Kenzo House is one of Paris' better kept secrets. The home of legendary fashion designer Kenzo Takada, it sits in the French capital’s 11th arrondissement, and while it was initially created by Takada himself in 1988, it was redesigned thoroughly by Japanese architecture master Kengo Kuma in 2017, which brought the property to its current iteration: an architectural slice of Zen within Paris' bustling metropolis. Now, following Takada's passing in 2020, it has come on the market via the property specialists at Christie's. 

Stepping inside Kenzo House in Paris

'Kenzo House is without rival in Paris,' said Marie-Hélène Lundgreen of Belles Demeures de France, which is the international subsidiary of Daniel Féau Conseil Immobilier, Christie’s International Real Estate’s exclusive affiliate in Paris. 'Built 35 years ago by Kenzo Takada and masterfully updated for the 21st century by architect Kengo Kuma, it is a world apart.'

Kenzo's work mixed Eastern and Western influences, as well as a passion for colour, light and nature. Kuma kept this spirit when reworking the house, blending in the Parisian setting traditional Japanese building materials, such as ceramic, stone, bamboo, and wood. 'With it, we can experience nature more deeply and more intimately,' Kuma said. 'Transparency is a characteristic of Japanese architecture; I try to use light and natural materials to get a new kind of transparency.'

Spanning four bedrooms, six bathrooms, and a Japanese suite opening onto a lush, serene garden, Kenzo House is expansive, but its carefully curated, human-scale design ensures it remains cosy, textured and warm. It also includes two reception rooms, two dining rooms, two kitchens, a music room, study, fitness room, elevator, and a wine cellar, as well as three self-contained studio apartments for staff. 

Kenzo House is offered for sale, price upon request. 

christiesrealestate.com 

Gilded nymphs! Giant balloons! Flagpoles festooned with rippling ribbons! The show sets of the A/W 2022 menswear runways were striking, dramatic and daring in their design. From Dior to Loewe, Prada to Hermès, brands bolstered their IRL runway presence ;with sets that, variously, evoked the illuminated spaceship tunnel of 2001: A Space Odyssey,;recreated a Paris landmark, and resembled the serene, house-dotted streets of suburban America. Here we round up the runway sets that nearly stole the show...

Best show sets A/W 2022 menswear

Dior

For A/W 2022, men’s artistic director Kim Jones held Dior’s show at the Place de la Concorde in Paris, but his inspiration came from a little further across the city. Inside, Dior recreated the Pont Alexandre III bridge, an icon of the city’s skyline that stretches from the Grand Palais on the Left Bank to the Petit Palais on the Right Bank. 

Named after Tsar Alexander III, the bridge was designed by architects Joseph Cassien-Bernard and Gaston Cousin in the Art Nouveau style, and features four 17m-high pylons. Gilt bronze sculptures of winged horses flank each pylon, representing Arts, Sciences, Commerce and Industry. The centre of the arched bridge features hammered copper nymphs, which were created to memorialise the historic Franco-Russian Alliance. These elements were recreated in gilded glamour on the Dior runway.

Louis Vuitton

The Parisian maison’s poignant show featured the collection that Virgil Abloh was in the midst of designing before his death in November 2021, and which was completed posthumously by his design team. At the Le Carreau du Temple in Paris, the show set evoked a serene suburban scene; a quintessential street was lined with sky-blue ‘dream houses’, with red rooftops and inviting, warmly lit windows.

Abloh’s first show for the Parisian maison eight collections ago featured a rainbow catwalk recalling The Wizard of Oz’s Yellow Brick Road, symbolising a fairytale path about to be trodden. The emotive setting for his final, posthumous show was an emblem of a dream fulfilled, a familial location to mark a boyhood aspiration that came true. 

Prada

By now, film clips of Jeff Goldblum walking onto the Prada runway from an intergalactic tunnel resembling a spaceship in 2001: A Space Odyssey have made it into the annals of viral video history. For the label’s A/W 2022 show at its Deposito space in the Fondazione Prada, Milan, regular collaborator AMO created an illuminated mesh walkway, from which models strode onto a runway lit with a yellow zig-zag and lined with rows of retro brown cinema seating. The auditorium seating was a sublime set design detail, a nod to the host of A-list and emerging Hollywood actors that walked the runway, swapping the cinema for the catwalk, including Twin Peaks’ Kyle MacLachlan, Moonlight’s Ashton Sanders and Sex Education’s Asa Butterfield.

Kenzo

For Nigo’s debut, A/W 2022 show for Kenzo, the brand returned to the early 19th-century Parisian shopping arcade Galerie Vivienne, where its founder Kenzo Takada opened his first boutique, ‘Jungle Jap’ in 1970. Here, the runway set-up was stripped back, emphasising the mosaic-clad, corniced and gilded beauty of the location, and placing focus on Nigo’s debut designs for the house, a collection rooted in authenticity, drawing on American staples and celebrating Kenzo’s signature motifs, layering and mixing for a modern men’s and women’s wardrobe. 

Etro

Italian label Etro is synonymous with the paisley print – it even has a perfume named after the pattern and a ready-to-wear collection dedicated to its signature swirling jacquard fabric creations. For the brand’s A/W 2022 menswear show in Milan, the label blew up its paisley print into paintbox red, green and blue tones and created a carpet that snaked across its sizeable runway space at Bocconi University, which was lined with clear Perspex seating. 

Loewe

Inside the Tennis Club de Paris, models left their footprints on sand, walking amidst Flags, Paris 2022, a rippling site-specific installation by New York-based artists Joe McShea and Edgar Mosa. This was formed from 87 faceless flags, made from nearly 4,000 individually cut rainbow-hued ribbons, which were mounted on 6.5m-long aluminium flagpoles.

The installation was a new iteration of the flag-focused works that McShea and Mosa have showcased in Ibiza and locations around New York, including Fire Island Pines back in summer 2020 and 2021. Inspired by the movement captured in Baroque frescoes and hyper-geometry, they are not intended to be symbolic, but to act as a mesmerising call to reflection. Creating a draped, fabric-focused forest, each flag was arranged randomly, and formed from shades to represent the full visible colour spectrum.

Jil Sander

Lucie and Luke Meier favour purist silhouettes, so it’s serendipitous that their runway shows have taken place in religious locations, from Pitti to Paris. For A/W 2022, Sander held its show in the breathtaking American Cathedral in Paris, where stooled seating was dotted amid majestic pillars and the scene bathed in a yellow light. A giant balloon hovered about the catwalk, like a shining set above the stripped-back show set. The label’s show invitation was also inflatable.

Hermès

At the Mobilier National in Paris, time-worn tapestries woven between the 15th and 19th centuries lined the Hermès catwalk. Artistic director of the maison’s men’s universe Véronique Nichanian was taken with the symbolism of these tactile designs and their depictions of landscapes and the passage of time, and fascinated by the idea of giving them new character by assimilating models into their backdrop.

One tapestry,Tenture des Mois ou des Maisons Royales, Avril, Versailles, commenced in 1673 and completed in 1680, touches on the months of the year, while other creations focus on humbler depictions of verdure or ‘greenery’. Models became ‘part of the landscape in which the collection’s energy unfurls, and in which figures and clothing come into their own’.

Paco Rabanne

At the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, Paco Rabanne's show set was bathed in an otherworldly hue, which shifted in pink and purple tones, reminiscient of a James Turrell light projection. The brand's runway setting had a multi-sensorial, enveloping elan, reflecting the hues in the brand's A/W 2022 womenswear collection, like scarlett and bubble gum sequin dresses with voluminous ruffles.

When Kenzo Takada opened his first boutique in Paris in 1970 – after moving from Japan to the French capital – he chose Galerie Vivienne, one of the city’s most iconic 19th-century covered arcades, as its location. The boutique ushered in a liberated, Eastern-inflected exuberance to the conservative echelons of French fashion – then more associated with gilded Place Vendôme salons – that was brimming with effusive floral prints, unrestrictive kimono shapes and a colour wheel of materials. A reflection of his love of nature, Takada named his first store Jungle Jap and painted its walls with scenes inspired by Henri Rousseau’s The Dream (1910). ‘The opening of the store brought a certain freedom and off-the-wall aesthetic,’ he explained in the 2019 monograph Kenzo Takada, published by ACC Books. 

In 1970, Takada also staged his first fashion show inside his Galerie Vivienne boutique. Today, the brand’s new creative director Nigo – streetwear supremo, musician, founder of Tokyo-based A Bathing Ape and co-founder of Billionaire Boys Club, the first Japanese designer since Takada to take the brand’s creative helm, and a fellow graduate of Tokyo’s Bunka Fashion College – nodded to this history, staging his debut, A/W 2022 show for Kenzo inside Galerie Vivienne’s historic glass-and-steel enclosed enclaves. 

Here, focus was placed on the clothing, as guests – including Kanye West, fellow Billionaire Boys Club co-founder Pharrell Williams and Tyler, the Creator (who are both also featured on Nigo's upcoming album I Know Nigo) – sat on simple foldable wooden chairs that lined the Galerie Vivienne arcade. For A/W 2022, Nigo’s silhouettes, which were grounded in a ‘real-to-wear’ authentic wardrobe, harked back to the designer’s 1980s teenage years in Japan, which revelled in the revival of 1950s Americana, amplified by the country’s post-Second World War links with American culture. This translated into relaxed, insouciant looks that hybridised sportswear, workwear and suiting, riffed on traditional Japanese uniform and UK 1980s subcultural styles, and celebrated the motifs synonymous with the house, such as the tiger, and floral patterns, like blue and red pansies and colourful bouquets. 

Think pinstripe suits layered with flat kimono-shape wool jackets inspired by the uniforms of Japanese potters, colourful American college knitted vests paired with high-waisted trousers and chunky lion’s head belts, pansy-print bowling shirts styled with full skirts, padded motocross gloves and chunky Chelsea boots, and dark or stonewash Japanese denim all-in-ones that resembled utilitarian overalls layered with shirts. Varsity jackets nodded to US youth dressing codes, which have long inspired Japanese style (and are always found in the city’s vintage shops), Prince of Wales check suits, Harris Tweed overcoats, parkas and striped scarves nodded to British Mod-style, while apron-like garments referenced the foldable silhouettes worn during traditional tea ceremonies. The concept of ‘impractical workwear' translated into desert boots and workwear embellished with floral prints. Hats were sported with almost every look, including berets, cycling casquettes and field caps. 

Where Kenzo Takada forged his first pathway into French fashion, so Nigo – whose A/W 2022 Kenzo show was his catwalk first – traced out the future of the label. It’s bright, bold, decade-spanning, and rooted in reality.

INFORMATION

kenzo.com

When Kenzo Takada arrived in Paris in 1964 at the of 25, after travelling from Japan's Yokohama via boat and train, he brought with him an effusive energy that he retained throughout his career, expressed in exuberant prints, naturalistic motifs, and form-liberating silhouettes. ‘His creations were always colourful and full of joy,' Clara Vivien, fashion specialist at Parisian auction house Artcurial, says of the designer, who passed away in October 2020, aged 81. ‘His is a style that does not take itself seriously. With everything we’re going through right now we need light-heartedness, and positivity.'

A sense of optimism is certainly something to take from Artcurial's latest fashion sale. This comprises two auctions: an online sale from 3 to 12 May 2021; and a physical sale on 11 May. These feature 150 voluminous and colourful fashion pieces – spanning kimonos to coats, finished designs to uncompleted toiles – and more than 600 personal art and design objects, from the Haussmannian apartment Takada lived in for 15 years, in the centre of St Germain Des Près in Paris. 

Drawing by Jean-Charles de Castelbajac for the catalogue of the Kenzo Takada Collection auction at Artcurial 

The auction’s ready-to-wear pieces include designs from 2005 to 2008, which were originally made for the Takada brand and have been recreated by Artcurial from the label’s lookbooks.

The auction house previously recreated pieces for its Martin Margiela: Anvers & Contre Tous auction, in 2019. ‘It is very interesting to work this way because it brings a certain strength to the pieces presented and it allows us to retranscribe the work of the designer and his vision,’ says Vivien. She credits a voluminous pleated opera bolero jacket as a standout Takada redesign.

Interior and art objects for sale span centuries and genres. Among the pieces are Ming dynasty vases, Baccarat glassware, lithographs by Jean Cocteau, Pierre Paulin chairs, and Edo-period Japanese tableware. They reflect the diverse and inclusive approach that Takada brought to the much narrower world view of fashion design in the 1960s. His is a vision to be treasured now and in the future. 

INFORMATION

Online auction takes place 3-12 May 2021. Physical auction takes place on 11 May 2021 in Artcurial’s Paris headquarters. 

artcurial.com

Over the past 12 months, fashion designers and brands have tackled how to present collections at a time when IRL experiences are out of the question. Most have turned to the digital realm, experimenting with AR and video, while others, in the absence of our ability to physically interact with clothing, have used tactile ephemera to emphasise its qualities.

‘I work in job to do with touch and right now I can't touch anything,' mused creative director Jonathan Anderson in conversation with Hans Ulrich Obrist in a recent Moncler Genius podcast. 

For A/W 2021, a selection of brands became book worms, accompanying their collections with printed newspapers that outlined their aesthetic intentions. Here, we present our favourite fashion newspapers.

