What comes to mind when one thinks of Chanel? There was plenty of that house’s signature tweed suiting on show on the final day of Paris Fashion Week yesterday, plenty of gold chains and quilted bags. Yet the sartorial language created by Coco Chanel was not only about that variety of smartness.
The brand, launched in 1913 in the Normandy resort of Deauville, represented a radical new form of relaxedness. It was this that informed Virginie Viard’s latest collection: Chanel’s creative director said her line-up for spring/summer was “an ode to liberty and to movement”.
Tweed had been cut into trapeze tunic dresses. Knitwear included a marinière, a gold-striped cardigan and jumpsuit. The awayday feel was underscored by patchworks and a floral print with a pop art feel. Tailoring was rendered off-kilter by stepped hemlines and there were airy chiffon frocks and separates. Coco Chanel made sun-worshipping chic, so the maillot featured.
Miu Miu referenced beach life too, pairing navy blazers and polo shirts with board shorts and sandals. There was a retool of last year’s micro mini, but frilly with a tie-waist. There were more odd couplings: gold brocade with a striped tee, suede with jewels. It all worked brilliantly. There were more models in spectacles: myopia is next season’s must-have.
Yesterday, on the penultimate day of fashion month, the biggest luxury brand in the world unveiled its latest collection (Anna Murphy writes). Louis Vuitton’s chosen locale said much about the contradictions at the heart of 21st-century luxury. The humongous edifice was right next door to its equally vast flagship store on Avenue des Champs-Élysées, one of the flashiest shopping streets in Paris. However, its interior was not only semi-derelict in appearance, but wrapped in orange plastic sheeting that, on the British front row at least, called to mind a Sainsbury’s shopping bag.
Luxury used to be about polish. Now it’s at least as much about cool. How to deliver on both? Nicolas Ghesquière, Vuitton’s creative director, has another contradiction to navigate. He may be tasked with presenting a collection of clothes and accessories, but it’s the handbags that make his brand its money. He played his signature double-hander, juxtaposing clothes that were mainly too theatrical for the real world with bags that, in contrast, were just the right degree of attention-grabbing.
His sartorial language was part 1980s power dressing, part principal boy, his strong-shouldered jackets blinged up with statement buttons and chains. Other looks juxtaposed two contrasting halves, whether that was the bustiers stacked on top of striped pyjama-style pants, or the blouson jackets paired with floaty double skirts.
But let’s get to the bags. There was nothing difficult about the dinky monogram cube bag, or a tote at once structured and slouchy. Both were bestsellers in waiting.
Stella McCartney held her show in a market square south of the Seine. She had set up her stall both literally and metaphorically. A range of kiosks highlighted environmentally aware approaches to consumerism, from the future-facing (packaging made out of mushrooms) to the retro (vintage McCartney pieces).
Her new designs reinvented the evening suit, retooling tailcoats, waistcoats and cummerbunds to look — that word again — cool. There was even a “Wings” T-shirt on show. Further proof, with the save-the-planet proselytising, that McCartney remains her mother’s daughter.
When a designer heads up a fashion house with a history they have to navigate its past as well as plot its present and future. At the Valentino show in Paris on Sunday, Pierpaolo Piccioli riffed on “Valentino red”, a colour that dates back to the first collection by the brand’s founder, Valentino Garavani, in 1959 (Anna Murphy writes).
Piccioli’s scarlet ladies came clad on the one hand in deceptively plain T-shirt dresses, long and short, and, on the other, in more operatic concoctions such as a coat jigsawed out of leather orchids or a La Fenice-ready gown with floor-sweeper sleeves and stomach reveal.
That same duality between the stealth and the showy was rendered elsewhere in crisp whites and deep blue denims, the two memorably coming together in one ensemble that comprised a Escher-like cape of tessellating birds worn over jeans. In another, it was the jeans that were the focus, origami-ed into more 3D orchids, the top half a simple white tee.
