Paris | Fashion Week kicks off with a manifesto from young designers

(Paris) With “a manifesto” of young designers full of humor and in a good mood, the Frenchman Victor Weinsanto opened Paris Fashion Week on Monday which will see the British Victoria Beckham parade for the first time.

As is traditionally the case in Paris, priority for young people on the first day: the spring-summer 2023 women’s ready-to-wear week kicked off with the show of Victor Weinsanto, 28, a former classical dancer trained by Jean Paul Gaultier before launching his brand in 2020.

This collection is “a manifesto of love from a generation, from my best artist friends, creators, performers,” the stylist told AFP.

Unprecedentedly, prominent fashion designers such as Charles de Vilmorin at the head of his haute couture house and artistic director of Rochas and the duo Kévin Nompeix and Florentin Glémarec, founders of Egonlab paraded with pieces inspired by their worlds and reworked by Weinsanto “in his own way”.

From very wearable denims to theatrical “black widow” or “bride” dresses with exaggerated volumes, a nude draped basket mini dress, a color-gradient maxi dress matching multiple skin tones on a buxom model, men wearing sensual, rather feminine pieces… The wardrobe is eclectic.

The wickedness is old fashioned

“It’s the quintessence of what the young French designer is offering at the moment”, sums up the stylist.

“Kindness, creativity, freedom, madness and humor once again become the very essence of what we are looking for in fashion at the moment. We want to get away from it all,” emphasizes the stylist with blue eyes and orange hair, after wearing them pink for several seasons.

The image of “odious” creators in the 90s who “hated each other” is “cheesy” and “wickedness” is no longer a recipe, he says.

“No one wants that anymore”, hence the idea of ​​“a great game of friends, a family reunion”.

Made almost entirely from “dormant stock” fabrics sold by luxury brands, the collection aims to be responsible and “inclusive”, where a piece is meant to be “worn by mother and daughter”.

With round models of all ages, the distribution is very varied, the attitude is free: we parade smiling and dancing just like with her mentor Jean Paul Gaultier, a pioneer in diversity.

“I like the idea that a garment has no gender, I sometimes dress masculine, sometimes feminine”, says the stylist.

“Fascinated” by the metaverse

The parade will be followed by the launch in Paris of a project in the metaverse with the Kpop group Lightsum, whose singers will be present virtually, in holograms.

These are “wearable silhouettes that do not distort the girls in the group”. NFTs, digital certificates of authenticity, will go on sale in the metaverse in October.

“I don’t think it’s essential” to have a project in the metaverse in addition to the physical parade, believes Victor Weinsanto, while saying he is “fascinated” by this universe.

“We can really break free […]. I want to go further in 3D,” he says.

More than 100 French and international labels are registered for this edition of Paris Fashion Week which ends on October 4th.

Almost all of the houses opted for physical parades, including heavyweights like Dior, Chanel, Balenciaga, Stella McCartney, Thom Browne or Issey Miyake.

After having paraded in New York and London, the British Victoria Beckham is spicing up this edition by joining Paris Fashion Week for the first time with a parade on Friday.