Loewe

‘I thought it was nice to put a literary backdrop to the collection,’ said Loewe creative director Jonathan Anderson, of his initiative for the Spanish label's A/W 2021 offering. Anderson has constantly innovated around new forms of clothing presentation, creating concepts including the M/M Paris-conceived ‘Show in a Box’ and ‘Show on the Wall’, which saw ephemera and printed images used to convey a collection: from a portfolio case featuring Anthea Hamilton-designed wallpaper you can paste onto your wall, to an archive box filled with fabric swatches, a soundtrack on vinyl, and cut-and-paste cardboard mannequins.

Loewe's  ‘A Show in the News' concept featured a time capsule-inspired metal tin, with a newspaper folded inside. Its headline, 'The Show Has Been Cancelled', was a humorous nod to the brand's lack of a physical runway presentation. The box also boasted a letter opener encased in fuschia leather and an exclusive excerpt from the first chapter from Danielle Steele’s new novel, The Affair. In the brand's podcast, Casa Loewe Conversations, Anderson also speaks to the best-selling author about her creative process. ‘I always feel I have to do better and [work] harder than the time before,' she says. ‘Some ideas come on their own and others are really hard to push for.'

Alighieri

The written word has taken on new resonance for Alighieri's Rosh Mahtani in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. During the first UK lockdown last spring, the jeweller asked friends of the brand to write down inspirational messages on paper and post them back to her. For A/W 2021, Mahtani created ‘Wandering Stars Science Report', a printed book, featuring images Mahtani photographed on film, fictionally theorising how her latest pieces, from chunky chain bracelets, to sensuous crystal and pearl drop earrings, came to be. This report noted falling ‘fragments from the Alighieri skies', energy-imbued creations that strengthen relationships between human beings. 

‘The scientific study is based on photographs, scans, eye-witness accounts and mathematical data, in an attempt to understand these creatures and objects and what they mean for our future. This take on our lookbook was such a fun journey, aiming to bring a smile to our friends and customers,' Mahtani says. ‘There is nothing digital that could possibly compare to a physical book, the turning of a page, or the feel of a talisman. For us, at Alighieri, we use physical marketing alongside our digital initiatives, to truly bring people into our universe, and offer them a moment for a physical ritual in their day.'

Stefan Cooke

A recurring restriction of clothing presented through the screen is that it can be difficult for viewers to take in the fine design details and fabrications. For Stefan Cooke's A/W 2021 collection, brand founders Stefan Cooke and Jake Burt were keen to draw attention to its fabrics and finishing touches, like lattice slashed knitwear, oversized tassels, textured denim, and tactile button badges. ‘We wanted to shoot the collection in a way that made the viewer feel close to the clothes,' they explain. The result was a printed book with collection images photographed by Jet Swan, that had been blown up and zoomed in on. 

Each page of the publication boasted an A/W 2021 collection detail shot, like the diamond shape of an intarsia knitted jumper or the silhoeutte of a thick-soled boot, which moved down the body, from the face to the feet. As a result, the project bore resemblance to a popular children's drawing game, which invites players to draw a different body part on a piece of folded up paper. 

Kenzo

Guests tuning into Kenzo's A/W 2021 dance performance online had something to browse before the show began, with the label sending a colourful Kenzo newspaper to guests, zipped into a bold patterned Tyvek envelope. With the collection, creative director Felipe Oliveira Baptista celebrated the prismatic, experimental and joy-encouraging life of the brand's founder Kenzō Takada, who passed away in October 2020. Fluid pieces in saturated shades, stripes and naturalistic patterns drew on both Takada and Baptista's archives. 

The pages of the accompanying newspaper, designed in collaboration with M/M Paris, were collaged and tiled with celebratory archive images and photographs, bold typography, sketches and prints, from glass bottles to birds, pansies to jangling chains. Baptista included a hand-written Editor's Letter, outlining his creative response to Takada's death. ‘Kenzō stood for freedom, joy, diversity, love of nature, and creating harmony out of contrasts,' he wrote. ‘I wanted colour and print to reflect all of this. An offering to Kenzō of all the things he cherished.' 

Gucci

As a maison, Gucci boasts a range of recognisable motifs, from the tiger to the bee, the interlocking 'GG' logo to the triple stripe. In celebration of this symbology, for the label's A/W 2021 collection invitation, the Florentine house created ‘Gucci Quiz,' a 30+ page book of fashion-related puzzles, sent out to the homes of digital guests around the world, incorporating a host of Gucci trivia.

Cryptic crossword your favourite brain-teaser, or more suited to a wordsearch? Never fear, for Gucci Quiz has an array of puzzles, from chic spot the differences to pop quiz's to connect the dots. The booklet, which was created in collaboration with Keesing PRS Italia and with the support of Domenica Quiz, is one of a host of innovative fashion show invitations that creative director Alessandro Michele has conceived over the years, including an apparently ticking bomb, a miniature tin box packed with mementos and a packet of flowering plant bulbs.

Just days before the opening of Paris Fashion Week, new Covid-19 restrictions were implemented in France. Bars and restaurants in Marseilles were shuttered. In Paris, drinking spots were ordered to close at 10pm and gatherings of more than 10 people were banned in public places. The final city to host the S/S 2021 shows with the most sizeable schedule has been beset with travel restrictions – from the 14 day quarantine required of returning UK citizens, put in place in mid-August – to the announcement that those arriving in Italy from France are subject to a Covid-19 test. But for the City of Lights, and the epicentre of the French fashion industry, estimated at creating one million jobs and €150 billion in direct sales each year, the shows had to go on, if at least in largely ‘phygital' form.

French fashion behemoths including Chanel, Dior and Louis Vuitton staged live physical shows, in venues including the top floors of former department store La Samaritaine, which has been shuttered since 2005, and the rooftop of the office skyscraper Tour Montparnasse, while brands including Balenciaga, Thom Browne and new-to-the schedule Wales Bonner devised innovative collection films, featuring in Browne's case, a trio of Olympic athletes. When a week before in Milan, Raf Simons and Miuccia Prada debuted their co-creative collection via a live stream, so Matthew Williams also presented his first collection for Givenchy online, teasing out his debut designs days before on Instagram.

Maria Grazia Chiuri may have presented a softer Dior silhouette for spring – inspired by enforced ease with which we are living our lives – but she didn’t go soft on the set design of the maison’s show, which was live streamed for the first time on TikTok. Inside a socially-distanced tent at the Jardin des Tuileries, Chiuri enlisted Italian visual artist and writer Lucia Marcucci, to create 7-meter high stain glass collages, that sprung up in 18 illuminated columns, inspired by the 2011 artwork ‘ Vetrata di poesia visiva’. Collage has a visual resonance with Chiuri, and she uses the art form as a tool to convey her feminist methodology. For the brand’s A/W 2018 show, she pasted the walls of the brand’s show space with provocative magazine covers and slogans, in a collection which nodded to the student protests in Paris in 1968.

If Dior is defined by the cinched in silhouette, Chiuri relaxed this rigour for spring. Models sported loose gauzy gowns, dressing gown shape jackets, easy tuxedo trousers and utilitarian cagoules. While her silhouettes were made for our at-home habits, details had an escapist élan, incorporating nomadic tie-dye, tassels, crochet and faraway florals. Designs for social-distancing, but still with a dream.

If anyone was going to respond to the practicalities of Covid-19 with technical tenacity it was Coperni. The label has its finger on the pulse of contemporary life, incorporating the digital experience into its design DNA. For S/S 2021, founders Sébastien Meyer and Arnaud Valliant developed ‘C+' a protective technical jersey developed using Swiss technology, which is lightweight, moisturising and anti-bacterial. This fabric – which is immersed in silver ions – was incorporated into streamlined designs, which worked to enhance the body, not restrict it, like elasticated trousers and loose buttonless shirts. The collection, shown on the roof of Paris’ tallest skyscraper, also featured wet suit leggings and technical blazers, with easy zip fastenings.  

Face masks and visors have entered the global accessory lexicon, and for his sophomore outing for Kenzo, creative director Felipe Oliveira Baptista tapped into this phenomenon. Inspired by an early 20th century photograph of a man wearing a structural 3D mosquito net and cap (complete with a hole for his pipe), he created silhouettes which spoke of soft protection. Models walking outdoors at the Institut National des Jeunes Sourds, wore mackintoshes and gauzy archival floral print cagoules, paired with beekeepers hats, some of which had transparent coverings protecting not only the face, but cocooning the entire body.

In 2020, the world accelerated in line with Marine Serre’s apocalyptic design vision, with proposes sustainable silhouettes for battling climate change, and environmental and social chaos. These mediate somewhere between sportswear and couture. In ‘Amor Fati', a film directed by Sacha Barbin and Ryan Doubiago, she presented a cinematically impressive sci-fi fantasy, with a circular narrative hooked around a laboratory, a natural landscape and an underground water-world. Serre’s cast sported balaclavas, Black Panther-centric berets and body suits, arming themselves against upheaval with recycled moire harnesses and holsters.

There’s also an apocalyptic armour behind Rick Owens’ designs. In recent seasons, the label’s creations have drawn on the garb of glam rock stars and mythological Aztec gods. For spring, Owens streamed a show from a piazza in front of Venice Lido’s casino – the spot where he spends his summers, and also the city where the term quarantine originated, when during the Black Death, infected ships arriving in the port where isolated for 40 days. An apt allusion to our times, the collection was titled ‘Phlegethon’, referring to one of the rivers in the Inferno described in Dante’s Divine Comedy. Owens equipped his hell dwellers in jackets with bulbous shoulders, fluid gowns, leather hot pants, platform thigh high boots and face masks. Uncharacteristically optimistic hues of creamy pink, banana yellow and candy apple red nodded to Neapolitan gelato. In his show notes Owens said, ‘I might just be getting into a taste for the lurid that an undercurrent of threat and dread can inspire.’ 

Pepto Bismol pink was also a colour favoured by Kiko Kostadinov’s Laura and Deanna Fanning, who for S/S 2021, evolved the label’s womenswear lexicon, experimenting with both Victorian and 1970s shapes, in bold hues and textures. Standout were hand craft-focused shirred and smocked dresses, which pucker and crinkle around the body, retro wide-collared tailoring, and an update of the brand’s curved Louis heel, embellished with colourful crystal beads and accentuated with Gladiator ankle straps.

Wales Bonner showed for the first time on the S/S 2021 schedule, but her collection – presented in ‘Thinkin Home', a sunset-drenched film by Jamaican artist Jeano Edwards – was the second in a three-collection spanning exploration of the diasporic connections between Britain and the Caribbean. While A/W 2020’s ‘Lovers Rock’ considered the British Jamaican community in the 1970s in London – inspired by Bonner’s father’s family, and photographs of teenagers hanging at Lewisham Youth Club, ‘Essence' explores the early 1980s origination of dancehall music in her grandfather's home country. Bonner looked to the style of Augustus Pablo, the Jamaican roots reggae and dub record producer and musician, and her collection sung of dancehall vibrancy and sleek British smartness, featuring stripe caftans mixed with tailoring, and fluid knitwear and bold patchwork corduroy. The collection also continued her collaboration with Adidas Originals, on slimline shell suits and colour blocked tees.

‘Psychedelic optimism’ is how Acne Studios’ Jonny Johansson summed up the brand’s S/S 2021 collection, designed to celebrate the possibilities of life experienced on pause. Looking to astrological elements as optimistic symbols, the Swedish brand collaborated with the LA-based artist Ben Quinn on a series of star prints layered over organza tunics. Johansson also honed in on luminescent fabrics, finding illumination in pearlised cotton, metallic threads and iridescent paper, and celebrating fluid and diaphonous silhouettes, with handcrafted details. Akris’ Albert Kriemler also found inspiration in phosphorescence, namely the light-emitting sculptures of Imi Knoebel. He collaborated with the German Minimalist on a series of fluorescent and vibrant creations that nodded to the artist’s graphic and colour-focused oeuvre, including caftans and relaxed dresses and chic tracksuits. ‘A Knoebel line, colour or form is instantly recognisable as its own. It represents what felt very right for this moment,' Kreimler explained. ‘Something designed today should not be obsolete tomorrow.'

There have been diverse opinions regarding the return to the physical show format, and one designer content with finding alternative methods is Jonathan Anderson. For the men’s shows back in July, he devised a ‘show-in-a-box' concept for his eponymous label, and for Spanish house Loewe where he is creative director, containing interactive runway show-inspired ephemera. At Loewe, the label's S/S 2021 men’s design was imagined as a grey canvas index card box – conceived in collaboration with M/M (Paris) – packed with fabric swatches, a record, and a pop-up show set, inspired by Duchamp's ‘Boîte-en-valise', a box the artist carried in a suitcase with miniature monographs of his own work.

For S/S 2021 womenswear, Anderson broke out of the boundaries of the box, creating a ‘Show-on-the-wall', an artist's portfolio featuring S/S 2021 looks, accompanied by an interactive selection of ephemera, encouraging its receiver to immerse themselves in the collection's elements, as the viewer would at a physical runway show. Eagerly Instagrammed add-ons included a roll of wallpaper designed by Anthea Hamilton, plus a border roll depicting spring's voluminous and architectural shapes – enhanced with plumes of taffeta, ruffles of broderie anglaise, glittering knots and XL pleats – sent with Loewe monogrammed scissors, a canvas tool bag, paintbrush and glue. 

