What will we be wearing next year? Paul McLauchlan was on the ground in Paris and discovered the best collections were the ones that offered new ways of dressing. Read on for his five key takeaways from the shows …
The spring/summer 2024 shows came to a resounding close at Paris Fashion Week on Tuesday afternoon with a terrific Miu Miu outing. The 9 day-long affair was punctuated by marvels of runway fashion, some exciting breakthroughs from emerging designers, and a bountiful supply of suggestions for how we might dress next year.
Jonathan Anderson’s Loewe collections confront this head on with his unique approach to fashion: his transgressive work butts heads with convention, warping our preconceived notions of what to expect from silhouettes and luxury fashion. The elongated, empire-waist trousers, swaddling knits with gold fastenings, and slick all-English tailoring felt urgent alongside more conceptual offerings like leather jackets that double as handbags.
Chanel.
A young American designer called Peter Do understands the necessity for edging fashion forward too. His Paris debut spanned American workwear influences, such as oversized shirts with cropped blazers, leather and satin spliced together to create beautifully tailored low-slung trousers. It was slick and modern.
Elsewhere, the week was defined with some important moments that you can’t miss. Of course, the biggest news of the week came at the final moments when Kering announced Dublin-native Seán McGirr would be replacing Sarah Burton as creative director at Alexander McQueen. His debut will be presented next March during Paris Fashion Week.
We’ve compiled the top five moments from Paris Fashion Week’s spring/summer 2024 season.
Big brands battled it out
Hundreds of screaming fans parked themselves outside various purpose-built tents across the city’s most iconic locations to catch a glimpse of the megawatt celebrities arriving at some of the world’s most recognisable luxury brands’ shows for spring/summer 2024.
Jennifer Lawrence and Elizabeth Debicki watched on as Maria Grazia Chiuri delivered another remarkable Dior show. There was a cool elegance in the way she sent asymmetric, one-shoulder shirts down the catwalk with wide-leg trousers and pleated skirts emblazoned with faded prints of Paris. Exquisite tailoring fades away at the seams while cascading layers of lace gives proceedings a much-needed edge. While Chiuri’s set spoke to feminism in a bold, forthright fashion, against the backdrop of Elena Bellatoni’s highly graphic artworks, the clothing was assertive in a more nuanced way. It’s promising to see more of that from her.
Later that evening, Hailey Bieber and Kate Moss compared notes over Saint Laurent’s reiteration of the 1967 Saharienne suit. It was incredibly chic and cinematic. Givenchy’s Matthew Williams is still finding his feet at the historic haute couture house but the closer he gets to bridging the gap between streetwear and the soigné, the more compelling his case becomes.
Formerly Karl Lagerfeld’s right-hand woman, Virginie Viard imbues Chanel with an effervescence which feels increasingly natural and confident after each season. The carefree sophistication she spun for spring, contrasting sportswear with rarefied fabrics, felt kitschy but engaging in a modern way.
On the other hand, Nicolas Ghesquière’s vision for Louis Vuitton and Pierpaolo Piccioli’s for Valentino are both well-established. With their intrinsic devotion to painstaking craftsmanship and deeply personal interest in history, they each produce marvellous results. Ghesquière’s main focus is on silhouette and how historical forms can suffuse modern ones. Meanwhile, with his innate sense for colour, Piccioli pushes Valentino one step forward with a highly-detailed collection with a razor-sharp focus.
The best collections pushed the needle forward
The best collections in Paris were the ones that offered new ways of dressing like Loewe and Peter Do.
On the same afternoon, Dries van Noten and Jun Takahashi’s Undercover exhibited what one can do if you take familiar wardrobe staples and upend the connotations that orbit them. Van Noten stormed the wardrobe for familiar codes like trench coats, rugby shirts, and denim. He messed around with the proportions, added embellishments, contrasted colours that created visual delights. The collection borrowed from a man’s wardrobe to find a new pathway for womenswear.
Takahashi did the same with suiting – he applied a thin layer of georgette fabric to his. He did the same with hoodies, bomber jackets, shirting, and elegant daywear. Alongside some vibrant Neo Rauch paintings printed on car coats and dresses in the show’s denouement, the Japanese designer revealed how perverse and vivid the mundane can feel.
Nicolas di Felice’s arriving at something similar at Courrèges which is one of the most captivating brand revivals in recent years. For di Felice understands that conjuring desire is the primary objective of a fashion designer but to do it so effortlessly cool and appetising to a modern audience trumps all. He does so by playing with the silhouette of a formal shirt, adjusting it to become a slinky silk dress. Jersey dresses possess the casual comfort of a tracksuit; skirts are fused to leather pants to create the perfect level of masculine and feminine.
