On the day after the show, I took a little trip with JayJay and his husband Rich to the YSL showroom where we met up with the benevolent Guilhem, browsed through the beautiful collection and drank mimosa.

words & images ©Maxime Büchi

One thing I like about post-Slimane menswear is its firm step into the realm of “urban” (read: “hip hop”, but if I wrote “Hip Hop”, you’d hear 15 designers in denial go “Not at all, this is actually totally rockn roll!”) silhouette. Kris van Assches’s S/S 2010 collection was most certainly my favourite of all his collections so far. Rehearsing his traditional vocabulary, he nonetheless showed here a unprecedented variety in the shapes and ease in their harmonization. A real maturity that made his eponymous company look nothing less credible than a certain big house van Assche also directs. OK, it is a bit tiré par les cheveux to call this urban, but something’s there…

words & images ©Maxime Büchi

Not only did Thom Browne fulfill my wildest desires for delirious theatrics, but he also presented an amazingly chic and creative collection. The décor reminded of both a Thomas Demand photograph and a Matthew Barney movie. A highlight.

words & images ©Maxime Büchi

Fluro industrial workwear chaos at the Bernhard Willhelm presentation during Tranoi on Saturday. Foam roadworks followed by rainbow smoke flares, and a hyper-real mix of athletic club gear and ethnic-inspired sportswear. Can’t think of another designer that could pull this off. The fanboys were loving it. Photo by Volker Ketteniss.

The Boris show was beautiful, Jayjay’s casting was on point and the location was impressive, but since I stupidly forgot to buy an adapter for my camera’s charger, I had to shoot the actual show with a film camera. While I wait for the pictures to come back from the lab, here are a few ambiance images I managed to get before I powerlessly witnessed its temporary death. You will find here some close-ups of Boris’ latest experimentation on transparent leather. Somewhere between wow and yuk, you know? I also made a portrait of Boris and one of Jayjay.

words & images ©Maxime Büchi

Please meet my friend Issa. I bumped into him outside the Maison Martin Margiela presentation. And when he’s not modeling for renowned Belgian designers (or what’s left of his house)—also work as a tattoo artists at the infamous TinTin Tattoo, Paris!

words & images ©Maxime Büchi

No need for much introduction to this acclaimed collection. Apologies for the blurry images, it was the first show I attended to and I was just learning to use my newly acquired Canon Mark II… It got better in the next days as I realized that even at 2500 iso, noise is totally OK for digital use, allowing me to shoot at less than 1/200. Anyway, the collection was rightfully saluted as a highlight of this season, with references to religious outfits.

words & images ©Maxime Büchi