Blackpink’s Jennie makes her runway debut at Jacquemus show
(CNN) — Black shades and a red towel were all Blackpink’s Jennie Kim needed to look chic ahead of the Jacquemus show in Capri, Italy.
Channeling Brigitte Bardot in Jean Luc Godard’s 1963 French New Wave film “Le Mépris” (“Contempt”), the K-pop star was featured in a series of vignettes posted by the brand on Instagram a day ahead of the catwalk. She was pictured in a towel lying across terracotta tiles, walking bare-shouldered along the rugged Capri coastline, and gazing out at the water at Casa Malaparte where the movie was filmed. And just as Bardot was to Godard, Jennie was designer Simon Porte Jacquemus’s star on the runway on Monday.
In her surprise runway debut, the 28-year-old closed the show of minimalist form and colorful threads in a backless halter dress, paired with a turquoise shoulder bag and zebra-print heels. The move added to her already significant list of accomplishments as a singer, rapper, and recent foray into acting, and her role as a brand ambassador for Chanel.
In recent years, Korean pop stars have become the darlings of the fashion world, drawing in crowds as the obsession with Korean pop culture becomes a global phenomenon. Given their lucrative appeal, more and more luxury fashion houses have signed deals with leading celebrities. Fans waiting outside venues have become a fixture as they look to get a glimpse of the K-pop celebrities attending fashion shows.
Of course, fans would have had a difficult time getting to this runway location. Casa Malaparte, a house commissioned by eccentric Italian writer Curzio Malaparte is built on a cliff overlooking the Gulf of Salerno and can only be accessed by foot or by boat.
The house and Godard’s “Le Mépris” captivated the designer when he launched his label 15 years ago, and the show “marks a full-circle moment,” said the brand in a press release.
The models made their way up and down a staircase that makes up part of the roof of the house in ensembles Jacquemus described as architectural shapes emerging “with absolute lightness and sensuality,” “cascading, peeling back, curving low down the sides of the body or revealing through sheer mousseline like a layer of water.”
“I decided to create my brand after watching ‘Le Mépris’ from Jean-Luc Godard, being inspired by the beauty and modernity of his vision,” the designer wrote on Instagram.
Jacquemus is known for scenic runways. In June last year, he presented an eveningwear collection at Versailles inspired by Princess Diana and Jacques Demy’s 1970 absurdist film adaptation of the 17th-century fairy tale “Peau d’Ane,” (“Donkey Skin”), while for his 10th anniversary show he ventured into Provence’s lavender fields.
The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2024 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
