First class: the finest A/W 2016 fashion week invitations
Black looks: In the new season’s monochrome, Louis Vuitton, Jil Sander, and Kenzo (pictured clockwise from left) opted for sleek, jet-black invitations. Louis Vuitton’s was debossed with its iconic monogram pattern; Jil Sander sent a soft, matte invitation with the event details embossed in a contrasting shiny black; while Kenzo’s came in the form of a mock concert ticket
Antonio Marras: Like a paper matryoshka doll, the ever-playful invitation from Antonio Marras was a decidedly meta affair – an illustrated paper envelope within an envelope within an envelope and so forth eventually revealed show details
Dries Van Noten: London-based illustrator Gill Button hand-painted no less than 1,200 invitations for Dries Van Noten’s A/W womenswear show after being discovered by the Belgian designer on Instagram. The collection – and invitations – nod to Italian heiress and muse Luisa Casati
Pattern power: Fashion powerhouses Salvatore Ferragamo, Versace and Bally went big and bold for their womenswear outings in Milan, commanding our attention with a graphic array of patterned invitations
Iris van Herpen: On the other end of the spectrum, Dutch designer Iris van Herpen aroused our curiosity with a tiny, pea-sized glass vessel. With careful tinkering we were able to coax the presentation details out, printed inside on a thin, plastic tape
Dior Homme: This season, creative director Kris Van Assche dipped into Dior’s floral archive as well as a black-and-red plaid that wouldn’t go amiss on the hip skater crowd, who were foreshadowed on his poster invitation
Anya Hindmarch: The English designer announced her London womenswear show with a diabolically difficult, all-silver riff on a Rubik’s cube (a few frustrating/gratifying hours were admittedly spent attempting to solve it). Set designer Stuart Nunn later brought this motif to life on the runway, creating a backdrop of illuminated surfaces based on 8-bit graphics and Rubik’s cubes, of course
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Gucci: We opened Gucci’s mysterious invitation box for its menswear show with baited breath. Inside, it revealed a striking trio of scientific glass slides each adorned with its own specimen from Alessandro Michele’s Gucci garden, including a snake and bumblebee (a nod to European nobility and Rome, where the Italian house is based and also where the insect is carved into buildings all over the city)
Monochrome medley: It was a simple matter of black and white for Salvatore Ferragamo, Margaret Howell, Neil Barrett and Aquazzura, who all posted boldly monochromatic invitations to our letterbox
Prada: As ever, the guarded Miuccia Prada revealed nothing ahead of her Milan show. Instead, we were left tantalised by an off-white paper booklet with a concertina binding, slipped in a ghostly, semi-translucent acetate envelope
Metal heads: A metallic trend emerged among this season’s invitations, including a delicate, gold foil iteration for Palm Angels’ menswear show (left) and a creased, silver foil backed by cardboard for jewellery label Ambush
Paul Smith: Keen-eyed, longtime followers of the eponymous British designer might have recognised the glossy, red apple motif that appeared on his womenswear invitations from London’s salon and Paris’ runway show. Sir Smith, in fact, had first used it in 1982 and his recent collection took a bite out of his past endeavours
Art and soul: The Technicolor brushstrokes were flying as Paul Smith, Marques’Almeida, Céline (poured tinted rubber technically), and Hermès all jumped on a painterly trend for their respective show invitations this season
Acne Studios: There was no telling what to expect from Acne Studios’ show thanks to its poster invitation, illustrated with two wildly different scenes. Were we in for a psychedelic romp in Paris or something more darkly seductive?
Rick Owens: The American designer announced both of his A/W Paris shows on matching, soft leather invitations
Givenchy: Riccardo Tisci heralded his show with a black-and-white poster pin-up, painted over with a powder pink hue
Material matters: Luxurious swathes of suede and felt won out many of the invitations this season, including (pictured, from top) Victoria Beckham, Marni, and Jimmy Choo
3.1 Phillip Lim: It was only fitting that the American designer would send out a boxed bamboo invitation with the show details printed inside on a glossy, lacquer-red duplex card, framed with a black border. As it turned out, his A/W outing was infused with plenty of references that included Japanese craft and kimonos
Fendi: The Italian house announced itself – quite literally – with a white duplex card featuring its name playfully adorned in a lemon yellow felt inside a comic speech bubble
1205: The elusive Paula Gerbase gave nothing away ahead of her menswear debut in London thanks to her minimalist acetate invitation
Zest sellers: Several houses heralded their shows with a bold tangerine or vivid orange, including (clockwise, from top left) Marques'Almeida's paint-streaked offering; MSGM's fabric-pressed card; Miu Miu's soft suede invitation; and Carven's graphic poster
Edun: The label adorned its womenswear invitation, the runway and closing looks of the show with a design from Ethiopian Grammar by artist Wosene Worke Kosrof. The Ethiopian sculptor/painter is best known for his interpretations of Aramaic script; here, he conjured a pastiche of phrases like 'mother love' and blended it with the Amharic alphabet on duplex card
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