Despite being a Spring/Summer collection, Enfant Riches Déprimés latest season is oozing with fall ominosity. Calling on bones, teeth, Phil Spector worship, and generally eerie-feeling religious symbolism for inspiration, the collection sets a tone that is as haunting as it is blasé-chic. The new look book and accompanying video (titled DESOLATE THEN and directed by the brand’s designer, Henri Alexander Levy) feels illustrative of a generation that, after witnessing a devastating pandemic, a surge in socio-economic strife, and whatever other 2020 causes for unrest you want to consider, has truly seen it all. At the very least, jaded looks really good this time around.

V spoke with Levy about his latest work. Check out the conversation, along with images from the new collection, below.

This collection pulls together a really wide variety of inspiration. How do you make so many different things mesh well together? Do you feel that certain inspirations are more prominent than others?

I think so. I was reading Cocteau and exploring funeral wreath and dental catalogs. I pull from different places and arrange them in my own space so that they take on a new life.

 Similar to the above, if you’re a curious person, it’s easy to be inspired by lots of things at once. How do you decide what you want to incorporate into a current collection or project, and what might be better suited for something you’ll do in the future?

I lay things out on a wall. My drawings, graphics, fabrics, etc. I need to look at everything together to see that it’s cohesive. Every season a few things don’t work out. Maybe they are meant for something else and I pocket it for later.

I can see it when things become too graphic, or they take the story somewhere it doesn’t need to go. Critique and restraint are as important as creativity.

How has the pandemic affected your creative process or even the manufacturing process?

I have been socially distancing my whole life, not much has changed for me.

Can you describe an example (or two) of the type of person you think this collection will resonate with?

Someone who appreciates the aesthetic. Maybe an art student in Düsseldorf.