Here was fashion that appeared easy to wear, relaxed even, yet also seemed special. Brand Valentino was built on frocks that demanded attention from onlookers but asked surprisingly little of the women lucky enough to wear them. With his denim for the 1 per cent, his gowns that think like T-shirts, Piccioli has moved on that equation brilliantly.
Cristóbal Balenciaga’s founding principle for his house in 1919 was to see clothes as sculpture. Certainly there is no one cutting a bigger shoulder at the moment than Demna Gvasalia, the brand’s creative director. Such were the proportions of his suiting on Sunday that it might best be summed up as callisthenics couture.
The problem is that Gvasalia has run out of ideas. He has been playing with the same proportions, endeavouring to turn the same kinds of ugly covetable, since he arrived eight years ago. He can still cut a great and — at times — surprisingly classical dress when he sets his mind to it. But most of the time it’s the same old rather morose-looking same old. With his mother opening the show and his husband (dressed as a bride) closing it, was this his way of admitting his time was up?
Sunglasses, folded arms and hard stares — the front row at a fashion show can sometimes feel a little, well, frosty. But there was an unusual atmosphere at Sarah Burton’s final Alexander McQueen show in Paris on Saturday night (Anna Murphy and Laura Atkinson write).
Editors beamed, clapped, gave a standing ovation - and was that a tear or two that we saw? Yes, the love in the third arrondissement was palpable. Not surprising, given that this was a farewell show for a much-loved creative director who has helmed the fashion house for thirteen years since the death of her former boss and friend Alexander McQueen.
An unassuming figure who rarely gives interviews, Macclesfield-born Burton, 49, took the brand to great heights, including creating the wedding dress for Catherine, Princess of Wales in 2011. But her 26 year-tenure at the fashion house goes much deeper than that. Burton and McQueen - known as Lee - started working together when Burton was a graduate in 1997, and tonight felt like the end of a significant chapter for the Kering-owned house.
‘The show is dedicated to the memory of Lee Alexander McQueen, whose wish was always to empower women, and to the passion, talent and loyalty of my team,’ said Burton, shortly before the show. Empowering it certainly was; the collection, which was inspired by “female anatomy, Queen Elizabeth I, and the blood red rose” among other things, featured armour-like tailoring, embroidered catsuits and the signature McQueen sharp shoulders.
One dress seemed to explode into a red rose; another rippled like liquid gold across the body. Unlike many other shows this season, a more diverse range of body shapes showcased the clothes, including one pregnant model. The final exit, however, went to Naomi Campbell, a friend of Lee’s, who wiped away a tear as she strode down the catwalk to the sound of David Bowie’s Heroes. A powerful, emotional finale for a designer who understood the power and emotion of clothes.
Earlier in the day, it was a tale of another great British brand stepping into the future as Andreas Kronthaler, the husband of the late Vivienne Westwood, presented his second collection since her death last December. “I loved the way she dressed. Always the opposite of everybody else,’ he said before the show. The influence of the Grande Dame of British fashion is still keenly felt at her namesake label.
While “not a retrospective”, Kronthaler had “organised and numbered Vivienne’s personal wardrobe, clothes we did together”, “reworking” them for an audience including Westwood’s friend Pamela Anderson and the model Coco Rocha, who were treated to some Westwood greatest hits including a checked mini skirt suit, floral corsets and those turbo-platform heels.
As famous for her commitment to green issues as fashion, Westwood “wore things until they fell apart – her corduroy suit which she wore over twenty years constantly”, remembered Kronthaler. “She understood how to make the most of herself – the most of it! I owe her so much.”
Ballet dancers, teddy boys and Eighties glam — the British names who dominated the Paris Fashion Week schedule on Friday offered several options for spring 2024 (Harriet Walker writes).
Designers often trawl their archives for inspiration but Victoria Beckham preferred to rummage through her mother’s attic this season.
The pop star turned Parisienne dug out her old tutus and pointe shoes for a collection that looked to her youth as a trainee ballerina.
At a show held in an opulent hôtel particulier on the Left Bank — once the home of the late German fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld — the Beckham clan looked on from the front row, bookended by the American actresses Pamela Anderson and Eva Longoria.
