Paris Ateliers to London Streets: The Fashion of La Haine

The film's style and substance has acted as one big symbiotic beast.

la haine

The style and substance of La Haine has acted as one symbiotic beast. It is one of those few pieces of cinema that can say it has an eternal impact on both the ateliers of Paris and the streets of London.

La Haine, Mathieu Kassovitz’s fiery debut tale of economic devastation, abuse of power and youthful nihilistic rage feels as much here and now as it does there and then. 

The film follows three young men all from immigrant families: the Jewish and raging Vinz, the contemplative black boxer Hubert, and the bridge between the two: the Algerian Said, who navigate the perils of their housing project over the space of one day. 

It’s a film that is hyper-specific in terms of its time and place, unmistakably set in the mid-nineties in the Parisian banlieues in the aftermath of a riot, yet could just as easily have come out yesterday. Not just thematically, because race and class struggle in modern society are endlessly relevant but because society has either remained unchanged (the opening shots of cops in riot gear elicit memories of the civil unrest following the killing of George Floyd) or come around circular in the quarter century since La Haine’s release.

A crucial part of why La Haine continues to resonate across the globe is in its approach to fashion. The streetwear fits of Vinz, Said and Hubert can now be found on the Parisian haute couture runways. Even the haughty Louis Vuitton has fallen to the streetwear trend – you can now spend thousands to dress as if you were poor. 

The time of La Haine is the time of the thriving French hardcore hip-hop scene that can be heard on the soundtrack. A scene thoroughly indebted to its American counterpart, both in terms of the hard beats emblematic of prominent mid-nineties producers like RZA and DJ Premier, but also its style. This is the time of loose-fitting heavily branded sportswear, working class labourer workwear – think Timberland boots and Carhartt coats.

Throughout the film, you will see brand names you walk past every day – Lacoste, Nike, Fila, Lonsdale, Reebok, Carhartt – staples of an inner city wardrobe. Clothes that are simultaneously stylish, revealing of status and practical for a life on the road. The pockets of a coat need to be big enough to carry a bag of weed but also make you look the bollocks. The shoes need to be comfy enough to spend a day on your feet but light enough that you can shift if the police or a rival gang come calling. The accessories? The chains, the watches, the rings – they’re just for braggadocio.

Designers right at the top of the haute couture world down to the fast-fashion scions have been replicating the styles seen on 90s streets 

The clothes the characters wear represent who they are. The skinheads are authentically adorned in Lonsdale sportswear, Said is head to toe in Lacoste and Sergio Tacchini (a brand that lived and died in the nineties), Hubert the boxer dons Everlast, the iconic sports brand and Vinz is all about the Nike windbreaker. They’re the clothes of the working class young man.

Even the cops are dressed in a way that would make a designer in 2021 swoon. One wears a Notre Dame University letterman jacket with bold typeface on the back reminiscent of a style sold everywhere from Primark to Gucci stores along the Champs-Elysee and shows the way how fashion starts authentically on the street as a matter of personal taste, practicality and economic concern before being hoovered up and resold by the elite fashion brands. Indeed, the lettering on that very jacket worn by the thuggish police officer has been used by Raf Simons and Virgil Abloh.

The aesthetic of nineties hip-hop fashion is very much back in vogue. Everything is now oversized – from the t-shirts that sag down to the upper thigh to bulky down-filled coats that were previously only for mountaineering hobbyists but are now a roadman staple.

Designers right at the top of the haute couture world down right down to the fast-fashion scions have been replicating the styles seen on nineties streets. 

Abloh, who as well as being the founder of luxury streetwear label Off-White has been the creative director of menswear at Louis Vuitton since 2018 signalling a major shift in the land of high fashion in an attempt to capitalise on the high-end streetwear trend with brands such as Supreme, BAPE and Comme des Garcons becoming some of the most influential names in fashion over the previous decade. 

The Russian designer Gosha Rubchinskiy (who has collaborated with Adidas, Burberry and Levi’s) has based the entirety of the aesthetic of his eponymous label around concrete tenement building Brutalist iconography. His clothes, with their oversized fits, garish logo prints and open references to nineties brands such as Fila and Sergio Tacchini would look more than comfortable placed on the backs of characters in La Haine.

Nike, Adidas and Reebok have also gone ‘retro’ in recent years to capitalise on the nostalgia trend re-releasing many of their silhouettes from the era. Carhartt, in tribute to the use of their clothing in the film and La Haine’s 25th anniversary, released a collection paying homage to the film last year. The children born in the mid-to-late nineties are now dressing like their parents.

The resonance of La Haine is so striking because of its authenticity. The three leads were all unknown in 1995 and the film was shot within the Parisian communes in which La Haine is mostly set. Kassovitz took inspiration for the story from the police murders of Makome M’Bowole and Malik Oussekine and having taken part in riots himself, the film pulsates with realism and is a blistering shot at the world – just like Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing six years earlier.

You watch La Haine and you feel the scorched bones of the burnt out cars, you smell the sweet fumes of weed twirling into the sky and you hear the merciless thump of police batons over the throbbing bass of the rapid fire bars of hardcore hip-hop. Mathieu Kassovitz, in an interview with Complex, called the idea of streetwear “bullshit” implying it is anti-culture and performative, inauthentic posing that is the antithesis of authentic style.

Virginie Montel is the woman behind the clothes in the film. An acclaimed costume designer who later worked on A Prophet, Mesrine and Rust and Bone, she liaised with brands and customised the original designs to make them fit Kassovitz’s vision. The main trio all wear Reebok trainers (Vinz also has Vans and Nike shoeboxes in his room) provided by the sportswear giant.

Said’s iconic Sergio Tacchini tracksuit was crafted by Montel because the original colour scheme of the outfit did not look great in black and white photography. For the contrasts to look correct under a certain light it was stitched in with a shiny gold material.

Despite Kassovitz’s contempt for the corporatization of clothing, fashion can be a force, especially for those with limited means of expression. 

It can create a sort of unity or allegiance that is a more accessible language than oratory or the written word. And just as rich fashion brands can appropriate street style for profit, individuals can take these products and boldly put their own statements on them or use them for a purpose other than intended – think using your £150 Air Jordans to play football in the mud.

The lives presented in La Haine aren’t ‘cool’ or enviable. Vinz, Hubert and Said are young men, damaged and bruised, strangled by the social strata and living without hope, their anger articulated by rage and violence. Yet La Haine has developed a reputation as a cool film. 

For as well as the stylish monochrome cinematography, it is because of how the characters dress.

There’s no denying that the legacy and influence of the film is because of its depiction of political strife and devastated relationships between poor, immigrant communities and the police but it is important to note that part of the lasting impact of La Haine is down to the bold flare of the fashion on display. 

The style and substance of the film act as one symbiotic beast. It is one of those few pieces of cinema that can say it has an eternal impact on both the ateliers of Paris and the roadmen of London.


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