Leonard SS2019 Collection takes us on yet another journey, to explore and endlessly rethink the
notion of French elegance.
She has wide pockets, platform sandals and is ready to go. The Leonard woman as seen by Christine Phung has left everything to discover the landscape of Masai Mara, at the frontier of Kenya and Tanzania, a childhood dream of hers.
Clad in a cotton gabardine, a clay leather jumpsuit, a Saharienne in Klein blue, or a destructed suit, she feels both lonely and profoundly energized.
The sun has burned the earth, and mirages smile at her from afar. Bathed in the shadows of Acacias, she gazes at buffalos, zebras, rhinos and lions.
The aesthetic choc is followed by an identitary one. She meets women from the Masai region, and detects a radically different relation to ornamentation.
Every piece of jewelry is a sign of belonging and never fragility. These designs envelop her neck and ear lobes; they even inspire her to create an adornment in braided silk.
This questioning is reflected in the outfits, with gradually blurry silhouettes.
Dresses are asymmetrical, semi-pleated, adorned with the Leonard flower in tender, moiré pink.
Drapes are warmed up with embroided impressions of a setting sun evoking pointillism. Outfits are knotted, wrapped, interlaced.
This sense of duality will be her main souvenir: she has found both a desire of escapism expressed in her technical detailing of her wardrobe and a profound self-introspection, of her place and codes, symbolized in a soft blur that will never cease to shake her.
To celebrate Leonard’s sixtieth anniversary, seven «heritage» silhouettes inspired by the Maison’s archives will close the show.
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