SIGNATURES

CINEMATIC MAGNETISM

The fascination for main character personalities, visual storytelling and musical atmospheres, is inspiring Antoine to create fashion with an aura, magnetic silhouettes moving between darkness and light, leaving space for imagination. Each collection introduces a cast of sensual characters navigating the world looking for liberation, gaining confidence by experiencing life. It’s taking them to romanticized suspenseful places and cinematic landscapes synonyms of freedom and mystery.

Within the collections, the cinematic obsession translates into sultry lace sets and elegant suits with large lapels, tailored for Parisian’s nightlife. The seductive laid-back attitude of the unisex pieces branches into ethereal long dresses embellished with strings of baroque pearls and delicate draping. Fabrics are either flowing or skin-tight, playing with light captured by the velvet, or reflected by the silk satin and vinyl.

SYMBOLISM OF FREEDOM

The brand’s liberating narrative becomes clear, embodied by a collection of references to figures, places and cultures carrying the values of freedom. Horlaville draws from surfers, cowboys and mustang horses to convey that collective imagery of an alternative lifestyle immersed in nature. He also incorporates elements from underground club culture, internet culture, queer culture, esoterism and erotic arts which cultivate that difference in cities. Antoine is harnessing the symbols of freedom to create fashion that speaks and engage. Each collection is questioning the place of social standards of normality among genders, sex, and art expressions, and even discussing the thin line between freedom and pleasure.

These representations stand out in eye-catching details such as Hawaiian collars and surfer necklaces or contrasting western curves, quilted boots and hot stamped leather textured hangtags on clothes. Body art inspired embroideries and jewelry compliment fluid garments like the kilted pants, a brand’s staple. The sexually charged see-through fabrics and bodies trapped in silk lassos are an invitation to try new things. Echoing that idea of freedom, the brand is thought as a journey and collections as dreamed islands with their own ecosystems, part of an archipelago of memories, emotions and references. Lastly, Antoine Horlaville’s monogram is a flower-shaped chain link embroidered on clothes, carrying the same symbolism by appearing as a chain broken in two on the signature woven tag.

ORGANIC HYBRIDISM

Like the flowers he used to hybrid together in his garden, Horlaville’s third obsession is to design hybrids between man-made and nature-made elements. The beauty and sensuality found in organic shapes, textures and colors balances the rigor of tailoring, architecture or mechanics. Hybridization of ideas is a way of thinking, a creative principle that serves him as a guide, leading the brand to uncharted territories, by breeding fashion with art, music or anything else.

Natural freshwater pearls become a signature, by being frequently found in unusual places, used as buttons, in the back of a collar or knotted on dresses. They are punctuating garments throughout the collections and give them a unique character. The roses made of lace, vine looking strips of silk and jasmine-scented packaging are reminiscent of French romanticism and couture tradition. On top of that, by looking altered by natural element like they had a life before, the washed or burned fabrics remind us they’re all upcycled and can be transformed through craft.