“It’s the arrival of a very beautiful brand. We are delighted that Victoria Beckham is among us” with the parade scheduled for September 30, Pascal Morand, executive president of the Fédération de la haute couture et de la mode, told AFP.
With her entry into the official Parisian calendar, Victoria Beckham, 48, joins 107 French and international labels registered for this women’s edition of the spring-summer 2023 ready-to-wear week which takes place from September 26 to October 4, 2022. Sign that the pandemic no longer weighs on the event, almost all the houses have opted for physical shows, whether heavyweights like Dior, Chanel, Saint Laurent, Stella McCartney or Issey Miyake or emerging brands like the French Weinsanto.
The ex-Spice Girl, who became a fashion designer in 2008, has so far participated in London and New York Fashion Weeks but has not organized a fashion show for a Fashion Week since the health crisis in 2020: she is complained in an interview about the cost of organizing parades.
Victoria Beckham, whose plan to get into fashion was at first astonishing, has proven herself. Its brand boasts 250 points of sale in around fifty countries. Her feminine wardrobe has always been appreciated by fashionistas and the fashion priestess Anna Wintour who warned against “never (her) underestimate”.
Despite this support, the brand has struggled to make a profit and is heavily in debt, the British press recently reported. To raise the bar, the Brit has called on major French players: Ralph Toledano, former president of the French Haute Couture and Fashion Federation as chairman of the board of directors and Marie Leblanc de Reynies, previously head of purchasing. of the Parisian department store Printemps as CEO.
“She’s not from the fashion world, she got into this business and, at some point, we had to structure, organize, put the house in order, everything we’ve been doing for four years. “, emphasizes Ralph Toledano. “We are ready” to parade in Paris, he assures.
For the designer, the event “brings a kind of recognition”, comments to AFP Benjamin Simmenauer, professor at the IFM (French Fashion Institute). Paris Fashion Week “is the most prominent, it’s a way of being validated as a brand that has a real creative identity“, he underlines, specifying that the Fashion Weeks of London and New York “have a more commercial connotation”.
But the excitement around his arrival is linked to his celebrity status followed by 30 million subscribers on Instagram. “There is a press, not necessarily specialized, which mentions Fashion Week because Victoria Beckham is part of it”believes Benjamin Simmenauer.
This Fashion Week will be marked by the absence of the Celine brand: its artistic director Hedi Slimane paraded in June at Men’s Fashion Week after having abandoned the calendar for more than two years and presented his collections in films shot in particular in castles . “A non-event”for Pascal Morand who wants to minimize this reversal. “There may be other choices of the brand or the artistic director at any given time. There is this freedom”he concludes.
Victoria Beckham is not the only new entrant to the official calendar, it will also be necessary to follow the parades of AWAKE Mode (United Kingdom), Weinsanto (France), Zimmermann (Australia) as well as presentations by Aigle (France), Anna October (Ukraine), Boutet (France), Florentina Leitner (Austria), Paula Canovas Del Vas (Spain), de Pressiat (France) and de Ruohan (China)