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Last Tuesday, the first day of Paris Men’s Fashion Week, I took photos of two different outfits on two different runways, both in a color combination that caught my attention. The first was at Aurélie: a cherry-red car coat paired with bright purple trousers. The second, a few hours later, at Louis Vuitton: a washed-out purple hoodie, paired with an even more red wide-brimmed coat under a red M-65 jacket.
All week, I kept a casual eye on red and purple (two of my favorite colors, if you couldn’t guess), even snapping, with my neon-violet-encased iPhone, a photo of a fellow showgoer heading to the Celine presentation on Sunday: a man in a deep red shirt and lilac chinos, bolstered by a very rare example of well-positioned brown dress shoes.
So imagine my delight – a genuine smile – when I saw the first look from Michael Ryder’s first standalone Celine menswear show, the highly anticipated follow-up to his co-ed smash debut last June. A long-haired model walked briskly down the runway in a heavy black overcoat, her waist tied with a thin knotted rope that was half red, half purple. Second look? A soft red sweater that folded into an eggplant waistband. They all fell out of there – purple T-shirts and patchwork pants, red cropped jackets and sweatshirts with cut off sleeves. Later came the showstopper, Look 43: a flowing white jacket tied with pleated red trousers and a purple-gloved hand. Purple gloved hand!
Not only did Ryder deliver the most exciting show of the week, but she also anointed the season’s new color combination: hot red and grape purple. (In my mind, I’m classifying the latter as “big league chew grape purple,” as in shredded bubble gum.) Sure, these two colors have met many times before — hats off to Drake and my editor Yang-Yi Goh’s beloved Toronto Raptors — but their union has never felt fresher.
Courtesy of Celine
Courtesy of Celine