Nadège Vanhee-Cybulski also placed focus on the printed form, sending out a collectors' item scrapbook to accompany Hermès’ physical show, with atmospheric images lensed by creatives including Wallpaper* collaborator Katrien De Blauwer. The maison’s accompanying collection was a masterclass in seductive minimalism. Body suits with cut-out backs were paired with knee length skirts in the supplest leather, crisp trousers styled with bandeaus, while shawl coats featured rolled up collars that unpoppered into scarves. The colour palette was rich and restrained in tones including caramel, sorbet yellow and scarlet. The most luxurious house shoe for spring? The Hermès clog, complete with an ‘H’ detail leather upper.

Paul Smith – whose beloved British brand celebrates its 50th anniversary this year – immersed himself in his personal history for spring. The designer – who swapped a physical or digital show for a lookbook and walk-through press appointments in London – was inspired by over 30 holiday photo albums, featuring snapshots of himself and wife Pauline. ‘We designed it over the phone!’ Smith laughed of the creative process behind the soothingly optimistic collection which features easy zip-up jackets in stripe tailoring fabrics, silk skirts and beach shorts emblazoned with enlarged archive rose prints, plus unconstructed tailoring. A double-breasted jacket with tactile prick stitch detailing, was inspired by the retro shapes Smith spotted on trips to Havana. ‘If people have been wearing sweats and tees all year, we ned to ease them back in,’ he said of the soft shapes.

There was also a nostalic nod behind Miu Miu's spring offering, which featured super sweet girlish silhouettes, like tracksuit tops paired with retro briefs, stripe halternecks and tennis skirts, knitted polo shirts and micro minis shimmering with plastic pailettes. It spoke of the innocent joy on dressing up and was sublime in its celebratory tone.

Designers used the downtime experienced during global lockdown to reconsider the core values of their brand. In fashion cities across the world, labels have presented pared-back or streamlined collections, with fewer looks and more focus. This concept resonated with designer Satoshi Kondo, who, troubled by the sheer number of shipment boxes used to transport Issey Miyake's last A/W 2020 offering from Tokyo to Paris, conceived a collection so compact it fitted into one. S/S 2021 features a number of shrink-inspired silhouettes that nod to the brand’s prowess in fabric development and innovation, from a technical parka and poncho which can be folded into a garment bag, to zig-zag knit patterned tops and dresses that can be rolled into a shape of a sponge. 

Y/Project’s Glenn Martens also presented a vision which evoked the ‘essential meaning’ of the experimental brand. Celebrating the versatility of its hybrid silhouettes, an accompanying ‘How to wear’ film showed how pieces could shaped, with the incorporation of zips and poppers. At Schiaparelli too, Daniel Rosenberry’s third collection for the house was focused on ‘essential silhouettes in the best fabrics’ that assimilated the hand-focused flourishes of haute couture, like trouser suits in the brand’s signature hot pink with Rorschach test-centric prints, Delphic gowns and chain-embellished shirting. These silhouettes were anything but shy, and were paired with hammered gold jewellery with nose and keylock details – surrealist symbols of the house.

While few were physically able to attend Paris for the spring shows, brands chose to celebrate the city itself. At Ami, the brand held its first show on the womenswear schedule, on the bank of the River Seine. In a more seductive spin than previous seasons, models sported dresses with cut-outs at the décolletage and check pencil skirts paired with string vests, inspired by Nineties evening wear. The urban landscape also inspired the soundtrack to Paco Rabanne’s pared-back physical show at Espace Commines, which bought a relaxed, daytime ease to the brand's disco-centric shapes. Nostalgic noises, that were silent for so much of this year, accompanied the collection, like dogs barking, police sirens honking, cars indicating and bike bells jingling.

The fashionable flaneur was also a focus. In a digital film presented as a music video, Balenciaga's S/S 2021 models stomped towards the Place Vendôme and along the Seine in the dark, miming to a synthy take on Corey Hart’s electro pop hit ‘Sunglasses at Night,’ sporting chainmail dresses and hybrid sportswear, fluffy heeled hotel slippers and wraparound shades, naturally. Rokh’s Rok Hwang was also fascinated with the concept of walking outside at night - a pastime we’ve all appreciated in recent months - recalling teenage wanders with friends when living in Austin Texas. The brand’s cinematic show film, set in an otherworldly location, featured modern flaneurs in fighting forms, including ruffled and tartan Victoriana dresses layered with leather harnesses.

For his debut at Givenchy, 1017 ALYX 9SM founder Matthew Williams teased out snippets of his S/S 2021 showcase a week before on Instagram, posting low-fi close-up images of chains and padlocks, lensed by Nick Knight. Hardware was essential to the designer’s vision, which was revealed in a surprisingly low key lookbook, with metal elements designed as a luxurious interpretation of the much-coveted logo. Williams looked at the codes of the historic couture house through a Gen Z-centric streetwear lens, featuring sleek, architectural shapes like square shouldered leather capes paired with gauzy bejewelled gowns, severe tailoring and tube dresses with seductive exposed backs. Williams nodded to previous creative directors, celebrating the tenure of Alexander McQueen with animalistic accessories, like sandals with curving horn heels and caps with knobbly antlers, and to Riccardo Tisci, in a hardware-focused revision of the graphic Antigona bag, beloved of supermodels in the Noughties. Referring to the collection as a ‘sampler’ of things to come, William’s Gen-Z fans will be fixated on what is next.

Chanel is one of many red carpet labels that has lost out to countless cancelled occasions this year, although Julia Garner and Shira Haas did opt to wear the brand to the Emmy’s first ever ‘phygital' awards show. With a typically insouciant mindset, creative director Virgine Viard was attracted to the off-duty attitude of an actress before a photocall for S/S 2021. In the show's press release she spoke of women with ‘their attitude a little out of sync with the outfits they’re wearing’ – a feeling many people have experienced this year, dressing up for visual dinner parties and on-screen events. Models walked against a huge Hollywood-inspired Chanel sign – the letters of the house erected with huge scaffolding – at a physical show inside the Grand Palais, sporting fluid asymmetric dresses, power shouldered skirt suits, sequin bermuda shorts and slogan t-shirts inspired by neon lights. The show celebrated cinematic escapism, one of which was rooted in reality.

Also intrigued by the codes of dressing today, John Galliano dissected the haute couture shapes and techniques used in Maison Margiela’s Artisanal collection, creating ethereal, finely crafted and avant-garde creations which were presented in ‘S.W.A.L.K 2', a Nick-Knight directed sequel to the brand’s video in July. The 40 minute film flits between fitting scenes in the label’s studio, and a sprawling estate in Tuscany, where Galliano’s models dance the tango, offering extensive insight into the creative process behind creating a collection.

Louis Vuitton's Nicolas Ghesquière was also fascinated by the concept of ‘in between garments' that reflect the on-pause lifestyle of today, somewhere between suiting and sportswear, at home clothes and ones for dreaming of going out. Usually showing in various areas of The Louvre, from its IM Pei-designed Cour Marly to its underground Pavillon de l’Horloge, the label decamped to the top floor of La Samaritane, the LVMH-owned department store which has been shuttered for refurbishment since 2005. In a physical and digital presentation blend, the Art Deco architecture and Art Nouveau frescoes were offset with green screen elements, which showed snippets of Wim Wenders ‘Wings of Desire' to audiences at home. Ghesquière's ‘stylistically vague' shapes featured 1980s power suiting, chainmail mini dresses and slouchy knitwear. Silhouettes appeared elegantly thrown on, like boardshorts paired with a long duster coat and a ‘Peace’ slogan tee. The show summed up a season that navigated the online and physical realms, creating clothing which caters to today's much changed lifestyle, one which shows no sign of settling come spring.

Kenzo Takada has died at the age of 81, due to complications from Covid-19. The Japanese fashion designer – founder of the eponymous label Kenzo – was famed for bringing unrestricted shapes, vibrant colour and creative energy to French fashion in the 1970s, and liberating sartorial society from the conservatism of the Haute Couture salon.

Takada was born in 1939 in the castle town of Himeji, and attended Bunka Fashion College in Tokyo as one of its first male students. In 1964, at the age of 25, he travelled by boat and train from Yokohama to Paris, set on launching his fashion career. Takada worked as a stylist at textile manufacturer Pisanti, before opening his famed first boutique ‘Jungle Jap’ in Galerie Vivienne in 1970. Its walls were painted with tropical scenes, inspired by Henri Rousseau’s The Dream (1910). It was here that Takada staged his first fashion show, an intimate event, with a collection brimming with unrestrictive flat-cut shapes, floral prints and effusive colours. ‘Out [the models] surged, like brilliant sunflowers, everyone loved this new, youthful fashion,’ explained writer Chihiro Masui of Takada’s collections, in ACC Art Books' monograph of the designer, published last year (and pictured below). Takada was one of a group of innovative designers, which include Yves Saint Laurent and Karl Lagerfeld, bringing a new sense of sophisticated ease to French ready-to-wear.

Takada launched Kenzo’s men’s line in 1983, and its more commercial lines Kenzo Jeans and Kenzo Jungle were launched in 1986. The brand also launched its fragrance line a year later, including the immensely popular eau de toilette Kenzo Flower, which drew on Takada’s affection for floral forms.

Takada held his final Paris fashion show in 1999 – one walked by his friends and long-time collaborators, before the brand was acquired by LVMH. ‘It was a terrific party. I was very happy,’ Takada wrote in the prologue section to his 2019-published monograph, referencing his final show. Since, Kenzo has maintained an impressive output of creative directors, who celebrate the brand’s colourful history and nature-focused heritage, while drawing on its famed lion motif.

In 2018, then-creative directors Carol Lim and Humberto Leon launched Kenzo La Memento, a collection which reinterpreted the house’s archives. For the label’s most recent S/S 2021 collection, presented this week in Paris, its current creative director Felipe Oliveira Baptista, reinterpreted archive floral prints and historic veiled silhouettes, in a commentary of our fragile relationship with the natural world.

Most recently, Takada had launched K3, a lifestyle brand which launched in 2019.

‘His amazing energy, kindness, talent and smile were contagious,' noted Felipe Oliveira Baptista on a post on Kenzo's Instagram page. It will continue to live on.

INFORMATION

Read more archive Wallpaper* coverage of Kenzo Takada here

‘There are lots of flowers I’ve never seen in Tokyo, like anemones, mimosas and others whose names I don’t know. When I walk past a flower shop I feel very cheerful,’ Japanese designer Kenzo Takada wrote in a letter to his mother in 1965, a year after arriving in Paris via a month-long ocean voyage. The natural world has long been a motif of the house. When Takada opened his revolutionary boutique Jungle Jap in 1970, its walls were emblazoned with tropical murals inspired by Henri Rousseau’s The Dream (1910), and from its outset, the brand’s clothing has been festooned with floral forms. 

For his debut A/W 2020 show as creative director of Kenzo, Felipe Oliveira Baptista (who served as creative director of Lacoste from 2010-2018), drew on Kenzo’s naturalistic heritage. On the grassy lawns that line the Institut National de Jeunes Sourds in Paris, Baptista erected a transparent tubular structure, formed from bisecting paths, lined with benches. ‘It was designed as a modular nomadic object,’ says the Azores-born Baptista.

Baptista was inspired by the cross-cultural heritage of the brand, which combined Japanese silhouettes like flat kimono shapes and bold hues with Parisian cuts, and his own border-spanning sartorial DNA. Just as Takada took emotive inspiration from South-East Asia, India, West Africa and Europe (areas he passed through on his journey to Paris), Baptista also looked to his own personal narratives, taking inspiration from summers spent as a child in the Azores and an image of his newlywed parents in Mozambique about to embark on a skydive.

For Baptista’s fellow nomads, the designer proposed an elegant yet utterly practical wardrobe: down jackets that transform into sleeping bags, dresses in cocooning shapes, utility belts, protective headgear and parkas that expand like wings. Naturalistic tones and patterns included a camouflage print, in fact formed from a Trompe-l'œil of roses and a series of painting dresses were emblazoned with expressionist tiger heads, taken from works by Portuguese artist Julio Pomar. These animalistic artworks wouldn't have looked out of place on the walls of the original Jungle Jap boutique in Galerie Vivienne.

Sustainable show set design has been an emphatic element of the A/W 2020 shows. In Milan, Gucci’s Alessandro Michele forgoed a physical invitation for a personal Whatsapp voice memo sent to each guest, while at Bottega Veneta, Daniel Lee swapped a hard copy invitation for an email animation. Additionally, instead of building an excessive show set, Lee simply projected scenes of a Palladium villa onto reusable fabric screens.

‘The set will be re-used in other forms at events in the coming seasons, such as pop-up stores or presentations,’ Baptista says of Kenzo's tubular show set. Produced in collaboration with Bureau Betak, the events agency announced yesterday its shift into eco-conscious production. It is the first significant company worldwide to receive ISO 20121 certification for sustainable event management. After all, Kenzo's future nomads need a natural world to wander through.

