Simon Porte Jacquemus has described himself as “happy, excited, impatient,” and all of those qualities are present in his playful clothes and envelope-pushing presentations. Charm is a quality often attributed to this largely self-educated designer, who moved from Salon-de-Provence in southern France to Paris at age 18. There he enrolled at ESMOD, but with the sudden death of his mother months later, he left school and worked briefly for Citizen K. He launched Jacquemus at 19, developing the label while simultaneously working retail at a Comme des Garçons boutique. He was nominated for the LVMH Prize twice, picking up a special jury award of 150,000 euros and a mentorship for one year in 2015.

Jacquemus’s aim is to create his own universe, and he likes to say “I don’t do clothes; I do stories.” Though these tales are about women, women like Caroline de Maigret (who appeared in one of his lookbooks after he contacted her on Facebook), they are also, ultimately, about the designer, who cuts and drapes on himself, and his sun-kissed and free childhood. “We know me,” he told journalist Emma Hope Allwood, “for my smile and my sunshine and my [love of the] seaside.”