Despite the coronavirus having spread to 47 countries with more than 80,000 reported cases worldwide, Paris Fashion Week (PFW) 2020 is still underway. In the midst of the outbreak, fashion brand Marine Serre made its debut with a collection featuring designer face masks. The French designer, who won the 2017 LVMH Prize for Young Fashion Designers, sent models down the runway in a variety of face masks, including gingham print and knit pieces over the models’ faces and heads fully covered. Model and influencer Kozue Akimoto attended the Marine Serre show wearing one of the red and black non-disposable masks with a matching printed top.
For the collection, Serre also joined forces with an air quality brand Airinum to create a red and black mask. However, an Airinum representative told The Hollywood Reporter (THR) that “this has been a project going on long before the coronavirus.”
“Dutch influencer Romy D’Fonseca posted a photo of herself on Instagram in the same mask, explaining that the accessories, made in collaboration with air quality brand Airinum, debuted in Paris and will be available for sale online this week,” reported THR.
THR further noted, “Airinum shared a photo of the mask last week with the caption, ‘Launching soon’.” Though coincidentally timed with the coronavirus spread, this is not the first time Marine Serre has incorporated face masks in her sartorial vision. The designer, who founded the Futurewear label in 2017, featured stylish anti-pollution masks in the fall/winter 2019 collection through collaborating with French filtration brand R-PUR – those masks retailed at $575 but are no longer available.
Having previously worked at Alexander McQueen, Dior and Balenciaga, Serre revealed that her work centers on “a decisive eco-futurist vision,” and the style has translated to the red carpet with Billie Eilish wearing a Gucci face mask to the Grammys this year.
On her website, an eerie voiceover of the runway video explains, “The human question is not how many can possibly survive within the system, but what kind of existence is possible for those who do survive?”
The 28-year-old has been praised in the fashion press for the practicality of many of her designs. “Serre’s energy has dynamised the fashion industry,” reported Vogue last year. “Her hybrid garments, each a radical cocktail of century-flitting references, utilitarian practicalities, plus a sporting streak, are never so complicated as to miss the contemporary mark.” Paris Fashion Week will run till March 3, 2020.
– With information from The Hollywood Reporter