INFORMATION

www.kenzo.com

Scene setting: Carol Lim and Humberto Leon ushered in a street smart, savvy curatorial kudos to the Paris fashion season, arriving as co-creative directors at Kenzo in 2012. Earlier this month, it was announced that they were to leave the house to focus on their Opening Ceremony line. For their final Paris show, they bowed out with typical performative pop panache. Directors Lola Raban-Oliva and JR Etienne (who work under the moniker Partel Oliva) took over a stadium at the AccorHotels Arena, dressing the space in long curtains onto which were printed stretched-out suns from photographer Hiroshi Yamazaki’s ‘Heliography’ and ‘Horizon’ series. As the show began, they were speedily sucked into the ceiling, unveiling a choreographed dance performance and a live set from Solange Knowles.

Mood board: Their final collection looked to Japan’s ocean waters. The duo imagined groups of modern-day superheroes who dive into the strong currents to retrieve whatever treasures are strewn on the bottom of the seas. Groups of Japanese female freedivers known as the Ama – who have dived for over 2000 years to forage for seafood and pearls for their communities – were paid homage in digital woodblock prints on shirting and as jacquards on knits. Diving gear was riffed on in the rubberised outerwear in orange and violet and scuba sneakers, while Hawaïan shirts filled with prints of sea lilies or urchins.

Team work: The show opened with performers wearing high Japanese Zori platforms, rocking back and forth down the runway. Each donned a piece from the nascent Kenzo archives. The Guadeloupean choreographer Léo Lérus directed what he called an ‘imagined retrospective procession’ of looks from Lim and Leon’s tenure at the house. As they stalked the catwalk, Knowles performed a deconstructed, haunting version of the opening track of her When I Get Home album, accompanied by a brass band. 

Scene setting: Walking into ‘Jungle Jap’, the first boutique which Kenzo Takada opened in Paris’ Galerie Vivienne in 1970 would have been a visually stimulating experience. Paintings of Henri Rousseau’s The Dream painted by Takada and his friends lined the walls, and his bright, easy cotton pieces populated the store. Carol Lim and Humberto Leon’s Memento collections for Kenzo, pay tribute to the heritage of the brand’s founder, and have previously nodded to his expertise in denim, florals and knitwear. They’ve also featured dramatic and immersive show experiences.

For Memento’s 4th collection, guests were installed on tiered seating sections inside the performing arts space Halle des Blancs Manteaux. As the show began, a bright clothing-clad troupe of performers appeared in the centre of the space, launching into an energetic routine, orchestrated by movement director and choreographer Paul Sadot and choreographer Nqobilé Danseur. It wasn’t just the performers that moved. As the show progressed, the seating sections began to rotate, moving guests around the space.

Mood board: When Kenzo Takada burst onto the scene in the 1970s, his prismatic and horticultural prints took the fashion world by storm. Lim and Leon paid tribute to Takada’s whimsical and tongue-in-cheek imagination, reproducing a painted tomatoes print from his S/S 1992 menswear collection. This was emblazoned across men’s shorts, trousers and shirts, and women’s smock dresses and mesh tops. The clothes had a punchy, pop-art pizzazz.

Team work: Lim and Leon have used dance to establish a new performative narrative within Kenzo’s kaleidoscopic history. Just look to Spike Jonze’s My Mutant Brain 2016 film for the brand’s Kenzo World fragrance, which subverted the slick and polished nature of beauty advertising, and featured a model dancing with abandon. The performers that bought Kenzo’s Memento 4 collection to life, provided an energetic antidote to a long day of fashion shows, and as the show climaxed, a host of editors and guests even rose to join them.

A film is more than a moving photograph. A fashion picture freezes something that is fleeting – a movie will take you along for the ride. Speaking to The New Yorker last year, Humberto Leon, the co-creative director of Kenzo, said: ‘We don’t shoot a normal ad campaign. We do a movie, and then we shoot a movie poster, and then the ads are the posters, and they feature clothing.’ Since arriving at the LVMH owned label in 2011, Leon and his creative partner Carol Lim have nurtured a cinéma vérité attitude to marketing, commissioning films from Spike Jonze, Gregg Araki, Sean Baker, Carrie Brownstein, Kahlil Joseph, Natasha Lyonne and Ana Lily Amirpour. For their latest, it was Leon who sat in the director’s chair.

The Everything is his directorial and writing debut. It is about a family of teenagers with unusual powers. At the centre is a mother in control yet out of sync with her brood. ‘It’s probably because I come from an Asian background but, growing up, the matriarch is at the core of everything. That’s always been a big, unquestionable thing,’ Leon says. The A/W 2018 show included a cast of actors performing a play about Leon bleaching his hair in 1998, much to his mother’s theatrical chagrin. In The Everything, Georgie, played by Milla Jovovich, is a woman trying to pull her family together. ‘You see her looking at her kids lovingly, but also yelling at them, trying to make sure that they don’t get themselves into trouble.’ It’s what Leon calls ‘a typical family.’

‘I knew I was doing the film whilst we were designing the collection, which was based on film genres that Carol and I loved growing up. So this was a big meta experience of being inspired by film for the collection and then making a film about the collection and then the collection playing a secondary role to the characters…’ he says. Film is the best vehicle for telling and selling stories for everyone. ‘They invite people to leave reality for a little bit. In this world that we’re living in, so much is going on, I wanted to take this moment to celebrate that feeling of being able to lose yourself. That’s why I’ve probably watched Beaches 150 times!’ he says.

Leon’s film laces the family tensions of campy Chinese soap opera with 80s Hollywood sparkle complete with the stock, high school homecoming crescendo of classic teen movies. At its core, it is a tale of teenage angst and Leon draws attention to the prevailing politics of identity without labouring the point. ‘When you’re growing up you go through a lot of struggles from when you want to be exactly like your friends to, at some point, wanting to be totally different. The world makes you see that you’re not the same.’ The characters’ superpowers are treated like something they’ve just been born with, giving the film a warm relatability that’s at the heart of what Leon and Lim do so well. ‘The ultimate take-away – I hope! – is that when you’re able to work together with your community or family something good can come out of it, it’s about seeing the sum of many is greater than the sum of one. It is about accepting who you are.’

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the Kenzo website

Mood board: In the early 1970s when Kenzo Takada started making clothes, he did so with materials bought from flea markets. He was forced to mix different patterned and coloured fabrics together in one garment by way of necessity – it went on to become a signature style. The label which since 2011 has been under the creative direction of Humberto Leon and Carol Lim is known for its prints, patterns and playfulness. ‘Throughout our time at Kenzo, it’s always been our prerogative to bring together the varying tribes and subcultures we come across throughout our every day,’ the duo wrote ahead of the S/S 2019 show.

Scene setting: Thematically, the collections are always upbeat and have a Francophile joie de vivre; the season explores summer gatherings of all sorts from picnics and parties to weddings and festivals. The clothes were cheerful. As is customary amongst many menswear designers, Leon and Lim looked at blending tailoring with sportswear. The mood felt celebratory as the self-appointed bad boys of jazz – the Chicago based Hypnotic Brass Ensemble – performed in the centre of a spiral catwalk, as clouds of flora and laser beams hovered above our heads.

Best in show: Two-button blazers in orange cotton linen mix with a light resin coating were worn with wide-leg draw-string trousers. Sports jackets were sewn into the backs of tailored pieces. Coats were lightweight with deconstructed shoulders in nylon medallion print. Standout were the fine crew neck t-shirts which had trompe-l'œil pyjama collars or ties on their fronts.

Scene setting: Kenzo designers Humberto Leon and Carol Lim are renowned for putting on a good show. For the brand’s A/W 2018 men’s and women’s show in January, the label’s collection showcase took the form of a theatre performance, and for the second iteration of its La Collection Memento collection – one which delves into the history of the Kenzo archive – guests were treated to a Japanese kawaii band and food stalls of tempura and mochi. For La Collection Memento No 3, the duo looked to Mr Kenzo Takada’s love of The Dream (1910) by Henri Rousseau, an oil on canvas painting, and one of over 25 of the artist’s jungle theme paintings. Holding a dinner come catwalk show at the Money Museum in Paris, Kenzo erected rows of ornate banquet tables, lined with moss and tropical fruits, and a forage-style buffet, featuring beetroot lollipops, citrus fruit salad, and vegetable madeleines, dreamt up by chef Sugio Yamaguchi at Botanique Restaurant.

Mood board: Humberto Leon and Carol Lim reinterpreted the jungle scenes of Rousseau’s work in rich tapestries, which were worked into long dresses, trousers and carried by models as blankets. There was colourful knitwear with Rousseau motifs, intarsia sweaters with jungle scenes and cardigans emblazoned with tropical blooms. Rousseau’s aesthetic had a huge impact on Mr Kenzo, who called his first Parisian boutique ‘Jungle Jap’, before renaming it after his surname. Humberto Leon and Carol Lim also delved further into the knitwear archives of the house – a signature of the brand – reimagining bold stripe knits in panelled jumpers, football scarves and beanies, paired with cagoules and denim.

Team work: Kenzo collaborated with London-based set designer Gary Card, resulting in a series of theatrical and imaginative looks created from plastic and card, resembling mini jungle sculptures. Wearable no, but exactly the kind of imagination weary fashion editor’s want to see after a day of shows in sub zero temperatures.

Almost five decades after he burst onto the fashion scene with Japanese-inspired, audaciously patterned textiles, Kenzo Takada continues to draw inspiration from his home country – last year festooning Roche Bobois’ ‘Mah Jong’ sofa in kimono-like jacquard patterns, and developing cushions and vases to match. Like the designer himself, his recipe is the pride of Japan. ‘I love miso soup,’ he declares. ‘It’s a mix of complexity and simplicity. It is easy to eat, and can accompany many foods, or simply be served with a bowl of rice.’

Ingredients
Takada’s take on the classic includes tofu, mixed seaweed and spring onion.

As originally featured in the March 2018 issue of Wallpaper* (W*228)

INFORMATION
For more information, visit the Kenzo website

Scene setting: The staging of the A/W18 collection explored the long-standing friendship between Kenzo creative directors Carol Lim and Humberto Leon. Guests watched a live performance inspired by Leon’s sister’s wedding in Los Angeles circa 1998. Leon was then at the height of his experimental fashion phase and chose to bleach his hair blond, much to his mother’s dismay. The mise-en-scène saw actors playing out the events surrounding his reveal. In one, an actor playing Leon, stands pouting in a bathroom mirror. Across the set, his mother cooks wildly in the kitchen preparing a celebratory meal. Lim flits into the family home and is welcomed with open arms. The actors were directed by Karim Bel Kacem and Partel Olivia and filmed live. They put the ‘show’ in fashion show.

Mood board: For A/W18, the duo looked to their enduring love of cinema. The collection was inspired by the various on-screen characters who weren’t easy to define. The merging of heritage values and modern looks came from the twisting of classics and mashing prints; technical fabric padded V-neck vests were pulled over clashing jumpers and roll-necks. A dark yellow zip-up nylon jacket had floral embroidery and was paired with heavy wool double faced trousers.

Best in show: Across the collections there has been a chopping up of menswear staples. Lanvin put the pockets from military jackets onto formal tailoring shapes. Thom Browne fused down jacket function with sartorial style. Fendi placed varsity bomber sleeves on a classic trench. Here a boxier top exaggerated the skinny leg. Bomber jackets were lengthened. A wool herringbone coat had nylon blouson sleeves.

Mood board: The cleverest thing a brand like Kenzo could do at this point in its evolution – and that of a quickly growing Millennial audience – is pay homage to its original creator. And that’s exactly what Humberto Leon and Carol Lim are doing with Memento, a way to rework and reinterpret Kenzō Takada’s rich heritage. Last night marked their second foray into the project, and they did it in style, exploring the way Takada first played with denim in the 1970s. Backstage, Leon explained that 30 per cent of the clothes were directly sourced from the brand’s archive, from the workwear-inspired indigo jeans to the overalls. It was impressive how modern they looked paired with jelly shoes, bamboo-prited shirts and mini-backpacks. The result was a playful collection full of useful pieces that will no doubt find ther way into Millennial (maybe also not so Millennial) wardrobes.

Scene setting: That the second Memento collection would be shown in style, no one doubted. But nobody quite expected the scenery they found upon arriving to the Trianon in Pigalle – sake barrels, a very kawaii Japanese band playing, and food stands distributing tempura, onigiri and mochi, all bathed in red and purple lights. It was, of course, the wizard work of Etienne Russo. Guests got to relax after a long day full of fashion shows, and the apéritif got them in the perfect mood for the show.

Team work: There was no runway per se. Instead, there was a stage and a red velvet curtain – the fashion was merged with a kagura performance (a traditional dance dedicated to the shinto gods) by the Hiroshima Kagura group. Dragons and a warrior fought as live music played in the background. As the traditional story goes, Susanoo, the god of storms, descends to Earth to slay an eight-tailed dragon and release mankind from its reign of terror. It was, as Leon said backstage, a story of past and present, aesthetically and politically speaking. The always creative way in which the American duo never miss a chance to comment on politics is one of the reasons why we love them. The opportunity they are now giving us to relive (and re-wear) Kenzo’s vast archives is the other.

For actor Natasha Lyonne (of Orange is the New Black fame), films are often more real than real life. ‘I dropped out of NYU to hang out in the back of the movie house,’ she says. ‘Sometimes I would take notes but they were indecipherable because I was in the dark. It was a deep thing I had going with the movies.’

For Kenzo’s fifth fashion short – a campaign trailer for the A/W 2017 collection – we’re sat in the row behind a teenage Lyonne, peering over her shoulder. Her first directing credit, Cabiria, Charity, Chastity journeys into the recesses of her most bizzare, beautiful and deeply-rooted filmic fantasies.

