Drew Henry Is Breaking Out and Tearing Up at Courrèges

Drew Henry’s Spring/Summer 2027 collection, his debut, was a “breaking out of the white box,” he said, filled with looks that diverged wildly from both one another’s and what we stereotype Courrèges to be

There’s a perception of Courrèges as an icy, intractable house – much as the founder, André (definitively Monsieur Courrèges to us) is still seen as a high fashion space age savant in perpetual Persil white and Mr Maggoo bug-eye glasses. So a T-shirt jauntily printed with ‘Bonjour’ seems very un-Courrèges, bar of course its innate Frenchness. But Drew Henry, the house’s new creative director – ex of Phoebe Philo and Burberry, among others – found them in the archive and in imagery, as well as light-hearted touches like a lady model unfurling a handkerchief, say, printed with the word ‘Fin’. “It’s a bit of sweetness,” Henry said. And indeed, it’s representative of his wholly light-hearted take on Courrèges, which syncs with a light-hearted mood evident in the season as a whole – light hearts, light fabrics, light touches.

Two days before his Spring/Summer 2027 Courrèges debut, Henry was atop the surgically pristine tower of Courrèges, in the mirrored creative office formerly occupied by the late founder and his wilful wife and creative co-conspirator, Coqueline. Incidentally, it isn’t Courrèges but rather she who is the ‘C’ in the amoebic house monogram, emblematising their creative synergy. Henry asserts that you can sense a female hand in the creations in Courrèges archives – in the freedom, the movement and especially the house’s trousers, all part of that radical 1960s spirit which Courrèges still represents.

But 2026 is not 1966. “Breaking out of the white box” was a stated aim by Henry – said as a model walked past in tight navy stirrup trousers, a tucked pale blue shirt, with fuzzy high-heeled loafers. His running order was filled with looks that diverged wildly from both one another and what we stereotype Courrèges to be. “Leather, tailoring, sports, denim,” said Henry, rattling through. Each was given a Courrèges-ification, like the aforementioned denim cut into tight, controlled little Mod jackets with upturned collars and clever seams, or sportswear in that optic white. The looks that felt most like the house, meanwhile, were chewed up, loosened up, maybe even a little mangled. They looked like they’d lived. “I didn’t want this to be a singular person,” said Henry. “It has to be human.”

It also, of course, has to read as Courrèges. “I did all the research, I did all the homework,” he said, laughing. And indeed, there were archive deep-dives – the hats in the show were actually archive pieces, created by Jean Barthet and drawn from the early years of the house. Courrèges, never forget, was a favoured assistant of Cristóbal Balenciaga – he provided seed money to found the house. And before he set off as leader in fashion’s space race, Courrèges was cod-Cristóbal, frankly, those wild hats topping semi-fitted suits with skirts that gradually crept up from calf to thigh. Some more recognisable Courrèges codes were mixed into this show – battered versions of the square-toed, bow-topped go-go boots (inspired by originals, which had been painted by hand way back when and begun, inevitably, to flake) as well as striped boxy gabardine jackets and cutesy vinyl mini-dresses, today worn by guys. Tweedy coats, their sleeves ripped out and hems left raw. 

If he was breaking out of the box, Henry was also tearing the house apart – it’s an interesting approach to a label that has always been overly defined by a narrow past and even narrower aesthetic. Even the classic Courrèges vinyl jacket was ripped up and patched together, to form a folded and draped messenger bag. That had an instant and resonant desirability, an easy takeaway from a debut that used the past to show the way to something new. Next to last, there was a T-shirt that said ‘au revoir’. Hopefully, more à bientôt.