Ludovic de Saint Sernin's silhouettes have inhabited the runways for nearly a decade: androgynous, sensual, and defiantly free. At the helm of his own brand since 2017, he was invited last year to design Jean Paul Gaultier’s Spring/Summer 2025 haute couture collection – a significant milestone in his seemingly unstoppable rise. As Paris Fashion Week hits its stride, the Parisian designer opens up his digital moodboard. From giants such as Robert Mapplethorpe and Wolfgang Tillmans to artists close to the designer like Lukas Heerich and Arca, his inspirations form a sensory and queer tableau — the reflection of a body of work that never stops pushing boundaries.

Robert Mapplethorpe, Tulip, 1984

‘Mapplethorpe’s photographs of flowers convey an extreme sense of tension, both physical and psychological, sexual and chaste. The tulip becomes an absolute phallic symbol.’

Jean Claracq, original artwork for the Ludovic de Saint Sernin Spring-Summer 2022 collection, Désir

‘Jean takes the male body and translates it onto canvas in the same way that I translate it into my designs. I see a very strong connection between our practices in the way we explore the male body, desire, intimacy, and vulnerability through a Queer gaze.’

Gus Van Sant, Elephant, 2003

‘Suspense. A sense of imminent threat. The film is about the beauty and fragility of youth. Familiar elements like school corridors, bodies, gestures, and gazes become unsettling, creating a space in which loneliness and violence coexist.’ 

Wolfgang Tillmans, Dan, 2008

‘In Tillmans’s work, I see above all an immense desire for human connection, a search for intimacy with others, and for a sense of belonging to a community. I am inspired by the way he depicts reality without embellishment, exactly as it is: sometimes raw, vulnerable, and even hostile, yet still incredibly beautiful, alive, and inspiring. Manifesting a portrait by Wolfgang one day.’

Lukas Heerich

‘My friend and collaborator Lukas works with ideas of power, vulnerability, protection, and isolation. He transforms industrial materials into something almost bodily and sensual, finding beauty within tension, anxiety, and even disaster. The installation I saw in Berlin emits sounds of catastrophe at different frequencies, creating a deeply unsettling feeling.’

Dimitris Papaioannou, INK, 2020

‘I saw the play INK and was fascinated by the way Papaioannou treats the human body as a material that can be concealed, fragmented, and reassembled, constantly altering our perception of its form. In his work, beauty does not emerge from perfection, but from vulnerability, effort, and a continuous process of becoming.’

Constantin Brâncuși

‘Brâncuși rejects anatomical accuracy and blurs the boundaries between masculine, feminine, and genderless. By reducing the body to its purest and most abstract form, he creates a beauty that exists beyond the binary. This freedom from the need to define the body through gender is very close to my own approach to clothing.’

James Turrell, House of Light, 2000, Tokamachi, Japan

‘I relate to Turrell’s idea of transformation through minimal intervention: sometimes simply changing the light, transparency, or what we choose to reveal and conceal is enough to completely change our perception of an object.’

Arca

‘For her performance The Light Comes in the Name of the Voice (2024), Arca wore a custom LDSS black mesh dress. Arca is a constant source of inspiration for me. She is free from fixed ideas of body and identity, constantly transforming herself without limits or constraints.’

Setouchi Retreat Aonagi, Matsuyama, Japan, designed by Tadao Ando

‘It was one of the most memorable hotel stays ever. The hotel is an artwork in itself, bringing together Ando’s architecture and an incredible collection of art. I love how art, architecture, nature, and light become one complete experience.’

The Noguchi Museum, New York City, USA

‘I feel particularly connected to the sensuality of Isamu Noguchi’s materials: stone can appear simultaneously rough and delicate, heavy and almost organic. I look for a similar duality in my own work.’

Tatiana Chalhoub, Coqueiro (noturna), 2026

‘I bought one of this wonderful artist’s works in May while I was in Rio. Sometimes you feel an inexplicable connection to a work of art. That evening, when I returned to my hotel and looked out of the window, I saw a landscape almost identical to the one depicted in the painting. It was a strange coincidence that somehow felt like a circle completing itself.’