The Paris Runway Just Saw Gabriel From Emily In Paris Acting American Psycho

It's now commonly acknowledged that Emily in Paris is the television version of a total lobotomy. Yet, as we turn on, tune in, and tune out to Emily's antics in the City of Light throughout the last three seasons of the Netflix monstrosity, uh, I mean sitcom, it has pulled a number of us into its sticky, sugary grips. 

Louis-Gabriel Nouchi, who asked Emily's sous chef beau Gabriel to take off his whites and step into his AW23 collection at Paris Fashion Week, has been one person who has reportedly been glued to his screen throughout the show.

In a severe floor-length cloak, Lucas Bravo strutted down the runway with Stefano Gianino, who is portrayed as the mafioso Jennifer Coolidge slept with in White Lotus. Nouchi drew inspiration from Bret Easton Ellis's cult novel American Psycho, and the actor looked like Patrick Bateman from PFW. The crazy expression in his eyes as he moved suggested he may have visited one of Emily's Instagram accounts or dared to listen to her blather on for however long about Champére, leeks, or Zoom kitten filters.

Slick, crisp tailoring in a subdued palette of black and navy rubbed up against ripped gowns in bleeding shades of red as the collection was seen on the up-and-coming designer's typically eclectic cast. Before a last round of striking looks closed, boxy trench coats with bolshy, 80s-inspired power shoulders were put over "banker blue" suits. Boxy, see-through tees in unsettling, skin-like tones were paired with loose slacks or worn in other ways layered under button-down car jackets, emulating the splash-proof coat Bateman wears to hack rival Paul Allen to death to the music of Huey Lewis & The News.

However, despite appearances, these were not latex. Instead, Nouchi collaborated with the innovative business that created Bottega Veneta's "denim" leather, using semi-diaphanous hides to create his designs. It felt like Nouchi had genuinely used human skin when you touched them backstage. Conversation after the show focused on the highly graphic violence satirized by Easton-Ellis, who also had models carrying axe and chainsaw "handbags" made from the same materials used throughout the collection. He said the corrosive pursuit of perfection underlies Bateman's violent tendencies in Nouchi's mind.

As with all his collections, he explained, "it's about destroying toxic masculinity." "He had to have the ideal life and body, and he was obsessed with murdering. He detested women, gays, and everyone with different bodies. And that is the exact opposite of what we do. So while Bateman's preferred weapons were softened and rendered ineffective in the manner in which they had been cocooned in drapey fabric, in Nouchi's hands, the cellophane he used to wrap up his victims was transformed into soft and seductive gloves.

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