Today, Porte styles himself Simon Porte Jacquemus: a hybrid of man and brand and, conveniently, in French, a promotional pun (“Simon Wears Jacquemus”). And he doeswear his wares, not just on runways and red carpets but across the glamorous-seeming daily rhythms of his life. People feel they know him from his 300,000-follower personal Instagram feed (to say nothing of the brand’s much larger but also intimate-seeming account), which functions as one part personal diary, one part global marketing platform, and four parts window display for, as he puts it, “the Jacquemus world.” “The models, the photographers, everything we work with can be very elevated,” Marco Maestri, his husband, a viral marketer who does consulting for the brand, says. “But everyone can feel part of the Jacquemus story.” Designers traditionally present themselves in public as preening demigods or fussy, difficult eccentrics, but neither is the vibe that Porte Jacquemus gives off. …
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