“I always wanted to be a dancer, before the Spice Girls,” Beckham said backstage. “When I used to dance, I loved making garments my own — pulling jumpers off the shoulder, cutting up a pair of tights to make a shrug.” She explained that these days her atelier used rather more refined techniques, but the clothes told “the life of a dancer, right through from rehearsal to performance”.
Fabrics started simple: draped dresses in T-shirt jersey were structured with wire to give the impression of dancers’ posture.
“You can always tell a dancer by the way she holds herself,” Beckham said.
Then came the luxe version — rippling satin and sheer tulle column gowns in 1930s silhouettes that will tick the boxes with clients such as Queen Letizia of Spain and the reality TV star Kendall Jenner.
There were trad and masculine touches too — country tweeds, stylish brogue-mules that the high street is sure to copy and quirky trousers that came with back-to-front waistbands.
Jonathan Anderson played with trouser proportions at Loewe too, offering up the sort of ultra-high rise once known colloquially as a “Simon Cowell”.
Brown lecturer cords, classic chinos and true blue jeans fastened just below nipple-height were teamed with deliberately fusty-looking wool and checked blazers and rockabilly mini-quiffs.
Long capes and cropped jumpers were knitted in chunky yarns, while leather shorts came fastened with surrealist giant pins.
The look was what fashion types often call “challenging” but it felt modern and cool — and the handbags carried by almost every model would provide an easy way in, should you have the money.
For his second collection at Nina Ricci, Harris Reed, the 27-year-old St Martins graduate, toned down his signature theatrics — but only a bit.
There were still the outsized bows and pannier skirts with which Reed made his name as a bright young Insta-thing.
But there was more evidence of wardrobe considerations this time. Sheer leopard print blouses with dangling poet sleeves, exaggerated wide-leg flares, snakeskin tailoring and gold mini-dresses decked with bows brought a dash of glam rock and Eighties excess to what has otherwise been a relatively restrained season in Paris so far.
It sounds like a fashion week edition of The Adventures of Tintin: two weeks ago, the Balmain designer Olivier Rousteing announced a delivery van containing half his new collection had been hijacked in Paris and the clothes stolen. He showed the other half of it, to supportive cheers from a crowd that included Cher and Kim Cattrall.
Inspiration came from a quote from Gertrude Stein — a close friend of the house’s founder Pierre Balmain: “Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose.”
“But every rose comes with thorns,” Rousteing said backstage on Wednesday night, with reference to a challenging few weeks.
Roses were appliquéd and sequinned on to corsets and crinolines by Rousteing, and scrunched out of patent leather and recycled plastic bottles to decorate bags and shoes. Sparkling varieties climbed up tops, and petal shapes curled along chiffon hemlines.
There were nods to the label’s mid-20th-century origins in sculpted off-the-shoulder jackets and full skirts, as well as current clients such as Beyoncé and Kim Kardashian, who might pull off a sculpted trellis cage dress or a basque with floral-spattered cycling shorts. “The team pulled out all the stops,” Rousteing said.
Gabriela Hearst’s final collection drew on tubular calla lilies for dress shapes, with fringing suggestive of roots and shoots to reflect the Greek definition of Chloe: blooming.
Hearst has made sustainability a focus and raised the issue of global warming on the catwalk — but her vision for the house seems to have left shoppers cold. After announcing her departure in July, Gabriela Hearst’s final collection for the house referenced her native Uruguay and memories of Rio Carnival in puff-sleeved and tiered midi-dresses in white and black leather, some crocheted and others rippling with frills. A Brazilian drum and samba act closed the show.
Matthew Williams continues to put his Gen Z spin on Givenchy, deploying leather, silver buckled hardware and a broad-shouldered cut. Low-rose pencil skirts worn with entirely sheer and wrapped shirts had cutaway backs too and seemed more for corporate cosplay than genuine office jobs, while colour came from pastel satin evening coats in lemon and lilac satin.
