Like many designers, Coperni’s Sébastien Meyer and Arnaud Vaillant went back to their core design roots for pre-fall. “This collection is all about the classics,” said Vaillant on a recent Zoom from the duo’s shared home in Paris. “So we have the cutouts that we do every season —” “But also,” continued Meyer, “we started designing this collection before the last show, with The Wolf and The Lamb and the robots, so there are a lot of details that follow that premise. This is why there is more of a nature spirit with the fake fur and the shearling, and the motorcycle jacket which gives an attitude to the girl to confront the robots.”
Absent the viral runway spectacles that have made the Coperni designers an intrinsic part of the industry zeitgeist, it’s easy to see that their clothes are in fact the reason why their label is so successful. They are imbued with a cool factor, but are also very easy to wear. Take the opening little black dress; it’s a simple mini with a cross-halter neck, banded waist, and asymmetrical skirt, but they’ve added some deconstructed motorcycle jacket pieces on the bodice and tailoring details to the skirt. Another slinky satin mini dress with an asymmetrical cutout at the chest has a bit of contrasting black lace peeking through. Women may have little party dresses in their closet already, but they won’t have little party dresses like these—the desire is built-in.
The motorcycle details continue in patchworked moto-pants cut to a capri-length. An all-black pair became their version of a suit, worn with a satin button-down shirt with a cutout at the chest and a wrap-detail at the neckline, and a two-button jacket with their go-to “belt and loops” detail on the arm, while another pair cut in denim was paired with a denim capelet in an interesting take on the Canadian tuxedo trend that shows no signs of stopping.
One of their popular styles is a trouser that recalls that early aughts raver look of wearing individual pant legs-as-legwarmers, except Meyer and Vaillant have attached them to leggings with a trompe l’oeil effect of a mini-waistband, belt loops, and belt on each leg. On a cream tailored suit—worn with nothing underneath the jacket, of course—the effect is just unhinged enough; like it’s waiting for a pop star to be declared “iconic.”
Elsewhere, they deconstructed a cargo maxi-skirt, another Y2K favorite, and turned it into a semi-formal high-low skirt. Paired with a half-zip fleece sweater and shearling trimmed black pointy-toed cowboy boots, it captured the exact chaotic mix favored by today’s hippest twenty-something girls.