Fashion designer Louis Gabriel Nouchi talks Alien inspiration and collaborating with OnlyFans (EXCLUSIVE)

Queer desire has been the backbone of the LGN universe since Louis Gabriel Nouchi founded his Paris-based label in 2017. From the rigour of his sharp suiting to the sensual charge of his sportswear, sex runs through every thread of his collections.

Yet rather than overt, clichéd eroticism, Nouchi’s approach is defined by a nuanced exploration of masculinity, embracing both gender fluidity and size inclusivity. Informed by his life as a gay man, his shows do more than titillate the imagination – they interrogate power, vulnerability and intimacy. 

This approach has positioned Nouchi as one of today’s most compelling menswear designers in Paris. After sharpening his shears as part of the team at revered Belgian fashion designer Raf Simons, he decided to shape a brand that, as he explains, “doesn’t put me in a box”.

Industry-wide recognition swiftly followed. In 2014, he received both the Camper and Palais de Tokyo awards at the esteemed Hyères Festival. Then, in 2023, he was awarded the prestigious ANDAM Grand Prize. In recognition of his contribution to design, he leads the Fashion, Art & Design category of Attitude 101, empowered by Bentley.

With inspirations that span literature and cinema, his collections have recontextualised the patriarchal protagonists of Bret Easton Ellis’s American Psycho and Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner. This season he looked to another Scott sci-fi masterpiece: 1979’s Alien.  

“I really liked the themes around sex, and the fear around sex,” Nouchi tells me ahead of his Autumn/Winter 2026 Paris Fashion Week show. “[H.R.] Giger created a creature that symbolises that fear.” 

To bring the Swiss artist’s profoundly atmospheric world (and nightmare-inducing Xenomorph) to life, Nouchi transformed the runway into a misty minefield of sculptural silhouettes and tantalising textures — capturing the uneasy intersection of seduction and the terror it can provoke. “I wanted to create an atmosphere and a mood,” he explains, with dramatic lighting slicing through clouds of mist to heighten the sense of tension.  

Tacit references to Alien are interwoven throughout the collection, balancing inspiration with originality. “It’s a fine line for us not to make something costume or too literal with the license,” explains Nouchi. Body-clinging sportswear is strategically draped, evoking the visceral violence of the film’s chestbursters, while this season he collaborated with French furrier Yves Salomon on shearling trims, nodding to themes of survival. Braided hairpieces by creative maverick Charlie Le Mindu recalled the movie’s facehuggers, completing a look that fuses the grotesque and sartorial craftsmanship. 

Ever-present was the brand’s signature silhouette: the 1980s-inspired power suit with shoulder pads and a sharply nipped-in waist. The domineering proportions echo the authority of the boardroom and the Herculean physiques of comic-book heroes like Bruce Wayne.  

Underscoring the masculine’s relationship to power are the kink elements that run throughout Nouchi’s universe. Leather and latex dominate the collection, used with inventive precision. The slick sheen of latex trousers tempts with dangerous allure, while embossed veins on leather belts evoke H.R. Giger’s biomechanical creatures and carnal virility. The result is a world where horror and eroticism provocatively converge. In space, no one can hear you scream, so you better have a safe word. 

This tension between control and surrender extends to the styling: masks draped across models’ faces hint at anonymity and punctuate the collection’s exploration of powerplay. “Old fetishists in gimp suits always fascinated me,” admits Nouchi, framing kink as an intellectual pursuit that exists well beyond the gratification of a climactic finish. “It’s about restraint. You have less control,” he explains, positioning eroticism as a meditation on power and vulnerability.   

Like many within the queer community, these reflections on sexuality and unapologetic pleasure are rooted in the œuvre of artistic pioneers who shaped queer aesthetics. “We grew up with illustrations from Tom of Finland. You have a lot of archetypes and all the specifics that signify who you are and can be – which boots you wear, which colour you wear,” he explains, emphasising the history of visual cues defining queer identity.  

Of course, the collection is not simply a historical homage to 1970s cinema or queer aesthetics. In exploring  Alien’s themes of societal anxieties around sex, Nouchi frames his approach within the context of today’s conversations, most notably through a collaboration with OnlyFans. “Its private, intimate nature offers total creative freedom to explore fantasy, sensuality, fetish and the body – beyond the arbitrary limits and censorship of social media,” he explained after the show. 

Read the full interview in the Attitude March/April 2026 issue, available on digital platforms and in print now. See here for the full Attitude 101 2026 list.