Between last year’s pantless trend and the triumphant efforts to free the nipple, it’s no secret that we’re in an era of particularly sexy fashion. It couldn’t come at a better moment for Ludovic de Saint Sernin.
While the French designer launched his eponymous label in 2017, he seems to be entering the mainstream with the help of celebrities. After showing in Paris for many seasons, de Saint Sernin brought his fall 2024 show to New York Fashion Week in collaboration with the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation. The collection, filled with BDSM-inspired leatherwork and sheer floral dresses, introduced him to more American audiences—and celebrities. Before long, LdSS began popping up on red carpets left and right. On Oscar night alone, Alex Consani wore the brand’s Pony dress to the ceremony while Kylie Jenner wore de Saint Sernin’s favorite look from the fall 2024 collection—a body-grazing burgundy chainmail dress printed with a silver Mapplethorpe floral—to the Vanity Fair after-party.
In addition to Consani and Jenner, the French designer has become a go-to for fashion risk-takers like Charli XCX, Rachel Sennott, Sabrina Carpenter, and Dua Lipa. “It is the most incredible and rewarding feeling when someone you love wears your brand on a major red carpet because they usually have access to so many options, so when you’re the chosen one it’s special,” de Saint Sernin tells Vogue. “There is so much that goes into creating moment like this, most people don’t realize, it does take a village.”
But while it’s a thrill to be chosen, it’s a two way street. De Saint Sernin knows it’s critical for the right celebrity to wear his clothing. “Once your collection is out, it becomes available for anyone to wear wether it is for an editorial or a carpet. We get the requests in and then it is up to us to decide who gets what,” he says. “That moment is key. It’s all about making the right choice for the right look—it’s team work. So many things have to be taken in consideration, but at the end, when it happens, it’s like magic.”
One of de Saint Sernin’s calling cards is his use of grommet-riddled leather. Mia Goth attended the premiere of MaXXXine in a leather sweetheart halter with a velvet figure-hugging body, and Anya Taylor-Joy attended CinemaCon in a minidress made of leather strips wound around her body and stitched together by cords. The designer made perfect sense for both: Goth was promoting MaXXXine, the third film in Ti West’s X trilogy, in which she portrayed pornstar-turned-actress Maxine Minx. Taylor-Joy, meanwhile, used the leather dress with metal detailing to nod to her film Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, set in an industrial wasteland.
But it’s not just good for method dressing. De Saint Sernin has proven himself a versatile designer time and again. The 2024 Met Gala was a particular high for him, dressing Camila Cabello, Ashley Graham, and Rauw Alejandro. “Like it doesn’t get bigger than that,” he says. The moment allowed for him to telegraph his brand identity in three very different ways, from Cabello’s deteriorating chainmail dress to Alejandro’s Graham’s curve-hugging dress complete with his house codes.
Just last weekend, two Ludovic de Saint Sernin dresses appeared on the red carpet at the Academy Museum Gala in Los Angeles. Styled by Danielle Goldberg (who has earned a reputation for her cool clientele), Laura Harrier and Ella Hunt hit the carpet in two unmistakably LdSS looks. But he insists that it’s not about the red carpet moment—it’s something beyond that, which unifies all of his clients.
“I don’t create looks thinking this is going to be a red carpet moment—it’s not the goal. The goal is to create a unique emotion when you see that look,” he says. “If that emotion touches someone enough when they see it that they want to wear it for a carpet it’s magic again because it finds a purpose naturally. It was picked by someone and they will always remember they wore that look at that moment and it becomes a part of their story.”
