Everything You Need To See From The SS23 Couture Shows

by Amy De KlerkJanuary 27, 2023January 27, 2023

See all the highlights from this season’s presentations

Couture Fashion Week has kicked off in Paris, and we can’t wait to see what the designers have in store for the season ahead. The schedule, which begins with Schiaparelli and Dior on Monday, will also see Chanel, Valentino and Fendi, among others, present their spring/summer 2023 collections – and there have already been more than a few breathtaking gowns that we expect to see gracing the red carpet over the next couple of months.

Below, we round up the highlights from the shows and presentations. Here is everything you need to see from couture spring/summer 2023 – and for the front row action, head here.

Valentino

For this collection, Pierpaolo Piccioli brought together two worlds that are rarely seen together, couture and the nightclub. In ‘Valentino Le Club Couture’, the designer embraced fun nighttime dressing with tiny sequin shorts, sheer dresses and tops, tuxedo-inspired designs and plenty of feathers. “Couture becomes an emblem of uniqueness, personality, identity and character, and an evocation of the purest human joy of dressing and dressing up,” the designer said of the concept of bringing couture to the clubs.

Elie Saab

Elie Saab is all about elegance and glamour, and his SS23 couture collection was a glorious display of both. Intricate lace, golden gowns, beautiful embellishments and enormous trains all featured on the catwalk, providing plenty of red-carpet inspiration for all those heading into award season.

Viktor & Rolf

Quite literally turning fashion on its head, Viktor & Rolf presented ballgowns that were upside down, sideways and off-kilter, created as beautifully constructed tulle princess gowns, but rotated at an angle to reveal lingerie underneath. Entitled ‘Late Stage Capitalism Waltz’, the collection was surrealist, conceptual and almost comical, and immediately memeworthy.

Alexandre Vauthier

Alexandre Vauthier loves a sequin – and for SS23, he went big. The collection featured clingy, hooded sequin catsuits, embellished velvet dresses, colourful faux-fur coats, thigh-high sparkly boots and dresses with giant mirror details, all of which embraced full-on, unapologetic glamour, something that the designer is becoming so well known for.

Alexis Mabille

As is so often the case with Alexis Mabille’s collections, it was all about colour. We saw gold, orange, yellow, pink and green on flowing, silky gowns in his couture spring/summer 2023 collection, many of which also featured dramatic cut-outs or were completely backless.

Armani Privé

This season’s Armani Privé collection was inspired by harlequins – a concept that was represented through the diagonal checks on both the catwalk and across many of the designs, while there were also plenty of ruffled collars, cropped jackets and billowing trousers to be seen. Always a favourite during awards season, the collection featured its fair share of red carpet-worthy gowns too, which will no doubt be seen on some of those Oscar nominees (one of which was sat on the front row).

Chanel

The starting point for Chanel’s SS23 couture collection was Gabrielle Chanel’s apartment at 31, rue Cambon. Creative director Virginie Viard and set designer Xavier Veilhan visited the space, finding inspiration in a collection of objects, sculptures and drawings representing lions, stags, birds and camels. These emblems were embroidered onto dresses, coats and tweed suits, while Veilhan created 11 animals made of wood, cardboard and paper on the catwalk, which initially hid the models, and then opened to let them escape.

Giambattista Valli

Giambattista Valli is always a favourite on the red carpet, and with this collection, it is not difficult to see why. For SS23, the designer certainly delivered in terms of elegant eveningwear appropriate for the Oscars. And, rather fittingly, the collection was inspired by an area just around the corner from Hollywood, Beverly Hills.

Dior

Dior’s spring/summer 2023 couture collection was inspired by Josephine Baker, the Black, American-born, French singer and dancer who came to represent the glitz and glamour of 1920s Paris.

“She embodies the modernity of those years, the transgression of stereotypes and prejudices, the mixing of cultures and shared experiences that notably animated the vibrant world of cabaret,” explained Maria Grazia Chiuri. Baker was also a close friend and a muse of Christian Dior’s, and one of the house’s top clients during that time.

Her particular cabaret style, and the Roaring Twenties more generally, were clearly referenced throughout the collection, which featured fringed dresses, velvet gowns, satin leotards (worn with robes) and kiss curls. The set was put together by Mickalene Thomas, who created 13 giant artworks dedicated to culturally inspirational Black and mixed-race women, including Baker, Nina Simone and Dorothy Dandridge.

Schiaparelli

Daniel Roseberry kicked off Couture Fashion Week, presenting his latest collection for Schiaparelli, one which was inspired by Dante’s Inferno. “This collection is my homage to doubt,” he explained of his interpretation of the famous work, which he nodded to with velvet column dresses and mirrored sequins, and also referenced more literarily with foam animal heads of a leopard, lion and she-wolf – “representing lust, pride and avarice” – which were attached to dresses and coats.

“Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso: One cannot exist without the others,” he added in his show notes. “It is a reminder that there is no such thing as heaven without hell; there is no joy without sorrow; there is no ecstasy of creation without the torture of doubt. My prayer for myself is that I remember that always — that, on my most difficult days, when inspiration just won’t come, I remember that no ascension to heaven is possible without first a trip to the fires, and the fear that comes with it. Let me embrace it always.”