We follow Chastity (Maya Rudolph), as a modern-day Giulietta Masina (the Italian actress depicted in La Strada, 1954) and Shirley MacLaine (of Sweet Charity, 1969) on a journey of surrealist self-discovery. Venturing into Chastity’s Vaudevillian past, (which we can't help feel echoes Lyonne’s own as a pradaded-about child perfomer on Pee-wee’s Playhouse) we cross Matt Lucas as a sad clown and Macaulay Culkin as a shadowy ringmaster. Greta Lee, James Ransone, Leslie Odom Jr and Lyonne’s boyfriend Fred Armisen complete the merry band of unlikely players.

As if scanning Lyonne’s scrawled notes in the back of the theatre, we attempt to follow the story in the half-light, losing the thread, only to find that it has emerged in a different decade. Chastity ‘speaks gibberish’. Characters get trapped in circling Beckettian conversation. Lyonne pulls us along for the ride with dark-humour, heartbreak and diamond-studded eyelids.

Influenced by Divine, John Waters and Bette Davis, Lyonne is in full support of cinematic outrageousness. ‘Who hates things any more? I don’t know when things got so friendly and normal.’ She can’t identify with ‘waifs in natural makeup’, or the ‘subtle whisper acting’ that's popular today. ‘Take Maya Rudolph. She clearly has a rocket ship IQ and deep humour, which I think makes it so much more heartbreaking to watch her.’

Kenzo, no stranger to creating fully-absorbed fashion drama, supported her vision at every turn – something Lyonne knows to be ‘utterly unique’. ‘It’s Kenzo’s mission to let its collaborators go down their own rabbit hole,’ she explains.

Encouraged by her long-rooted friendship with Kenzo creative directors Humberto Leon and Carol Lim, Lyonne jumped at the chance to work with the French fashion stalwart because of its famously slanted take on advertising. ‘I find the assembly line propaganda we’re so often fed highly problematic. Sales and fashion are two very different animals in my opinion. Fashion is incredible. It’s one of the arts.’

Humberto and Lim hold the same artful standards to its advertising campaigns, here accentuated by the costume design of Arianne Phillips, who Lyonne credits as having a ‘massive impact’ on the overall aesthetic, and quality, of the film. Leather gloves with black and white fingers stretch over the elbows; draping neck pieces pulsate with palm-sized sequins; calf-high, thick-heeled boots glint in white leather across a smokey stage.

This is a happy mesh of influences, that hinges upon the darting, all-encompassing eye of Lyonne. But, it couldn't have happened without the ‘terrific faith’ placed in her by of one of fashion’s more outre houses.

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the Kenzo website

Left, coat, €1,365, by Dirk Bikkembergs. Jumper, £350; trousers, £295, both by Coach. Shoes, £2,092, by Raf Simons. Socks (worn throughout), £15, by Falke. Right, jacket, £760; roll-neck, £135, both by Paul Smith. Trousers, £295, by Coach. Belt, £230, by Marni. Shoes, £710, by Prada. Fashion: Jason Hughes. As originally featured in the September 2017 issue of Wallpaper* (W*222)

At just 23, Anders Hayward has already fit three careers under his beautifully buckled belt. Among his many talents, the dancer, model and experimental choreographer has the rare ability to turn a hectic fashion shoot into a carefully orchestrated waltz.

For our September 2017 Style Special, we tapped Hayward to direct the movement for a menswear fashion shoot photographed by Liam Warwick, in which we celebrate clashing checks and plucky plaids. Creating a sense of movement beneath all these juxtaposing Prada, Calvin Klein and Salvatore Ferragamo patterns was essential. ‘During the styling process, I chose thematic movements that I felt would suit the clothes,’ Hayward explains, ‘I’m interested in designers that create clothes for characters – I enjoy creating fashion narratives.’

Game to become the leading men were our models, Georges Labbat and Baptiste Faure – despite their differing levels of dance experience. Labbat was the perfect match for Hayward, having trained in Belgium under intensely musical choreographer Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker. But Anders enjoys the surprise and (sometimes inelegant) quirks that come from working with models with minimal formal dance training, like Faure. ‘It’s great to see a model who has never really been choreographed before come out with some really interesting, organic movement. On the other side I love pushing more experienced dancers, like Labbat, to move in ways that they’re not necessarily familiar with.’

Hayward also grappled with a sculptural set and an eclectic mix of refined furniture – including pieces from Aram, B&B Italia and Rodolfo Dordoni. ‘I had sketches and blueprints of what the space was going to look like before, so I had a few ideas in mind – especially for the image with the two boys in the circle,’ says Hayward. ‘We found that it worked best if they were constantly moving. When the two were in constant flow, I could just tweak a hand movement, a shoe placement, or the flourish of a lapel.’

Though we’re only treated to the static, freeze-framed result, the arching backs, awkward necks and stretching fingers of each model capture Hayward’s momentum-filled choreography – while proving one can do impressive backbends in a tailored Fendi suit.

Left, coat, £1,560; top, £780; trousers, £620, all by Calvin Klein 205W39NCY. Right, coat, £1,825; trousers (part of suit), price on request, both by Salvatore Ferragamo. Roll-neck, £155, by John Smedley. Belt, £310; shoes, £710, both by Prada. ‘Pollock’ armchair, £1,755, by Charles Pollock, for Knoll, from The Conran Shop. ‘Cesar’ side table, £808, by Rodolfo Dordoni, for Minotti

Mood board: The collection looked to the Arctic as a place being destroyed but is itself totally unforgiving. The clothes explored the need for extreme protection but with a street sensitivity. Elongated degrade cable-knit jumpers were worn over ski-pants with balaclavas. Contrasting layers of different proportions were key too; a cyan puffa was worn under a technical blazer and check ski jacket. Both the invitation and show notes were screen printed onto a sheet of multi-purpose insulation, made using recycled fabrics and yarns from previous seasons. The label is partnering with Earth Guardians in the autumn to create products that will further push their message of sustainability.

Scene setting: Carol Lim and Humberto Leon brought the backstage centre stage. A huge hanger space at the The Parc de la Villette was kitted out with brightly lit hair and make-up stations that weren’t just for display. Throughout, production staff milled around rails of clothes and make-up artists misted the skin of models as they stood in line, ready to walk. The show was back to front. Suspended above the space was the artist and long-time friend of the brand Devonté Hynes who played an exclusive mix at the piano.

Sound bite: The show combined both the men’s and the women’s collections, reflecting current notions of gender identity and fluidity. ‘At Kenzo, they have always been friends, sisters and brothers, husband and wife so it was natural to do a dual gender show. The two collections follow a similar story of considering where we are today,’ Leon said. ‘We always try to use our platform to ask questions about topics that we care about.’

Scene setting: Humberto Leon and Carol Lim are in a performative mood – earlier evidence of that was Spike Jonze’s Kenzo World perfume video ad – but this show also did a pretty good job of entertaining, with nude performance artist of various abilities perched around the space.

Best in show: Inspired by a 1977 show by Kenzo Takada at Studio 54, Leon and Lim took direction from the archive. The looks that referenced Antonio Lopez’ sketches, and transposed collage prints of his Polaroids were arresting.

Finishing touches: Liberally applied red eye shadow exaggerated the glamorous Studio 54 vibe even more. Oversized crystal and sequined earrings functioned as wearable disco-balls.

INFORMATION

Photography: Jason Lloyd-Evans

Prada: Mrs Prada once again partnered with Dutch studio AMO to build a backdrop for her menswear showcase at the Fondazione Prada complex. Decked out in hiking-inspired attire, models strode up and then down a continuous metal mesh ramp to a 1990s soundtrack.

Gucci: A huge serpent motif slithered along Alessandro Michele’s green-carpeted runway at Gucci this season. Deep-buttoned benches and wall panels upholstered in green velvet lined the space, while green lighting paired with a delicate mist created a totally immersive fashion experience

Acne Studios: For a collection that served as a tribute to the emptiness of the Swedish summer, Acne Studios staged a game of musical chairs within the dilapidated library space at Paris’ Lycée Charlemagne. Old-fashioned metal-legged school chairs were scattered along the runway with square mirrors placed on the floor in between them, reflecting the crumbling frescoes above. Meanwhile, multicoloured filters placed over the windowpanes created welcome chequerboards of colour against the peeling plasterwork and worn floorboards

Fendi: The holiday snaps of Pablo Picasso and David Hockney provided the inspiration for Fendi’s S/S 2017 outing. Decked out in terry cloth robes and striped totes, models made their way around a crisp-edged blue pool headed up by a bright yellow diving emblazoned with the Fendi logo

Givenchy: Riccardo Tisci presented his S/S 2017 menswear collection for Givenchy in the courtyard of Paris’ Lycée Janson de Sailly. Black and white cube-shaped stools, which echoed the optic checkerboard patterns in the collection, were laid out in three concentric circles to form the schoolyard catwalk

Dior Homme: Following on from last season’s skateboard ramps, Dior Homme returned to the Tennis Club de Paris with a rollercoaster set that swooped around the runway. Festooned with coloured light bulbs, Kris Van Assche’s fashion fun fair was designed to evoke the atmosphere of the Sinksenfoor amusement park in Antwerp, Belgium.

Moncler Gamme Bleu: Forty mosquito-netted one-man tents were erected along Moncler’s grass-lined runway this season. The elaborate staging, complete with trees and a campfire, provided the perfect backdrop for the label’s Boy Scout camping-themed show

Ami: Bathed in a golden glow that evoked early morning light, Alexandre Mattiussi’s romantic set occupied the length of one of the long curved walls within Paris’ Grand Palais. His models, clad nonchalantly in pleated trousers, nylon hoodies and knitted sweaters, walked alongside a series of tall windows, both real and fake, complete with billowing white linen curtains and slatted shutters that filtered the hazy light.

Balenciaga: With a blue sky overhead and a clear view of the 7th arrondissement and the Eiffel Tower on the horizon, the dazzling atrium of Paris’ Lycée Saint-Louis-de-Gonzague served as the setting for Balenciaga’s first ever men’s runway show. Arranged under the atrium’s spectacular curved, lattice-framed roof, a simple set with just three rows of seating lining either side of the catwalk let the spectacular cityscape do the talking

Belstaff: Inspired by On Any Sunday, a documentary about motorcycle racing made in 1971 starring Steve McQueen, Belstaff’s S/S 2017 collection was full of references to riding and motorcycle culture – as was the set. A dirt track peppered with pine trees, a vintage pick-up truck and motorbike transported the audience straight onto a Husqvarna in the California desert

Berluti: For S/S 2017, Berluti threw a lush poolside cocktail party complete with games, burger vans, champagne bars and a host of inflatable animals. To celebrate the launch of its opulent outdoor equipment – as part of a new lifestyle collection, which included skipping ropes, dumbbells, beach rackets and a set of boules – models skateboarded through garden paths, worked out to the sounds of Donna Summer and frolicked across a makeshift swimming pool, tossing a Venezia leather frisbee

Berthold: Presented in the dark concrete basement of London’s 180 The Strand, Raimund Berthold’s S/S 2017 collection was built around the outsized proportions of an old French cavalry coat. To reflect this, his minimalistic set, designed once again by Justyna Kabala, was filled with angular metal frameworks draped loosely with white fabric held in place by heaps of coral-coloured sand that spilled over onto the black rubber floor

Canali: Inspired by the intersecting warps and wefts of its textured jackets, pants and knitwear, Canali’s models emerged from a spiraling web of tension cables lit with steel blue and burnt sienna lighting to match the collection’s clout palette

Mackintosh: An undulating platform made up of mirrored panels and eleven white plinths served as the catwalk at Mackintosh’s S/S 2017 presentation. As well as highlighting the details of the British heritage brand’s three-quarter length coats, the mirrored flooring reflected and amplified the Edwardian splendor of the show’s location in the Waldorf’s Palm Court

CMMN SWDN: Channeling the souks of Marrakech, designer Kimberley Harding conjured a sun-soaked market place show set for CMMN SWDN. With a sand-covered floor, makeshift market stalls in warm shades of ochre, burnt sienna and terracotta echoed the collection’s colour palette

Issey Miyake Men: The sun-baked quadrant within Paris’ Université Pierre et Marie Curie provided the perfect platform for Issey Miyake Men’s India-inspired ‘Journey from a white page’ collection. Taking advantage of its stepped grid design, models stalked up and down the steps in perfect formation to the sound of Japanese band Kikagaku Moyo who performed at the centre

Kenzo: Creative directors Carol Lim and Humberto Leon took to Carreau du Temple, a former clothes market, to showcase the French label’s S/S 2017 offering. A raised tiled platform, sprayed with abstract graffiti lines in petrol blue, acid green and black, set the scene for a 10am Saturday morning rave with a thumping house soundtrack

Louis Vuitton: Held in the open air among the columns of Paris’ impressive Palais Royal, Louis Vuitton’s show set had no trouble in evoking the hot plains of Africa – Kim Jones’ source of inspiration for S/S 2017. Snaking around square pyramid-style seating arrangements, the subtle pink stonework provided the perfect backdrop for Jones’ sun bleached palette of brown, taupe and beige

Pal Zileri: An enormous backdrop burning with bright magenta and green created a horizon-like effect for Pal Zileri’s sharp tailoring. Models walked out silhouetted against the screen before taking their turn along a spotlit, v-shaped runway

Philipp Plein: The designer’s ‘Sportsworld Spectacular’ themed show got underway on a basketball court set created by Simon Costin. Backdropped by a giant screen flashing up NBA logos and player stats, the court was awash with models, NBA-mascots, a troop of neon-clad cheerleaders and a gang of slam dunk acrobats from the Harlem Globetrotters. Lights flashed, flames were fired up into the air and rapper Busta Rhymes performed – exactly the type of no-expense-spared show that we’ve come to expect from Plein

Qasimi: Over at Somerset House designer Khalid bin Sultan Al Qasimi of Qasimi drew influence from the Gulf War and contemporary architecture for his collection ‘Videogames Wars’. Inspired by the undulating titanium facade of Gehry’s Guggenheim in Bilbao, a riveted metal platform conceived by set designer Andrea Cellerino served as a rippling sand dune in Qasimi’s dystopian desert

Sacai: Held in an all-white orangerie-cum-art gallery space at the Jardin du Luxembourg, Chitose Abe’s Clockwork Orange-inspired collection for Sacai was paraded around strategically placed heaps of beige gravel that created a Mars-esque landscape

Thom Browne: The designer welcomed guests to a perfectly square gothic tropical island complete with its own black palm tree and glittering black sands for his S/S 2017 outing. Models dressed in wet suits, as seagulls and as birds of paradise added to the jovial atmosphere – as did the suited model wearing a shark head who opened the show to the Jaws soundtrack.

