After New York, London and Milan, it’s Paris’s turn to launch its fashion week with 106 houses presenting their fall-winter 2023-24 women’s ready-to-wear, from February 27 to March 7
Several highlights will punctuate this Paris Fashion Week, including the return of emblematic houses: Nina Ricci, Pierre Cardin and Ann Demeulemeester. The first house has dubbed a queer designer who is taking his first steps on the catwalks, and the second is back after several years of absence from the official calendar of the Haute Couture and Fashion Federation. The third has appointed French designer Ludovic de Saint Sernin to take over the studio. Each will have a challenge to overcome.
Fashion Week begins on Monday 27 in the afternoon with shows dedicated to young creation and will be launched with that of the masters of the French Institute of Fashion (IFM). Other highlights will punctuate this week: tributes to Paco Rabanne and Vivienne Westwood, who recently passed away, and the long-awaited fashion show by Georgian designer Demna, artistic director of Balenciaga, whose house has been in turmoil since a controversial advertising campaign and who will be keen to keep a low profile.
A tribute to Paco Rabanne and Vivienne Westwood?
There Maison Paco Rabanne, who parades on March 1, will certainly take the opportunity to pay tribute to the couturier, nicknamed the “fashion metallurgist”, recently deceased.
Likewise, will there be a tribute to Vivienne Westwood who died in December 2022, as did London, which dedicated its fashion week to it (from February 10 to 15)? “The Empress of Punk” To “changed the fashion world”, said the British Fashion Council, which organizes the shows. The house parades on February 4 in Paris.
Pierre Cardin in continuity but with a breath of youth
On March 5, Pierre Cardin’s collection will parade on the catwalks of Paris Fashion Week, which it had neglected in recent years. The parade of 50 to 60 garments will take place in the historic shop at 59, Faubourg Saint-Honoré which had been opened in 1966. The next day, the town hall of the 8th arrondissement will put up a commemorative plaque indicating that Pierre Cardin worked there.
“The house had not paraded officially within the framework of the Federation of Haute Couture and Fashion for 25 years because Pierre Cardin wanted to be free. When his creations came to an end, he made an event. I already , a little closer to the official dates of the fashion weeks: the Bourget parade was held just after haute couture and that of Venice just before”, Rodrigo Basilicati-Cardin told us in January during a long interview with Franceinfo Culture.
‘The Federation has a media distribution of half a billion contacts, it’s huge. We must therefore take advantage of this moment of sharing. Let’s not forget that Parisian fashion is one of the four most viewed events in the world each year. I invite schools to come and see the show, whose collection will offer less dormant stocks but more recycled fabrics. We must be an example for the licensees”, he had specified.
Since the death of his uncle Pierre Cardin, Rodrigo Basilicati-Cardin, the president of the house, is committed to restoring the house to its panache by granting, among other things,importance to licensees “to control the product a little better, which my uncle had gently abandoned”, he said. For this reason, he embarked on a world tour with them: “On each trip, I select a student who then comes to Paris for three months to be trained. There are talents everywhere in the different cultures”.
Nina Ricci offers a new perspective with Harris Reed
Harris Reed, 26, will present his first collection on March 3 for Nina Ricci, a Parisian label founded in 1932. When the house was created, the way, the cut, the balance and the materials gave the brilliance of simplicity to the wife Nina Ricci. Over time, the style was structured with the Mademoiselle Ricci line, whose semi-couture models were the beginnings of the brand’s ready-to-wear. In the creative direction will follow Olivier Theyskens, Peter Copping, Guillaume Henry then the duo Rushemy Botter and Lisi Herrebrugh who brought his sharp and hedonistic look carried by a poetic and playful approach to the silhouette. Today, a new page is being written with the arrival of thisrising canvas of the London catwalks.
FA leading figure of the new generation, Harris Reed presents himself as a queer activist, who likes to compose theatrical silhouettes by blurring the boundaries between masculine and feminine. Her work combines fashion, cinema, beauty, culture and digital. The cBritish-American designer grew up with a strong sense of self understanding the transformative power of clothing and its correlation to identity. While studying at Central Saint Martins, he caught the attention of Harry Styles, Alessandro Michele and Ezra Miller. He has dressed VIPs including Harry Styles in the magazine series vogue from December 2020 whose cover featured a man for the first time. The designer has even been exhibited at the Victoria and Albert Museum.
His design process is inspired by the social and political issues he feels most connected to. Her brand strives to have a vision of gender fluidity and inclusivity. He describes his DNA as “non-binary vanished romanticism” and brings fluidity to the fore by dressing to invite gazes and blur the preconceived lines people have about gender and sexuality. For him, fashion is revolutionary and has a huge role to play “to push the world to a more expressive and tolerant place to help those who seek acceptance and self-love”. His approach should breathe new life into this Parisian house.
Will Ludovic de Saint Sernin bring sensuality to the Ann Demeulemeester brand?
The Belgian brand Ann Demeulemeester, member of the “Antwerp Six”, – a group of avant-garde designers who graduated from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp – is known for her minimalist black and white aesthetic. Its collections have been designed by the studios over the past three years. The appointment of French designer Ludovic de Saint Sernin as artistic director will breathe new life into it.
Ludovic de Saint-Sernin graduated in Fashion Design from ESAA Duperré, then a member of the Balmain studio. He launched his label in June 2017 during Paris Men’s Fashion Week Spring/Summer 2018. While he shows mostly male models, each piece is created to be worn by women as well. As much as possible, it is important to him that all clothing and accessories are made in France. The designer – noticed during the last Paris Fashion Weeks with sexy and non-gendered collections – will present his first collection for the Belgian brand on March 4.
Will Balenciaga keep a low profile?
Another parade awaited that of the Georgian designer Demna, artistic director of Balenciaga: after a controversial campaign mixing children and sexually connoted accessories, he promised to settle down. The campaign was quickly pulled and house officials apologized.
The master of dark scenes with provocative aesthetics has hinted that his parade on March 5 will be a departure from previous shows. “I want to change my approach, in the way I make my collections but also in the way I show them”, he said, adding that the next parade will take place in “deliberately simple decor to allow everyone to focus on the collection”. “I leave it to the essentials: the collection, the sound, the light”, he insisted.
It was Kanye West who opened the last Balenciaga show, in the mud, in the fall of 2022. The house then had to cut ties with the rapper in October after his anti-Semitic statements.