Forget ‘quiet luxury’: Maximalism stages a return
If some brands like The Row and Hermès continue to double down on ‘quiet luxury’, and quite successfully at that, with their pared back vision of simplicity, other designers have something else in mind. Their prophecy for the future is on a grander scale, opulent in its mentality and ornamental in its approach.
Rick Owens was in a romantic mood for spring. He channelled the monumentality of this emotion into a procession of lean silhouettes. Long, column dresses in shades of black, grey, red, and mauve, cling to the skin, exuding a deep sensuality. Ever the futuristic provocateur, rings of padded organza are plaited around the body; shoulders in leather jackets jut upwards to the sky; silk capes billow in the wind. Each look conveyed the drama and theatre of romance, even if it felt more defensive than it did vulnerable and emotional.
Daniel Roseberry elucidated on Schiaparelli’s heritage, and his own, through the “embrace of my Americanness in a context of profound Frenchness.” He explained, “ready to wear is a combination of both: the ease of being an American; the rigour of French chic.” And so, the world of couture collided with the everyday: white shirts with exploded ruffles and simple black dresses are contrasted or accented with golden bijoux in the shape of lobsters, crabs, or eyes; denim looks are tailored to the same extent as bespoke suiting. Again, Roseberry proved himself as one of the most captivating designers working today.
Need more evidence for the maximalism case? Look no further than Nina Ricci and Germanier, Marni and Louis Vuitton.
Collaborations and launches galore!
With a party at Silencio that enlisted Cher, Peggy Gou, and Robyn to perform, H&M announced its collaboration with French brand Rabanne with what looked like the party of the season. Launching on November 9 2023, the collection will include womenswear, menswear, accessories, and home decor, and offer fans an opportunity to enter the hedonistic world of the Parisian fashion house with its flair for hedonism and joy.
The other collaboration of the season: Tekla x Birkenstock. Over bread, comté and natural wine, we fêted the arrival of the partnership which marks the latter’s first foray into ready-to-wear. The Danish sleepwear giant and the German footwear titan make perfect sense in the context of each other. Both are deeply entrenched in the natural world and tout an unfussy approach to modern living. Theirs is a simple proposition, grounded in reality yet effortlessly chic. The best part of the collab? The new colourways in the Nagoya clog.
Perhaps the biggest launch of the season? A white foldout box containing her new fragrance line was placed on every seat at Victoria Beckham’s show. The three scents – Suite 306 (the one I got), Portofino ‘97, and San Ysidro Drive – are the perfect complement to her growing universe which already encompasses fashion, accessories, eyewear, and beauty. If anything, as the cult of Beckham expands, these feel like the perfect invitation into her luxurious world.
The honourable mentions
The Paris shows move at breakneck speed and between the shows and the Instagram moments, some designers can often slip through the cracks. Often, it’s those that are the ones that are worth watching. It’s always a pleasure to return to Danish maestro Cecilie Bahnsen, whose designs possess an eternal ethereal quality, connecting couture with everyday principles. Her puffy dresses are often grounded with cotton trousers or knitwear but more recently, she’s been working with denim.
The same can be said for Satoshi Kondo’s Issey Miyake which feels modern yet true to the spirit of the house. The thin layers of mesh he encased his models in recalled one of the brand’s collections from the late 1990s. Alongside swirling organza forms with the brand’s signature ribbed detailing, they complemented beautifully constructed geometric tailoring.
Funnily enough, it’s Victoria Beckham who is starting to offer us the unexpected, beguiling her audience with conceptual designs. While waiting for Kim Kardashian to arrive and sipping picantes, one couldn’t help but wonder if she would indulge the same eccentricity from last season. That she did, and more. There was wool suits that resembled grey tracksuits, draped dresses that recalled vests, and ruffled organza nightgowns. It felt chaotic in the best way. Sometimes the best fashion does.
In their showroom, Yves Salomon appointed its learned craftspeople at work benches to illustrate the labour poured into one of its fur coats. In particular, it highlighted how offcuts can be repurposed to make new garments. Ironically, one of the most captivating pieces was a disembowelled fur coat, stripped back to its bare bones. To see the process behind the preciousness of it makes the product all the more persuasive. The more we see our clothes as the fruits of our craftspeople’s labour, the more we respect and inspect where they come from and who makes them. Now, that’s a concept!
Main featured image: Top L-R: Dior, Chanel, Hèrmes. Bottom L-R: Louis Vuitton, Cecilie Bahnsen, Loewe.