Valentino: Returning to their usual stately spot at Paris’ Hôtel Salomon de Rothschild, Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pierpaolo Piccioli of Valentino presented a collection that they said was inspired by ‘the Shakespearean world transformed into an emotional alchemy’. Contrasting the opulent surrounds with rough timber clad bench seating, the simple set design reflected the collection’s languid, intentionally ‘undone’ mood

Thomas Pink: The house used a gravity-defying wall of chairs to showcase its S/S 2017 presentation at the ICA in London. Nonchalantly sitting on non-descript white-painted wooden chairs suspended across a blue-tiled wall, were 15 impeccably half-dressed men in a range of shirts, crisp boxer shorts, long, fine-gauge socks and leather lace-up shoes

Hermès: Renown for its luxurious goods and eminent handbags, the famous maison's latest collection – proposed by Véronique Nichanian for the menswear line – were utterly stupefying in their expert finish and unequivocally French mood. Photography/Videography: Antonio Camera

Dior Homme: Set in the midst of a sprawling mass of rollercoaster tracks festooned with coloured lights, Kris van Assche's catwalk was said to be a direct replica of a ride that once stood at Sinksenfoor Antwerp, a traditional Belgian fairground. Photography/Videography: Antonio Camera

Comme des Garçons Homme Plus: Transparency and pageantry were the message of Rei Kawakubo's S/S 2017 collection. A raft of tailoring was layered with fine gauze, longline cardigans underneath or PVC trench coats on top, models milling about the raw concrete runway. Photography/Videography: Antonio Camera

Berluti: Instead of a traditional fashion show, Berluti chose a rather more active stage on which to showcase their new wears: a poolside party. A rather fitting touch, considering they debuted their new lifestyle collection. Alongside skipping ropes, dumbbells, beach rackets and a set of boules, the label’s signature hide was also hand-stitched around a football which models kicked around in a friendly match. Photography: Antonio Camera. Videography: Courtesy of Berluti

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

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

Mood board: Oversized and utility-friendly in an 1980s new wave kind of way, Kenzo gave us monster shoulder ruffles, animal prints galore, sassy short hems, boxy coats and plenty of strings, ties and peep holes. Another big theme? Shirt dressing which turned out all manner of pinafores, quilted smock front or wavy shouldered shirting mixed with edgy patent leather pieces.

Best in show: The best part of this show came in the first half where we were treated to great looking brocade on sweeping robe coats, zigzaggy knitted two pieces, and some righteous cotton blouses.

Finishing touches: Kitten heeled zebra print pony skin boots sound like a lot but the Kenzo team has no fear for a pattern smash up. Also key to the new look is a pair of punk sunglasses coated with candy-like glitter.

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Models at Hussein Chalayan’s Paris show who took a shower on the catwalk, allowing their soluble clothes to melt away

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BMX bikers and professional skateboarders catching some air on the ramps at Jimmy Choo’s menswear show, held inside a London leisure centre

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Giant Roman arches on the Kenzo catwalk with models sweeping through on a conveyor belt

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Crushed cars, 12 motorcycles popping wheelies, one monster truck, two spinning cop cars and two BMWs exploding into flames at Philipp Plein’s men’s show

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A-listers playing blackjack and roulette at Chanel’s casino set in Paris’ Grand Palais shows

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Lifesized fake carwashes, featuring fluffy rotating brushes and bubble machines, on Jeremy Scott’s runway at Moschino

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Plexiglas panelshanging from the ceiling at the Prada men’s show      

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Metres of carpet printed with snakes and roses and 14 bespoke upholstered screens on the catwalk at Gucci

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Buddhist monks, in matching red robes, chanting before the start of Prabal Gurung’s women’s show

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People who attended New York fashion week versus 2.4 million people who live-streamed the shows at home

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Designer down during a post-show runway lap: Tommaso Aquilano, of Aquilano Rimondi, tripped and face-planted in Milan

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Free tickets that Givenchy gave to the public on a first-come, first-served basis to its women’s show in New York

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Strong, female, professional dancers carrying other women like backpacks and papooses at the Rick Owens’ show

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Earth mountains created by artist Maya Lin for Phillip Lim’s New York show

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Oriental rugs hanging from the ceiling of the harem-like show space at Antonio Marras

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Digital ‘windows’ flashing videos of clouds, rain storms, blue skies, lights and models walking at the Canali men’s show

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Miniature outfits hanging on a lifesized fake tree installed inside Milan’s 18th century Palazzo Clerici for Agnona

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Colour-blocked tents created by Danish artist FOS for Phoebe Philo’s Céline show

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Miniature outfits hanging on a lifesized fake tree installed inside Milan’s 18th century Palazzo Clerici for Agnona

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Giant robots who dressed models on a conveyor belt after Courtney Love had performed Celebrity Skin at Philipp Plein’s women’s show

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Lucky guests treated to a private dance performance by six Michael Clark Company dancers wearing Pringle menswear at Galleria Sozzani in Milan

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Hours for carpenters to build a lifesized section of Sou Fujimoto’s House N inside Paris’ Grand Palais for Akris

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Oars on each of the two boats at the rowing-inspired Moncler Gamme Bleu men’s show

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Mariachi singers belting out songs during Brian Atwood’s presentation at Milan’s Museo Bagatti Valsecchi

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Bare-chested men, in knee-high socks and shiny shoes, reading newspapers in deckchairs in the courtyard before the Berluti show

20,000

Gallons of water to fill the mini lagoon in which the models frolicked at Tommy Hilfiger’s New York show

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LED water lilies on the runway at Giorgio Armani  

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Height in feet of the giant Balthus cat on the runway at Arthur Arbesser’s show in Milan. It was later cut into three pieces and taken home by the Austrian designer

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Cheeky selfie taken by Alexander Wang in front of a pool of water during his final show for Balenciaga

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Electric blue delphiniums planted on a temporary hill (that took 30 days to build) in the middle of the Louvre’s Cour Carrée for the Dior show

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Models at Dolce & Gabbana who took to the runway with cellphones in hand, snapping selfies

Mood board: Kenzo was founded in Paris in 1964 by a visiting Japanese Francophile named Kenzo Takada. To this day, the label’s peppy American creative directors – retail gurus-turned-designers Carol Lim and Humberto Leon – used their time spent at music concerts in Japan and beyond as a starting point for their most recent collection. Youthful, easy separates that are an ode to the fans of idols past and present, the roomy sweatshirts emblazoned with Takada’s signature will be sure to please the label’s 1.1 million Instagram followers.

Scene setting: 100 or so choristers from the Palais Royal and Sanfoka Unit choirs opened the show, walking out onto the runway chanting lyrics from Janet Jackson's Rhythm Nation. They stood in two rows in the centre of the show space performing an exclusive cover of the song reworked by American producer Daniel Lopatin and arranged by Thomas Roussel. 

Best in show: The print offering for next season is vast; nagai stars, tanaka squares and graphic daisy chains were on everything from shirts to suits. Also standout were the lacquered quilted trench coats, which were cinched with wide obi belts.

INFORMATION

Photography: Jason Lloyd-Evans

They say you should never judge a book by its cover – nor indeed a fragrance by its bottle – but sometimes the temptation is just too great. Having an equally beguiling bottle and scent helps avoid any bias. To that end, the Oki Sato-led Japanese studio Nendo has teamed up with Paris fashion house Kenzo to create the look – and logo – of the esteemed brand’s new unisex fragrance.

A dark purple glass bottle in the shape of a tiny totem holds Kenzo’s three new scents, created for and inspired by a generation of globalisation.

‘Where previous generations have felt differences of nationality, language, and religion more acutely,’ explains Nendo, ‘the younger generation of today have comparatively fewer cultural divides to cross, enjoying a greater shared sense of identity.’

Described as ‘a new tribe’, the three unique colognes are modeled after the ancient totem poles of Native Americans; a simple structure which stands for an identity and has the power to gather people. Like the wooden monuments they were inspired by, the bottle is made of various segments of different shapes and sizes, stacked to create a solid and monolithic design.

‘This simplistic and bold design is a highly symbol-oriented attempt to capture and blend the primal with the transnational; two defining essences of the generation at which this new fragrance is aimed,’ says Nendo.

The scents within cater for both men and women: Totem Orange is a floral and zesty scent with bitter orange and vetiver; Totem Yellow a sparkling and joyful take on pink grapefruit and leather woods; and Totem Blue a fruity and sensual blend of pineapple, cardamom and cedar.

A neat black and white chevron design adorns the box, too, should you rather judge the fragrance by it’s ’cover’.

INFORMATION

For more information visit Kenzo Parfums

Photography: Akihiro Yoshida

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Kickboxers throwing punches at a live match hosted by Snoop Dogg, who rapped his heart out in front of tattooed, motocross-padded models at Philipp Plein’s men’s show

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Hunchbacked models at Maison Margiela

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Metal cage-covered rooms, of varying proportions, built by OMA for the Prada men’s show space

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‘Boob bag’, handcrafted from dark shiny leather, on Christopher Lemaire’s runway (‘Free the nipple!’ cried social media immediately afterwards)

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Thugged-out Looney Tunes characters dripping in bling at Jeremy Scott’s women’s Moschino show

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Kilograms of culatello consumed by 1,000 people in three hours, together with 170 bottles of Fortana del Taro red wine, at Caruso’s Milan presentation

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Rising section of the runway at Saint Laurent, where models and rock star Julia Cumming from Sunflower Bean started their catwalk procession

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Male models blatanly flashing their genitalia in frontal windows strategiacally cut out of their flowing floor-length tunics at Rick Owens

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Million followers on Instagram for 29-year-old Balmain creative director Olivier Rousteing, the most-followed fashion designer in France

13,000

Hands that work on Kiton’s suits

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Kickboxers throwing punches at a live match hosted by Snoop Dogg, who rapped his heart out in front of tattooed, motocross-padded models at Philipp Plein’s men’s show

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Trees and plants that Ermenegildo Zegna planted inside Milan’s former Fiera for its fashion show, all of which were later replanted as part of the Zegna Oasis environmental project

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Models swaddled in a cocoon of white bows at the Comme des Garçons show

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Headdresses in the shape of lampshades at Junya Watanabe

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Years after their first outing that Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson reprised their Zoolander roles by staging a surprise live runway walk-off at the Valentino show in Paris

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Boys at Gucci doing the girl thing in silky bow-front blouses

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Mary J Blige impromptu concert, staged by DSquared2’s Dean and Dan Caten at the end of the brand’s 20th anniversary show in Milan

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Moncler Gamme Bleu menswear models who quick-changed out of their jockey-inspired uniforms into totally new looks under flashing strobe lights

4

Kanye West charity concert nights organised by Bernard Arnault’s son Alexandre at the Louis Vuitton Foundation during Paris Fashion Week

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Face and ear piercings on the female models at Givenchy, while four men had their mouths held tightly shut with cage-like metal clamps

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Couples (both hetero and gay) dressed for 25 sports at Moncler Grenoble’s pop-up ski lodge in New York, including a bride and groom in full wedding outerwear

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Days to assemble Chanel’s pop-up brasserie set inside Paris’ Grand Palais, which featured 9m-high walls, tiled floors, 100 seats and 14 barmen serving coffee, juice, champagne and croissants

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Life-sized, fully functioning roller coaster, complete with screaming riders, installed inside Milan’s retired Fiera for Philipp Plein’s womenswear show

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Books in the pop-up library at Julie de Libran’s Sonia Rykiel show

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Age of ex-model Benedetta Barzini, who was the star of Antonio Marras’ runway show

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Spinning 20ft towers that glided across the Kenzo runway like giant chess pieces

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Infants, toddlers and children, plus one very pregnant model, walking the runway at Dolce & Gabbana’s women’s show

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Fur handbags in the shape of bird of paradise flowers on the Fendi runway

