Originally Published: 27 JUN 23 09:05 ET

Updated: 27 JUN 23 11:24 ET

By Dan Thawley

Versaillles (CNN) — “You can’t just rent Versailles, you start a relationship,” said Simon Porte Jacquemus who yesterday joined the rarefied club of fashion designers to have presented a collection on the grounds of the historic French palace near Paris.

Entitled “Le Chouchou,” the outing was the result of a year-long negotiation to achieve Jacquemus’ dream scenario: attendees watched the parade of autumn looks from a flotilla of cream and white row boats straight out of a painterly masterpiece.

The effect was bucolic, a far cry from the be-wigged coquetry that Karl Lagerfeld (Jacquemus’ favourite designer) affected when he paraded Chanel’s Cruise 2012 collection around the palace’s nearby fountains.

With King Louis XIV’s gilded chateau a mere detail in the background (and not even visible in the Jacquemus’ runway imagery), today’s show was a very different take on Versailles, seen through the lens of a youthful outsider. And fittingly, the collection was not an ode not to the chateau’s most infamous inhabitant, Marie “Let Them Eat Cake” Antoinette, but to a people’s princess from across the channel, the late Princess Diana.

As the designer explained after the show, “chouchou” has multiple meanings. It can signify a favourite pet or student, translate as “darling,” or denote the humble hair scrunchie. He had the latter on his mind when building this collection, teeming with references to Diana’s wardrobe choices, from her taffeta puffball cocktail dresses to pearl chokers and her white lace wedding dress.

Throw in a nod to Jacques Demy’s 1970 absurdist movie interpretation of the 17th-century fairy tale “Peau d’Ane,” (translation: Donkey Skin) featuring French actor Catherine Deneuve and you can begin to unpack the layered references that led to this collection of predominantly eveningwear.

From padded lace knickerbockers and pannier skirts to ruched peplums on men and women alike, Simon’s approach was to strip heavy period references back to their underpinnings before mingling them with barely-there tops and touches of formal tailoring, signatures of the label’s recent push towards more elevated occasionwear.

The backless blazer the designer wore to this year’s Met Gala celebrating Karl Lagerfeld appeared with a vermillion peplum over black suit trousers, an effect the designer attempted with various degrees of exaggeration, at times appearing as parachute-like boxer shorts mushrooming from trousers below.

Bubble volumes continued in more extreme silhouettes too, from a shapely trio of portrait collar coats to a strapless sphere of floral silver sequins that risked stealing the thunder from a finale of sweeping confections in the French tricolore. In the graphic polka dots and stripes that furthered the collection’s 80s attitude, there were whiffs of Emanuel Ungaro and Yves Saint Laurent — who both made history at the palace at the famed Battle of Versailles fashion show in 1973, which pitted American and French fashion designers against each other to fundraise for palace renovations.

Fifty years on, Simon Porte Jacquemus’ only real adversary is the boundlessness of his imagination. Where might the designer’s Diana be wearing her Jacquemus finery if not dancing the night away in Versailles?