The surprise star of Paris Fashion Week? That would be the suit. It has been the linchpin of collections as disparate as Comme des Garçons and Balenciaga, its traditional cuts and fabrics deconstructed, reworked and, in the case of the former, employed as political commentary.
“Smaller is stronger” was the theme of the Comme des Garçons show. “Recently we feel that big business, big culture, global systems, world structures maybe are not so great after all,” designer Rei Kawakubo wrote in her show notes. “There is also strong value in small. Small can be mighty.”
Kawakubo is lauded for deconstruction, and those talents were on full display here. Blazers, trousers and coats in traditional British suiting fabrics — pinstripes, plaid, a grey wool check — were inflated, slashed and inverted on the body to reveal linings and stuffing; some jutted out at sharp angles, others collapsed inward. The effect was elusive and discombobulating, as if the figures could not quite be fixed in space — much like Big Business and Big Government, perhaps? One could only guess.
A plain black suit and tie opened Balenciaga’s show, which was held in a maze of dark narrow hallways partitioned by black cloth to create an extra-long runway — “Because you all want to be in the front row!” the show’s designer, who goes professionally by the name of Demna, quipped backstage.
Corporate cosplay has been something of a theme both on and off the runway this season; the maze “a parallel” to the moment the industry is in, Demna said. “It’s a time where choices are being made, and are going to define where we end up.” He was referring to the economic pressures brands are facing after a decade of seemingly unstoppable growth, which has resulted in a big shake-up in the top ranks of luxury houses and no clear consensus about where fashion is heading next. Designers have accordingly played it safe, entrenching their collections in the past — corsets, fur coats, the house archives — and reliable bestsellers such as leather jackets, denim and simple, sober tailoring.
Demna isn’t a fan. “I am missing the fashion that feels urgent,” he said. And so the catwalk became a kind of mirror for what people are really wearing right now: the office worker’s white button-down with dark trousers and square-toed loafers; monogrammed polos and puffy gilets (some done in collaboration with Puma); distressed denim and tracksuits with sneakers. Some of the garments didn’t look particularly luxurious, or even perfectly cut — more like standard-issue high street, with buttons that pulled and trousers that hung a bit too low.
But a sweeping white scarf coat was luxurious, and others were perfections of a type, with blazers cut wide at the shoulder and armhole to accommodate a hoodie, their buttons lowered so that they could be worn the way Demna himself likes to wear them, off the shoulder. It was deceptively simple; the plum in the pattern-cutting. Still, it was safe rather than urgent — these were garments and archetypes Demna has visited before, and they are an easy sell.
While some show sets have been scaled back this season, that was not the case at Valentino. Alessandro Michele’s second ready-to-wear runway collection for men and women was staged in a mock public toilet, its square tiles and sinks drenched in red light and strobe lights. Models entered and exited via toilet cubicles, the women outfitted in sheer lace bodysuits and dresses and squarish jackets with shoulder pads, some trimmed with brown faux fur; the men in loose, elegant tailored jackets and trousers with high-necked silk shirts tied in bows at the throat.
Valentino has charted a new aesthetic course under Michele. Though this and previous collections boasted myriad references to the Valentino archives — to the delight of internet sleuths who enjoy tracking down a harlequin print or a floral chiffon dress and posting these side by side on TikTok — the aesthetic is singularly Michele’s, and is more akin to his own archives at Gucci than Valentino’s.
There was little in it for the sleek and glamour-loving client cultivated by former creative director Pierpaolo Piccioli, but Michele has his own devoted following. And that may work for Valentino’s Qatari owners; Michele recently told the FT that Valentino wants to remain small. “I think that Valentino doesn’t have the vocation, the attitude to be big,” he said. “If you want to do this brand big as Gucci, it’s going to be a disaster. So this is a little brand that you can make brighter than it was.”
While many houses are introducing new designers this season — or in the case of houses such as Chanel and Gucci, showing without a designer at the helm — Hermès made a case for staying the course. Shares in its parent company hit an all-time high of €2,565 last month as the house continues to buck the spending slowdown that has dragged on the sales and share prices of its rivals over the past 18 months. Its CEO Axel Dumas has been in place since 2013; its womenswear designer, Nadège Vanhee, formerly design director of The Row, since 2014.
She strewed mulch over the floor of her show space, setting the tone for a collection that drew extensively on Hermès’s equestrian heritage. Saddles were reinterpreted as shapely wrap mini skirts in black leather and in a stiff brown blazer cinched at the waist by saddle straps, the former worn with pointy-toe riding boots. A showjumping jacket became a trim double-breasted pea coat with a ribbed neck and glossy pocket flaps. There were sexier moto elements as well, in black quilted leather shorts teamed with matching jackets, and figure-hugging rib-knit dresses that could be unzipped to reveal a sliver of waist or thigh. It wasn’t new or directional, but that’s not Hermès’s bag — it deals in long-wearing investment pieces for the deep-pocketed. Which happens to be what’s selling right now.
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