Although it had never walked the runways of la Ville before, Fursac is one of those historic names in French tailoring, a brand founded in 1973 with a rich heritage, a maison that, for many—both French and non-French—represents the embodiment of a certain typically Parisian charm. Perhaps this is might be the reason why the brand, acquired in 2019 by the SMCP group, chose Borsarello as creative director in 2021. At 36, the French designer isn’t just someone who has Paris in his DNA—he breathes it, feeds on it, and, above all, never ceases to be infatuated with his city, its chrisms, and its traditions, both ancients and contemporary. Gauthier Borsarello viscerally loves Paris and its ideals.
And this was what fulgently transpired from the show that took place on Boulevard Haussmann: Paris. It might seem like an obvious thing for a Parisian brand, but there is nothing further from reality. I say this coming from a fashion week—Milan’s—where I felt very little of what Made in Italy and its imagery should evoke in someone’s mind. In many cases there, in my opinion, the class of tradition was missing; some dare to call it innovation, but whatever it is, it’s something that doesn’t sit well with me—at least not in that form.
It’s essential not to lose the codes, the language, and Borsarello has succeeded in staying true to himself as well as to the best parts of the legacy of those who preceded him in Fursac’s fifty-two years of history. He paid homage to his saints and loves, to rock and roll and chansonniers, to cafés and boulevards, to vintage and classic, to cineastes and his own lived experiences, to what surrounds him and his memories. In a few words, he stayed true and real, and this proved to be so successful that, accompanied by the notes of the Talking Heads, the audience responded with an intensity of applause and shouts I’ve rarely seen on a runway.
And so, this collection from a designer with a background as a cellist brought to the runway the reporters of Raymond Depardon, glimpses of the imaginary of Éric Rohmer, and post-punk references like the pins on a Shetland sweater paired with double-pleated trousers and boots that opened the show. One after another, the models walking the runway—selected by casting director Shaun Beyen and styled alongside Imruh Asha—could have been, in both clothing and aesthetic, some people from the days of the Palace, from a Thursday evening at L’Area, from Chez Jeanette, or that come out from the PCC at 4am to go play some of Serge Gainsbourg’s songs on guitar in some studio apartment in Pigalle. They could have been young writers you see drinking Pastis in the bars of Saint-Germain-des-Prés or strolling through the Marais at night. They could have walked in their suits straight out of Bertolucci’s The Dreamers: French young men who listen to records by Television, The Stone Roses, and, of course, The Libertines.
Even the choice of music for the show seemed almost natural: Michel Gaubert, a French icon of sound design, someone who frequented the Palace with Nico of the Velvet Underground. This pairing, of French classicism and rock and roll, also became the fil rouge of the after-show organized with STXDYOZ: a party at the Pigalle Country Club for about a hundred people, where drunk journalists and poets, musicians and artists, new faces of the underground scene, found themselves drinking Belvedere alongside celebrities on the notes of the music of Sheet Noise, of Space Idol, of rising French film star Eva Yelmani who, for the first time behind a console, between a song by Modern Lovers and one by the Pogues was kissing her boyfriend, Albert Cocker, frontman of the Spanish Horses; to the performances of Carl Barât, whom could be for sure call a
friend of the house, and none other than Alan McGee, a legend of rock and roll made in the UK, the one who discovered Oasis, Jesus and Mary Chain, Primal Scream and so on.
Karl Marx once said that merchandise is fetishized, charged with social and cultural meaning. Jean Baudrillard, one of the most influential postmodern philosophers, expanded on this by theorizing how, in contemporary society, objects and brands exist as simulacra—representations detached from concrete reality, creating what is known as hyper-reality. If Fursac, with this collection, inhabited the realm of simulacra in some way, it also dismantled this hyper-reality, returning these garments to their rightful owners, to the places where they truly belong. This act further underscores what I personally consider one of the brand’s greatest strengths under Borsarello’s direction: its role as a Mecenate of the new Parisian cultural scene and beyond, as evidenced once more by the invitation for the show, designed by young Newyorkese painter Lorenzo Amos.
It was as I arrived backstage at the fashion show with an abundant delay caused by not hearing the alarm clock, that I thought of the girl I spent the night with and that verse from France that says “So I remember your eyes, that unique shade of brown, while these blue eyes of mine, they stay closed,” and as I hummed it in the light morning rain, I thought that Fursac right now is exactly that: a love song about a French girl, who is Paris.