Paris | Fashionable femininity to escape

(Paris) Dresses, heels, bare bodies: femininity is fashionable in Paris, outrageously theatrical or enhanced by a pinch of madness to forget the difficult times, and embodied a little more by the round ones.

Here are the five takeaways from Spring/Summer 2023 womenswear week, which ends on Tuesday.

formal dress

At Givenchy, the dress is king. Neon green, it is draped and tight. Sky blue, it reveals the integrated lingerie. The reds have worked backs with a neckline or ribbons.

Some are worn with long gloves evoking those chic and cinematographic outfits created by the founder of the house, Hubert de Givenchy, for Audrey Hepburn, after several seasons where the accent was placed on the streetwear by American designer Matthew Williams.

Dressy gloves accessorized the dresses of Briton Victoria Beckham, who made her Paris Fashion week debut with a glamorous and sexy collection.

Cut on the bias, broad shoulders and with an underlined waist, they are advantageous for the silhouette, elegant and modern.

Belgian Dries Van Noten offered structural, flowing black dresses with an abundance of floral prints.

Denmark’s Cecilie Bahnsen paraded princesses in sneakers in voluminous, cool and romantic dresses, with the idea of ​​”creating something precious for every day”.

Diverted heels

You wouldn’t associate heels with the world of Dior’s feminist designer, Maria Grazia Chiuri, and yet they are the key element of her collection.

“I haven’t done it in the past and I’m satisfied because the reference comes from Catherine de’ Medici,” she told AFP. Small in stature, this Italian, who arrived at the French court in 1533, was the first to use wedges to be taller and impose herself.

The Hermès woman is lifted by sandals with a carbon fiber blade sole that provides a spatial allure. “A mixture of technology and archaism,” Pierre Hardy, shoe designer at Hermès, told AFP.

At Rochas, women walk in “aquarium” heels and Dries Van Noten offers flower shoes.

Escape

Master of apocalyptic parades, the American Rick Owens delivered a message of optimism with water gushing from fountains and outfits in solar colors.

This change comes from his stays in Egypt, where he “admires with relief what survives after countless wars”.

Maria Grazia Chiuri wanted to make the Dior show “a baroque party”, with elements of “amazement”: “in this heavy historical moment, fashion is the only territory where we can still play”.

Charles de Vilmorin, from Rochas, invited himself to the legendary Folies Bergère theater for an “ode to carelessness” with frills and crinolines.

The rounds exist

Bright colors and a cut that reveals the skin and the curves: the curves “exist”, assures the Belgian Ester Manas.

Her sultry collection of high-cut dresses and swimsuits are presented largely by plus-size models.

Curvy American star model Ashley Graham paraded in a mini dress for Balmain, whose stylist Olivier Rousteing promotes diversity.

The Frenchman Victor Weinsanto is ironic about prejudices, with an outfit that cuts the body by multiplying the rolls.

Stop elitism

“Fashion cannot be a purely elitist field,” says Victor Weinsanto, who includes his “buddies” artists and fashion designers in his collection and parades his muses with varied morphologies.

Georgian Demna walked his friend Kanye West through the mud for Balenciaga, assuring that anything “exclusive and visually expensive” was outdated.

Victoria Beckham gave a lesson in English cool, mingling with guests with her husband and children to pose and have a drink after the show.