At Patou, Guillaume Henry has been taking a bit of a cavalier attitude towards spring—almost literally. “I really wanted to have this fantasy in mind,” he said. “She could be a musketeer, she could be a princess; she’s the hero of her own life. She’s not necessarily the girl waiting for her prince to come.”

With the relaunch of Patou, Henry has managed to strike an ingeniously playful balance between exaggerated couture-heritage volumes and clothes that are a) self-adaptable b) affordable and c) resourced with a care for curbing their environmental impacts. That’s catnip for Gen-Z audiences—along with this season’s pie-frill collars, organic lace-trimmed swashbuckling sleeves, pouf-y bubble-shorts and Instagram and TikTok- friendly PATOU logo branding on bucket hats, bags and sweatshirts.

Prints this season were sourced from the archives of the great French artist-illustrators Christian Bérard and Gustave Moreau. Keeping an haute flag flying for French fashion while making a wardrobe that girls can wear on the street, for work, at parties, or wherever they fancy is Henry’s thing. Bravo to that.