For the Isabel Marant Pre-Fall 2020 collection, looks attained the ideal balance of sophistication and comfort with less dependence on surface detail and more emphasis on monochromatic directness.

Knits with statement shoulders; soft top layers that could be thrown over anything; flattering cropped, high-waisted jeans; and shapely yet unstructured dresses would all be appreciated as wardrobe updates.

“In pre-collections, there can be a lot of layering, but here, I wanted to be very pure,” she confirmed. Compare the black leather quilted vest-shirt-trouser combination at the very end to her days of Parisian-inflected American tropes and it’s actually astounding the degree to which her vision has evolved.

As an authority on je ne sais pas, Marant is never quite able to pinpoint how she arrives at the minutiae of these decisions, but she was able to weigh in on the collection’s tight edit. “The idea is real clothes that you want to keep—beautiful architectures that give style without being complicated.”