Weekend Highlights from Paris Fashion Week Spring/Summer 2021
Here’s your Parisienne dose of ready-to-wear shows to start your week off right…
Paris Fashion Week is in full swing; the City of Love has us falling head over (very fashionable) heels with French style.
As we round the corner to Paris this season, a common thread emerges from the seam of all four fashion cities: homemade. The word itself evokes a sense of calm, returning us to the basics of what makes something (anything really) authentically pure in nature.
Loewe enticed us to think creatively, encouraging invitees to play arts and crafts with their poster-sized lookbooks; Altuzarra pared down the pomp and circumstance of its collection to reveal the bare bones of their garments in a fantasy world as Hermès stayed true to a homegrown aesthetic.
Here are our Paris Fashion Week highlights from this past weekend.
Loewe Encourages Us To Get Creative
Creative director Jonathan Anderson seized the pandemic’s influence as a chance to rethink fashion as we know it. In a sitdown talk, filmed along with his latest collection, we’re given a behind-the-scenes glimpse into this season.
Invitations came in the form of lifesize posters, along with a pair of scissors–harkening back to our teenage years when cutting up magazines and collaging our bedroom walls was the hobby du jour. The idea was to encourage recipients to indulge in some creativity and the same crafty theme was threaded into each look within the collection.
“This collection glorifies the hand embroidered, the handwoven, the handmade and makes us think of the past, the present and the future,” he says.
Never one to shy away from obtuse shapes and bold silhouettes, the accoutrement themselves are works of art. In a few of the looks, Jonathan quite literally restructures the rigid rules of hooped skirts and corset boning, infusing fantasy into looks that almost like they’re about to take flight.
Issey Miyake Introduces Us to the Art of Unpacking
Titled “Unpack The Compact,” designer Satoshi Kondo kept it refreshingly simple with a less-is-more approach. Inspired by something as inconspicuous as a garment bag, we’re treated to that feelgood moment of travel when you unzip your suitcase and unfurl your wardrobe back to life.
If the whimsical patterns don’t uplift your mood, the poetic silhouettes certainly will. The digital interpretation of the looks animate just how utility and style can become one.
“This collection was inspired by the idea of delivering garments in compact forms to people all around the world and by doing so sharing the wonder and joy of unpacking them,”Satoshi says.
Nina Ricci Takes Flight
“Ode to Optimism” was how design duo Lisi Herrebrugh and Rushemy Botter labeled the latest Nina Ricci collection. Inspired by the brand’s longtime perfume staple, L’Air du Temps, the collection whisks us away to far off places.
Filmed on what appears to be an iPhone, we’re taken on a mobile journey of how the collection came to be — from conception to catwalk. The crips lines and bold pops of colour have us longing to book a plane ticket to an exotic destination, even if it’s just within our imaginations.
Olivier Theyskens Pays Homage to a French Songstress
The Belgian fashion designer dabbles in midnight black pools of colour for his ready-to-wear collection, inspired by French pop singer Mylène Farmer. Within the collection each model was seen rocking scarlett tresses, an obvious nod to Farmer and her disco-y influence.
The looks themselves are absolutely dripping with drama; from frothy tulle gowns to shimmering silk suits it’s like reading a romance novel from beginning, middle to end for the entirety of the collection collection. Think Jane Eyre with a pinch of goth: dark, brooding and poised, in her own mysterious way.
Yohji Yamamoto Gives Us 50 Shades of Pitch Black
True to Yamamoto form, the designer didn’t stray from his signature color, giving us a chance to put his gravity defying shapes into focus. Held under strict safety precautions and crystal chandeliers, the show took place at the regal Hôtel de Ville.
The collection starts innocently enough: white frocks with shards of black fabric first make their way down the runway followed by black suits constructed by expert tailoring. Then quite suddenly, movement is introduced. Models arrive in protruding shapes as if moulded by a gusts of wind. At the end of the show, a band of models emerge wearing all white in solidarity — for what reason isn’t clear, but no doubt a peaceful gesture of the fashion sort.
Altuzarra Quenches our Thirst for a Si-Fi Wardrobe
Inspired by Frank Herbert’s 1965 science fiction novel Dune, Joseph Altuzarra reimagined a world where one would need a closet to combat the elements.
The guts of the garments were the focus, along with movement. With each step, swells of fabric in gauze and various patterns of plaid, cascade down into hypnotic waves of motion. Volume and draping were key descriptors the designer used in illustrating the feel of the collection in the filmed presentation.
“You know, I think that the idea right now of just making clothes, just making product, isn’t that interesting to me. I think it’s more interesting to make clothes that feel emotional but that people also have a relationship with and can wear,” the designer says.
Hermès Masters a Timeless Trend
Melodic chimes signal the start of Hermès’ filmed presentation at the Tennis Club de Paris. In the socially distanced fashion show, models stand to attention and then all too suddenly disperse in unison, criss-crossing as if making their way through a crowded street. (A sight we’ve all taken for granted.)
As for the collection itself, designer Nadège Vanhee-Cybulski kept loyal to the brand’s affection for tradition. Fused with her previously cancelled resort show, every look was polished with little surprises here and there. The color palette was muted, sleepy even but woken up with starling leather details and crystal grid embellishments. The handbags shared the same sentiment, all classic in shape with no timestamp. All wearable and très chic in any decade.
Lead image courtesy of Hermès (by Filippo Fior)