It was late last Thursday night in Paris. In the light icy sleet, I tap the cobblestones on a battered Lime bike, a little late, to meet Colm Dillane. You can only park your e-rides in designated spots in this town, so I head to the location closest to the dilapidated house that’s been taken over by AirBnb as KidSuper’s fitting studio before Saturday night’s show. As I approach, a vaguely suspicious figure is also trying to park his bike, looking at his phone. With a hoodie under a puffer and pants with a pattern of handwritten letters that I suddenly recognize, I see that it’s Dillane.
“And you bike! And you’re late too, he says. I can’t imagine many designers who took a bow hours earlier on one of the menswear catwalks – in Dillane’s case Louis Vuitton, where he was “embedded” during the season to design with the LV team – who would be happy to use this mode of transportation . Of the pants—the product of an exercise in which Dillane asked the 70-person LV menswear design studio to write love letters, which were then turned into clothes—he says, “Yes, they are from today. I stole them! I don’t know if I should return them.”
We go to the house, which is run down and packed with Dillane’s KidSuper team and a bunch of friends. He says they all share another Airbnb as a dump, and three to the bed. Dillane has just come from a Vuitton drinks event and is still raving about his collection and cameo show – which featured many other cameos – for the house. “Rosalia — wow! That performance.. And of course Michel [Gondry] shaped the video and the scenography, there was Ib and the studio: I just tried to add my two cents.”
Tonight, Saturday, Dillane will present his second show in three days. KidSuper takes place at the Casino de Paris, and just like last season’s fantastic auction show, Dillane is determined to keep his catwalks different. This season, the format has already been revealed as a stand-up comedy show. Here tonight, “Roastmaster General” Jeff Ross hangs out and grooms as he formulates comedic exorcisms to set fire to fashion. Typical of KidSuper’s open-door policy, the show will be packed with collaborations—a new shoe line with Stuart Weitzman and a jewelry release with Vuitton’s own watch and jewelry line, Pauer, by Francesca Amfitheatrof. In an email, he says, “It’s about creating jewelry out of art. Using Colm’s original artwork for KidSuper, the pieces hang like paintings from nails… Limited edition pendants, brooches and earrings designed to be collectable.”