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Rare pearls on a $150,000 Calvin Klein dress, which was stolen from the hotel room of actress Lupita Nyong’o after the Oscars

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Models wearing cashmere shoe laces at the Brunello Cucinelli presentation

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Handbags shaped and printed like ceramic coffee saucers at Chanel

Prada: Miuccia Prada’s alluring S/S 2016 invitation comprised a trio of acetate sheets that created a lens effect when moved over each other. Ensuring their safe arrival was a black plastic envelope with a press effect

Dior Homme: M/M (Paris) quoted Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung – ‘in all disorder a secret order’ – on its illustrated poster-sized invitation

Paul Smith: Sir Paul Smith championed an ‘independent mind’ for S/S, with this mantra adorning a luxurious, black cashmere handkerchief

Yohji Yamamoto: The designer set the tone for his Paris show with a brown paper bag invitation. On one side, a sketch of a near-naked man clad in hot pants declared ‘I’m for rent’, with show details on the reverse

Louis Vuitton: Louis Vuitton delivered its spring/summer show details on a grey mountboard, debossed with its signature monogram pattern, and names elegantly scribed overleaf in navy blue ink. Kim Jones also enclosd a second invitation – letter-pressed with a blue rope motif and edged in blue - that summoned us to Paris boutique Colette to view the house’s A/W 2015  collection drop in store

Saint Laurent: The work of American artist and sculptor Billy Al Bengston was the latest to grace the next edition in Hedi Slimane’s sleek series of booklet invitations. The 81-year-old artist - best known for his soft-focus, geometric paintings and association with surfing subculture - offered up the perfect visual prelude to Slimane’s southern Californian soujourn

Wooyoungmi: Woo Youngmi and Katie Chung joined a number of designers looking upwards to the final frontier for inspiration this season. Their invitation, printed on textured card, depicted the moon in different phases

Kenzo: A mirror-effect duplex mountboard alluded to Carol Lim and Humberto Leon’s interplanetary space race. Housed in a taupe envelope with the house’s name printed in a pleasing, mint-green foil, the invitation was our one-way ticket to the cosmos. We have lift-off!

Alexander McQueen: The prologue to Alexander McQueen's S/S 2016 show was the vintage, black-and-white portrait of a tattooed man on the front of each invitation – later referenced on the runway through silk scarves in a tattoo print and complimenting cuffs. Printed on textured card with a UV-varnish, the invitation arrived in a ghostly tissue paper envelope

Coach: Stuart Vevers opted for a heavy, mountboard invitation, edged in purple, to announce his debut LC:M show. An abstract graphic – clouds billowing over a rocky texture – hinted at the psychedelic medley of textures and hues that were to come

Oliver Spencer: The London menswear brand has us seeing shapes – shapes drawn from the oeuvre of American minimalist sculptor Richard Serra to be precise. Its invitation riffed on Serra’s large-scale sheet metal works, featuring a medley of red, interlocking circles and triangles on off-white card

Richard James: Heralding the Savile Row tailor’s trek to Las Pozas – the pseudo 'ancient ruin' created by eccentric English poet and surrealist Edward James – was a triplex card, illustrating the silhouette of one of Las Pozas’ concrete structures emerging from the rainforest

Junya Watanabe Man: The Japanese designer’s theme this season was ‘Faraway’ – more specifically Africa. To wit, a poster invitation transported us there pre-show through an image featuring a figure standing tall over the lush, exotic landscape

Raf Simons: Mr Simons’ simply elegant invitation – a subtle, white card with names handwritten and the show details printed overleaf – gave nothing away. Who would have guessed he had a blitzing techno-rave in store for us this season?

Issey Miyake: This season, Issey Miyake’s menswear designer Yusuke Takahashi was enamored by photographer Yoshinori Mizutani’s series Tokyo Parrots. Alluding to the collection's theme of urban nature, the invitation featured one of Mizutani’s vibrant images

Kenzo’s new store in Milan does not have any of the fancy curves and sweeping open spaces that earmark most star-architect retail mausoleums. Rather, the shop is a prime example of the sort of good design and practical functionality that comes along when a talented in-house team takes the retail reigns themselves. Designed by Kenzo creative directors Carol Lim and Humberto Leon, the shop is a re-fit of an existing space in Milan’s Via Manzoni, using a concept that the duo debuted in Asia last year.

Upon entering the 246 sq m space, guests are met with a giant sculpture of a hand forking a plate of spaghetti. Also designed in-house, the surreal artwork is a humorous take on Milan’s obsessive food culture. The rest of the shop, however, is less playful. A grid of fluorescent lights hangs overhead, illuminating cleanly drawn racks made from a dark blue anodized aluminum. Each zone has its own colour tone: shades of blue for the boys and peaches and pinks for the girls.

Marble is an ongoing theme; recreated underfoot on veiny carpets tossed on the concrete floors, or on tables that are an arrow configured intarsia of stone and steel. The most compelling architectural component of this boutique is the all marble staircase and adjoining cash wrap desk that looks as if its been crafted from a glowing blue lapis lazuli stone. That together with the custom made furniture, like the navy blue leather pouf with a shaggy navy goat hair back, give the sort of wink and nod for which this brand is known.

ADDRESS

Kenzo
Via Alessandro Manzoni, 25
20121 Milano, Italy

VIEW GOOGLE MAPS

Givenchy: We returned to last season's high school hall for Riccardo Tisci's A/W jumble show. A miscellaneous match of items including arcade games, helmets and out-of-date TV screens decorated the multi-coloured court lines of the Parisian sports hall. The assembled audience watched from a range of velvet armchairs or foldaway garden chairs

Louis Vuitton: For the French brand's second run at its impressive Louis Vuitton Fondation location, all the action was transported outside to an installation of transparent, Buckminster Fuller-esque domes

Louis Vuitton: Designed by Es Devlin, the geodesic structure's seating was splashed with a mix of futuristic tangerine, brown and stark white as natural sunlight flooded the catwalk

Thakoon: Thai-American designer Panichgul Thakoon joined forces with Jonathan Beck on behalf of Dizon Inc to play with high impact colour for Thakoon's A/W set. Tinted film room dividers created a somewhat psychedelic effect as light bounced off them in all directions

Chanel: The luxury brand once again fulfilled expectations (and appetites) with its transformation of the Grand Palais into the 'Brasserie Gabrielle'. Three operational pop-up bars were equipped with Parisian waiters, coffee and newspapers, while the space was set with red leather banquets, wood boiserie panelling and bistro tiled flooring.

Prada: Pastel hues and metallic panelling turned Via Fogazzaro into a futuristic realm for Miuccia Prada's A/W offering

Prada: The show's 'Softer Pop' clothes floated through Mrs Prada's pastel space odyssey made up of diamond shaped silver flooring and ceilings

1205: Palm trees and tumbling foliage were the striking accoutrements to 1205's greenhouse show. The Barbican Centre's central conservatory provided a jungle escape for Paula Gerbase's utility inspired collection. The contrast of brutalism and green leafage set a serene scene for the elegantly tailored collection.

Dsquared2: In comparison to the past season where set designer Stefano Grossi re-created an actual apartment interior for the Caten twin's show, for A/W he went with a more graphic approach. A heavenly white staircase cascaded from a dimly lit, tiled marble entrance from which the models stormed the venue

Edun: New York's Skylight event space was left unembellished for this season's Edun show, leaving the venue's Stefan Beckman block installation to take centre stage. The set designer's studio created twin geometric structures that provided a narrow entrance for Edun's multi-cultural collection

Moncler Grenoble: On Valentine's Day evening we were welcomed into Moncler's 'love factory' inside the Duggal Greenhouse warehouse space within the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Set against a crimson draped backdrop, the action took place about a vibrant red, heart-shaped box. This later opened to reveal an array of his 'n' her Moncler outfits, each primed for a winter sport, before the male and female models took part in a kissing finale

Opening Ceremony: Humberto Leon and Carol Lim once again partnered up with Spike Jonze for their latest unorthodox showcase. This season, the white washed walls of New York's Cheim & Read gallery were plastered with a collage of photography by the American creative, which included profile images of both actresses and musicians

Tommy Hilfiger: There was a rush of all-American spirit surrounding the Tommy Hilfiger show in New York. For the brand's 30th anniversary Randall Peacock's design studio transformed the Park Avenue Armory into a Gridiron football field. Kitted out with 'Hilfiger' scoreboards, floodlights and even a Jumbotron, the stadium waited for the 'players' to storm down the green and compete in sportswear's finest

Dior: Upon returning to the Musée du Louvre, Raf Simons conjured a feminine glass box for Dior's A/W presentation. Producers Bureau Betak juxtaposed the soft pink flooring with thick black pillars and clean white benches, while huge windows offered striking vistas of the sandstone Cour Carrée

Wunderkind: Within the walls of the modern art emporium that is the Palais de Tokyo, autumn's Wunderkind collection was presented under a graphic mirrored enclosure. The concept, by Edwin Lemberg and Christian Weinecke, manipulated the spatial area through huge slanted mirrors that reflected faceted views of the collection around the clinical venue.

Emilio Pucci: Milan's Palazzo Serbelloni offered a palatial farewell to outgoing designer Peter Dundas. The Napoleonic room posed as a grand backdrop for Dundas' astrologically inspired collection, with its gold plating and crystal chandeliers shedding a glistening glow on all below.

Philipp Plein: In true Plein style, the showman's audience was given another thrilling performance to remember. A live music set by Azealia Banks kicked off proceedings, while a giant rollercoaster raced around the darkened theatre hall - save for the banner #pleinwarriors that shone in bright lights

Moncler Gamme Rouge: The outerwear giant took to the great outdoors for its Gamme Rouge showing at the Grand Palais. Equestrian models rode over an autumnal runway that was strewn with a patchwork of crispy brown leaves and green foliage

Kenzo: As creative sets go, Kenzo definitely rose to the occasion for A/W with its moving Paris installation. A 20-foot tall backdrop glided effortlessly across the enormous show space before splitting into six different blocks. The structures then rotated on the spot, revealing foiled metallic sides, which shone rainbow reflections onto Humberto Leon and Carol Lim's collection

Erdem: Back at London's Old Selfridges Hotel, Erdem Moralioglu enlisted the help of set designer Robin Brown to resurrect his A/W muse's fictional 1960s Parisian pied-à-terre

Erdem: Under the moody, shadowed lighting, the stained yellow wallpaper and tousled furniture brought a personal narrative to the artful presentation

Erdem: The retrofied apartment took some seven days to construct and fit-out

Versace: Dontella Versace's models arrived through a commanding red and black backdrop derived from the outer edges of the house's Medusa logo. Although the collection itself was more modest this season, the mood remained seductive thanks to the venue's dim boudoir glow and scarlet Perspex runway

Lacoste: In comparison to last season's themed set, for A/W Bureau Betak gave the spotlight to the brand's sportswear. The Lincoln Centre theatre offered a raw setting with white marking lines leading models around giant concrete pillars

Mary Katrantzou: One of the Royal Horticultural Halls was turned into a girl-power paradise for the Mary Katrantzou's presentation.

Mary Katrantzou: Bureau Betak created a spongy Barbie pink studded runway for the designer's cocktail attire to bounce over.

Proenza Schouler: The New York-based brand ran its sharply tailored collection down a stone tiled catwalk for A/W. Under low-hung lights, a backlit installation loomed over the venue's warm atmosphere.

Antonio Marras: The Milanese designer's gilt embellished set posed the perfect setting to compliment a show dedicated to Italian style icon Benedetta Barzini. Ornately printed walls offered an elaborate backdrop, while 18th century rugs marked the runway

Tod's: The Italian brand took over the Baroque setting of Milan's Palazzo Litta for its A/W runway presentation

Tod's: Deep red walls and gold seating dominated the opulent setting. The Italian brand's models entered from ceiling-high doorways as elaborate mirrors reflected the brand's A/W looks

Fendi: Swiss artist Sophie Taeuber-Arp's geometric abstractions boldy coloured both the Roman house's A/W show space and collection. Taeuber-Arp's distinctive style resonated in the graphic prints that ran along each side of the Via Solari venue

Hunter Original: Within the industrial surrounds of London's Albert Embankment Warehouse, Hunter creative director Alasdhair Willis continued his water world theme. This season, a trio of tumbling waterfalls flowed through the darkened venue

Maison Margiela: Although Paris' Grand Palais if often a rather, well, grand affair, Maison Margiela's high gloss white tunnel provided a sterile, blank canvas for John Galliano's first ready-to-wear collection

Marni: Consuelo Castiglioni 's Amazonian A/W 2015 collection was presented in an industrial-style den. The raw set space featured worn down plastered walls, rough grey pillars and a waxy red runway that drew the eye to the main event

Scene setting: Kenzo gets our award for the top set of the season with its 20-foot tall painted backdrop that glided effortlessly across the enormous show space before splitting into six different blocks that rotated around the square runway like chess pieces.

Mood board: For winter Kenzo designers Humberto Leon and Carol Lim piled onto the protectionism bandwagon that's currently floating through fashion: looks were layered, volumes were drapey, hems were handkerchiefed, and the outwear took on the fortified look of hooded cloaks.

Finishing touches: Thick-soled, pull-on ankle boots provided the right footwear for trudging through the forest, while weekender bags came in shiny patent yellow as visors were covered in striped knitwear.

