Once again, Simon Porte Jacquemus serves us a lukewarm Provençal soup, this time simmered at the Orangerie of Versailles because the rural fantasy must coexist with the gilt of the monarchy. On one side, aprons, petticoats, and cuffed collars; on the other, Matthew McConaughey and Gillian Anderson in the audience: the great divide between the farm and the red carpet, expertly orchestrated for the shedding of couture blood.

Jacquemus isn’t presenting a collection; he’s endlessly reenacting an autobiographical tale that has become a cliché: the country boy who becomes the prince of hype. A rural mythology that he recycles “ad nauseam” (obsessively and repetitively) each season, as if we must constantly remind ourselves that he is “a country boy.” We get it. And with the curtains transformed into skirts for his mother, the storytelling continues, but do you really have to wear a shawl collar in 2026 to pay homage to Mamie Claire and her vegetable baskets?

This show, supposedly “upmarket,” smacks of mimicry, with amplified silhouettes, geometric volumes without a sense of design, but above all, without rigor or new vision. This isn’t fashion, it’s nostalgic scenography, illustrating a memory.

And still this staging of this little blond boy opening the door, the living embodiment of a childhood dream… It’s like a TikTok version of a Lacoste ad. Because Jacquemus is, above all, a king of content before couture, a master of the Instagrammable image, the melancholic teaser to make influencers cry.

Its summery sensuality is a formula and becomes the aftertaste of a brand that no longer knows how to reinvent itself. Open backs, muslins, flowing dresses: so many clichés slipped between two starched linen jokes. Local culture sells, especially when it’s well lit by the glass roofs of Versailles.

So what remains of this collection? A pre-prepared emotion. An over-stylized nostalgia. And the impression that Jacquemus, by brandishing his past like a coat of arms, forgets to invent the future. Folklore is charming; but by dint of revisiting it every season, we end up wearing it like a uniform.

FM