Logjammed traffic, fully booked hotels and crowded fanzones: the Rugby World Cup has made Paris fashion week even busier than usual but the Belgian designer Dries van Noten found inspiration in the game for his spring 2024 collection yesterday.
He reworked trad-dad rugby shirts into tunics, coats and casual trousers, adding their laces as corset details on long cotton shirt dresses. The sporty references were paired with van Noten’s trademark richly printed silks and heavy embellishments for the ultimate in high-low styling and a look more suited to his usual arty crowd than the sin bin. He put his own twist on preppy chinos, cricketing knits and varsity blazers too, ramping up the proportions to create an off-kilter fit and using classic beige drill cotton to make culottes and double-breasted suits, trenchcoats and wrap dresses out of familiar menswear staples.
Similarly, Yves Saint Laurent first reworked “le smoking” tuxedo jacket for women in 1966, then did the same for “le safari” in 1968. For spring 2024, at the label that still bears his name, the designer Antony Vaccarello gave us what might be called “le working”, an elegant and feminine update on classic workwear and cargo pants.
The outfits came in Vaccarello’s signature broad-shouldered silhouette and all shades of beige and brown — camel, tobacco, chocolate — as well as a deep and striking oxblood red. There were even a few boilersuits in the mix on a specially erected marble catwalk in front of the Eiffel Tower on Tuesday night.
These were not any old overalls, however. In keeping with the house’s reputation for louche and smouldering Helmut Newton-esque sleekness, both they and patch-pocketed shirt-jackets were cinched tight at the waist with leather belts and styled with vertiginous heels, leather gloves and power sunglasses. Saint Laurent’s cocktail-hour razzle doesn’t always translate to the civilian wardrobe but this was a vision of a utilitarian uniform, albeit through the rarefied prism of haute Parisian luxury, that will influence far beyond the house’s own boutiques.
Neat zip-front shirt-dresses and safari skirts provided a more accessible way into the look, while a white silk mini-sheath and series of floor-sweeping sheer mousseline gowns will keep glamourpusses on-side too.
Liberté, égalité, utilité!
Paris Fashion Week opened on Tuesday with the Dior show and a sartorial meditation on what Maria Grazia Chiuri, the brand’s creative director, called “those stereotypes that fairytales gave us about powerful women (Anna Murphy, Fashion Director writes). That they are witches. That they are scary”. d
A more specific inspiration was one Madame Delahaye, Christian Dior’s psychic. The designer consulted her regularly until his death in 1957, on matters both personal and professional. (Whether or not he should use red in his collections was one question he posed.) “I was intrigued that a rational man who had so much responsibility would also rely on magic,” said Chiuri, who has tarot card readings herself. “I am not superstitious, but they are fun!”
The all-black opening look was more cobweb than dress, and there was plenty more that would suit the more chic variety of broomstick rider, from the utility-inflected capes to the raw-edged tailoring.
All that darkness was leavened with crisp white shirting, some of it one-shouldered, plus the pretty pearl buttoning on pumps that had gladiator-style strapping up the leg. Ghostly white incarnations of famous Parisian signifiers — the Eiffel tower; a retro-styled map of the city — coalesced over a simple pencil skirt or a single-breasted coat. Other prints looked like floral x-rays, and multiple moons patterned everything from camel cotton drill to cream lace.
Alongside that nipped-in silhouette, which has been signature Dior ever since the New Look of 1947, were unwaisted gowns and generously cut mannish jackets. “I want to give women options,” said Chiuri. “The fashion system creates this idea that you should have a particular body shape, and that you should somehow change it to suit whatever is on trend. But I say we should be able to choose.”
The 59-year-old designer conceded that she found it hard to shake off that stereotype herself. “My mind is full of it.” Certainly it was notable that after such fighting talk backstage, the catwalk was filled with models that were both young and thin, sleeping beauties or Cinderellas to a girl.
That’s by no means only a Dior problem. It’s a charge that can be levied at almost every luxury brand. But things won’t change until someone changes them, and for Chiuri to walk the walk as well as talk the talk would be magical indeed.
