010 memoir Just Kids. French designer Ludovic De Saint Sernin is one such adherent, and for his debut New York Fashion Week collection, the Parisian creative drew inspiration from the late iconoclast’s body of work. “I relate to him on both a personal and artistic level, so this is kind of a pinnacle,” he said backstage of his collaboration with the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation.
Paralleling Mapplethorpe’s own fixation with form, de Saint Sernin created sartorial codes for the context in which the photographer operated in and the motifs he shot—both examining of BDSM subculture in New York’s underground queer and kink scenes and the phallic seductiveness of unfurling flowers. Given de Sernin’s designs are like stimulants for party girls (and gays), it’s only fitting the 37-piece collection focused on the body. In some instances, it was revealed through apron-style crepe silk shirts and mesh skirts emblazoned with screen prints of Mapplethorpe’s most recognisable silhouettes. (The latter was a look worn by burgeoning Australian supermodel Angelina Kendall with only a black bralette and a glint of ‘up to no good’ disobedience.)
Elsewhere, chainmail dresses worn by the one custom designed for Olivia Rodrigo at the recent MTV VMAs were crafted into various shapes to show off the decolletage. Menswear and womenswear were cohesively presented in a cocktail of raucousness and sensuality, cumulating with a panoply of leather held together by studded eyelets and cross ties. Even gimp masks found their way onto the runway for the penultimate looks—but given this is a collection inspired by Mapplethorpe’s work there was a surprising lack of chains and ropes. These erotic elements not only excited Rihanna, Mapplethorpe and de Saint Sernin, but the upper echelon of New York’s set, too, with Marc Jacobs and Jenna Lyon’s skipping the Super Bowl in favour of his 8PM time slot. This is how a Frenchman should do New York Fashion Week.
The story first appeared originally on GRAZIA International.