For spring, Lebanese designer Cynthia Merhej decided to loosen up a bit. “Resting was my starting point,” she said during a showroom preview in Paris.
“Since I do everything myself, I wanted to go back to what makes me excited and happy about fashion, what I loved about it as a kid. There’s the fantasy and aspiration of it all, but now what I aspire to is sleeping,” she quipped, describing this lineup as “the Savasana part of the yoga class.”
Clothing that speaks to the luxury of time and interior spaces is trending all over the calendar this week. Here, Merhej offered some convincing pieces, from joggers with tonal frayed “RR26” patches to easy suiting in mocha summer wool that, thanks to a system of buttons, can be worn classically or artistically scrunched. Further along, a dress with a soft ribbed tank and an ethereal gray tulle skirt looked like both a new spin on one of her most popular designs and a savvy new-gen riff on a Sex and the City–famous number. Draping and wrinkled textures—a reference to bedsheets—spoke to the freedom to play with rumpled layering and soft structures that were grounded here by patent mules or kitten heels. For dressier occasions, a lineup of iridescent beige sequined numbers, a sartorial rendering of sun-dappled mornings, looked fancy yet unfussy.
New this season was knitwear, like an elongated polo dress produced by a local factory and a collegiate message tee emblazoned with “Men Not Allowed” in English and Arabic that already seems to have touched a nerve. “That was coming from more of a queer point of view, but then a lot of women reacted strongly to it,” Merhej offered, explaining that she had lifted it from a restroom sign. “Thinking of interior space, it’s important for women to have our own spaces without it being invaded somehow. I wanted to highlight that,” she said.
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