15,000

Tons of steel used to create Frank Gehry’s Louis Vuitton Foundation, the new site for the French brand’s fashion shows

6

Artworks that Miley Cyrus glue-gunned together from toys and stage debris for her exhibition 'Dirty Hippie' with V Magazine

54

Storeys that showgoers ascended for Jason Wu’s fashion show for Hugo Boss at 4 World Trade Center

75

Number of arches on Fendi’s runway, designed to recreate Rome’s Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana

32

Models’ heads shrink-wrapped into flat plastic helmets at Junya Watanabe

1,000

Different poses by model Coco Rocha in a leotard in her book Study of Pose, shot by Steven Sebring with a 360-degree photography rig

35

Golf ball-sized rivets on a single Marc Jacobs woman’s jacket

34

Models with black patent face braces at Alexander McQueen

5

Outfits that may, or may not, have been put through a Texas Chainsaw Massacre-style blood bath at Comme des Garçons

1

Life-sized Barbie who roller-skated down the Moschino runway

15

Models in stripes and oversized wigs that danced in white stilettos and socks for Jean Paul Gaultier’s farewell to ready-to-wear fashion

6

Claws forming the soles of Rick Owens’ cave girl/Grecian platform sandals

42

Bicycle wheels spinning on the Antonio Marras runway

6

White sails billowing on the Lacoste runway

32

Fashion editors who left New York Fashion Week early to fly to Cupertino for the Apple Watch presentation

6

Women’s hats in the form of a man’s suit at the Thom Browne show

130

Length in metres of Chanel’s life-like street, created inside Paris’ Grand Palais, featuring seven-storey buildings, pavements, potholes and protesting models

10,000

Size in square feet of the Pepto-Bismol pink house on the runway at the Marc Jacobs show

16,000

Precious gems that encrusted the $2m ‘Fantasy’ bras worn at the Victoria’s Secret fashion show

5

Cement skateboard ramps on the runway at Kenzo

7

Dancers from British choreographer Wayne McGregor’s Random Dance Company who sizzled on Gareth Pugh’s runway

2

Years that Farida Khelfa trailed and filmed Christian Louboutin for her first documentary

150,000

Number of copies of The Karl Daily, Karl Lagerfeld’s satirical newspaper distributed during Paris Fashion Week

9.7

Millions of page impressions generated by 89 fashion bloggers during Calvin Klein’s show - a fashion week record

300

Stuffed elephants waiting on the guests’ seats at Oscar de la Renta’s show

15

Age in months of North West, who secured her own gold chair with calligraphed nameplace at the Givenchy women’s show. She wore a sheer black lace top for the occasion

28,000

Fresh flowers for sale at Marni’s pop-up market at Milan’s Rotonda della Besana

130,000

Flowers planted on Tommy Hilfiger’s sprawling golf course-cum-music carnival runway

6

Giant red cherries inscribed with skulls loitering at Jun Takahashi’s Undercover show

5

Enormous purple sand dunes constructed for the Prada show

4

Weeks it took Argentine artist Alexandra Kehayoglou to create Dries Van Noten’s mossy runway

4

Cost in euros of a box of limited-edition Kellogg’s Fashion Flakes designed by Anya Hindmarch

14

Number of oversized metal rings piercing the eyebrows of each model at Rodarte

7

Number of former supermodels on stage to tell stories for Olivier Saillard’s performance art piece ‘Models Never Talk’ during New York Fashion Week

10

Length in minutes of Polo Ralph Lauren’s 3D movie, projected on a 60ft-tall wall of water in New York’s Central Park

30

Length in minutes of a one-act fashion play written by Spike Jonze and Jonah Hill for the Opening Ceremony show

20

Number of gold safety pins holding together one of Anthony Vaccarello’s dresses for Versus

30

Types of brocade replicated by Prada from centuries-old textiles for its women’s collection

12

Cream-filled, penis-shaped cookies served on each tray before the Acne show

Fashion week, these days, is about much more than just the collections. Showmanship is the name of game, and in the meticulously executed sartorial extravaganzas, the sound space is an element that no producer or designer can afford to overlook. Music royalty - past, present and future - is enlisted to ensure a full assault on the senses.

This season there were live performances by Clare Maguire at Burberry Prorsum, Mary J Blige to celebrate the Caten brothers' 20th anniversary at Dsquared2 and Snoop Dogg at Philipp Plein, while Dior Homme enlisted the Paris Scouring Orchestra, set back with electronic beats. Here, we bring you our ultimate catwalk compilation of the men's A/W 2015 show season...

Burberry Prorsum
'Cosmic Dancer', 'Whenever You Want It', 'Shadows' and 'House of the Rising Sun' performed live by Clare Maguire

Dsquared2
'Whole Lotta Love - Dubstep Edit' by Led Zeppelin; 'Back in Black' by AC/DC; 'Black Dog' by Led Zeppelin; 'We Will Rock You' by Queen; 'Weather With You' by Crowded House; 'A Place To Stand' - Ontario Canada's theme song; 'Take Off' by Bob and Doug McKenzie; 'Pass That Dutch' by Missy Elliot; 'Ehi Oh!' by Biancaneve e i sette nani; 'Wild Thing' by Devil Doll; 'The Immigrant Song' - (Streetlab mix) by Led Zeppelin; 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' by Nirvana vs Adam Freeland; 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' by (Butch vig-mix) Nirvana; 'Black Dog' by Led Zeppelin; 'Tom Sawyer' by Rush; 'Are You Gonna Go My Way' by Lenny Kravitz; 'Rebel Rebel' by David Bowie; 'Hot Child In The City' by Nick Gilder and a live performance of 'One' and 'Family Affair' by Mary J Blige

Roberto Cavalli
'Every Other Freckle' by alt-J; 'Cupid Carries a Gun' by Marilyn Manson; 'God's Whisper' by Raury; 'Cleaver Lever' by The Growl; 'Come Easy' by Sunset Sons; 'Track 20 Symphony 2808' by Nero

Giorgio Armani
'Downton Abbey theme song' by The Chamber Orchestra Of London; 'Johnny and Mary' by Todd Terje feat Bryan Ferry

Canali
'Opal' by Byetone; 'Etude N°6' by Philip Glass; 'EXhale' by Plastikman; 'Back 2 Black' by Herman Schwartz; 'Gimme some' by Weval
Music production: Matteo Ceccarini

Gucci
'Clock Tick' by Abel Korzeniowski; 'Daydreams' by Abel Korzeniowski; 'Carlos' by Shigeru Umebayashi; 'Stillness Of The Mind' by Abel Korzeniowski; 'Going Somewhere' by Abel Korzeniowski
Music production: Michel Gaubert

Philipp Plein
'Jump Around' by House of Pain; 'Thunderstruck' by AC/DC; Magnum PI main theme; 'What's My Name' and 'Drop it Like it's Hot' performed live by Snoop Dogg; 'Requiem' and 'Jungle Jazz performed live by Les Tambours du Bronx; 'The Blue Danube' by Strauss; 'The Thieving Magpie' by Rossini

Cerruti 1881
'Whisper' by David Byrne; 'Cooper Union' Dialogue by Joseph Beuys; 'Come Out' by Steve Reich; 'Straum' by Nils Okland

Valentino
'Valley of the Birds' by Emerald Web; 'The Imitation' by Alexandre Desplat; 'Hip Hop Spa' by Fatima Al Qadiri; 'Up and Down' by Koreless

Lanvin
'Science and Industry' by Andy Stott;  'Happy House' by Siouxsie and the Banshees

Maison Margiela
'Cancer For The Cure' by Eels; 'Twilight's Last Gleamings' by  William S Burroughs; 'The Night' by Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons; 'Stripes' by Bell Orchestre; 'Loaded' by Primal Scream; 'Water / Light / Shifts' by Bell Orchestre; 'Shake  the  Disease' (remastered)  by Depeche Mode; 'Let's  Wade  In  the  Water' by Marlena Shaw; 'Eight  Sum' by Amon Tobin; 'Paul's  Nightmare' by DJ Paul Elstak; 'One  Minute To Midnight' by Justice

Kris Van Assche
'Negative Creep' and 'The Magnificent Bukkake' by Koudlam
Music production: Michel Gaubert

Kenzo
'Only Love Can Break Your Heart' by Saint Etienne

Dior Homme
'Landsc Apes' by Koudlam, arrangement by Thomas Roussel and performed by Paris Scoring Orchestra

Junya Watanabe
'Oh Honey' (Original 12'' Version) by The Delegation; 'Say That You Will' by George Duke S; 'Float On' by The Floaters; 'Unicorn' by Dizzy Gillespie & Lalo Schifrin; 'Safari Vibes' by Daniele Baldelli; 'Cosmic Funk' by Lonnie Liston Smith; 'Can't Take My Eyes Off You' by John Lloyd Young

Dries Van Noten
'Be My Baby' performed by DM Stith, written by Jeff Barry, Ellie Greenwich and Phil Spector

3.1 Phillip Lim
'When I Put My Hands On You' by The New Basement Tapes; 'Reduct Live' by Skee Mask; 'Cylo' by Skee Mask; 'Security Of The First World' by Public Enemy

Paul Smith
'Snare Liftoff' by Justin Hurwitz & Tim Simonec; '54-46 Was My Number' by Toots & The Maytals; 'Witness Dub' by Roots Manuva; 'Mirror In The Bathroom' by The Beat; 'Just Can't Stop The Dub' by The Beat; 'North Of The River Thames' by Doctor Pablo and The Dub Syndicate

Comme des Garçons
Eyes Wide Shut soundtrack mixed with Alessandro Cortini electronica
Music production: Frédéric Sanchez

Saint Laurent
'Me Suive' by Mystere collective, written and composed by Marlon Magnée, Sacha Got and Sam Lefèvre in Brittany for Saint Laurent 'Paris Sessions'

Mood board: ‘UFOs are coming back’. Carol Lim and Humberto Leon scrawled this hopeful message down a safety orange cape, its symbolic typeface echoed throughout in the alien heraldry splashed across a collection dedicated to a youth tribe of urban, bohemian heroes. To the sounds of Saint Etienne, Kenzo’s boys marched snugly past in striped ombré knits layered with a khaki-tinged gamut of hooded, patch-pocket outerwear.   

Scene setting: Kenzo invited guests to the still-unfinished Philharmonie de Paris, designed by Jean Nouvel. The models paraded around the glass-clad corridors of the symphonic concert hall, as guests faced the Parisian skyline sat on bright custom-built stools and benches.   

Finishing touches: Kenzo has tended towards a Buffalo reference in the shoe department before, and this season’s lace-ups and chunky boots were an ingenious jigsaw puzzle of coloured leathers patch-worked together with giant lacing or contoured leather strips.

Photography: Jason Lloyd-Evans

Fashion week, these days, is about much more than just the collections. Showmanship is the name of game, and in the meticulously executed sartorial extravaganzas, the sound space is an element that no producer or designer can afford to overlook. Music royalty - past, present and future - is enlisted to ensure a full assault on the senses. Here, we bring you Paris Fashion Week's catwalk mega mix from the S/S 2015 womenwear collections.

WEDNESDAY 24/09

Dries Van Noten
'Strange Entity' by Max Colombie AKA Oscar And The Wolf, in collaboration with Sem Jan

THURSDAY 25/09

Roland Mouret
'Don't Go' by Izzy Lindqwister; 'Memorabilia' by Soft Cell; 'New Dorp. New York' by SBTRKT (feat Ezra Koenig); 'La Poupee Qui Fait' by Serge Gainsbourg
Music production: Nano de Clausel

Rick Owens
'Piano Concerto 1, Preludium' by Wojciech Kilar
Music production: Jeff Judd

FRIDAY 26/09

Loewe
'Imagin' by Dark Sky; 'Music for 18 Musicians Section 4' by Steve Reich; 'Piano Phase' by Steve Reich; 'Music for 18 Musicians Section 5' by Steve Reich
Music production: Michel Gaubert

Dior
'Ouverture' by Koudlam; 'Loss (Regis Version)' by Ike Yard; 'The Magnificent Bukkake (1756-1785)' by Koudlam; 'Shake' by Cowboy Rhythmbox
Music production: Michel Gaubert

Isabel Marant
'New Dorp. New York' by SBTRKT (feat Ezra Koenig); 'Pump Me Up' by Trouble Funk; 'Electrodub' by Daniele Baldelli; 'Feel Up' by Grace Jones; 'New Dorp. New York' by SBTRKT (feat Ezra Koenig)

Maison Martin Margiela
'Assassin de la Police' by Cut Killer; 'Sweet Harmony' by The Beloved

SATURDAY 27/09

Haider Ackermann
'One Space' by Senjan Jansen

SUNDAY 28/09

Kenzo
Exclusive mix by Disclosure

Céline
'This Woman's Work' by Kate Bush; 'Mishima / Closing' by Philip Glass; 'Need This (Radio Mix)' by Bok Bok & Tom Trago; 'In The Upper Room Dance No. 1' by Philip Glass; 'Vector' by Bok Bok & Tom Trago

Chloé 
'Strangers'; 'Numb'; 'Sour Times' all by Portishead

Akris
'Says' Composed and performed by Nils Frahm

Givenchy
'Radioactivity' by Kraftwerk; 'Just A Clutch' by The Martinez Brothers; 'Blondee' by The Martinez Brothers

MONDAY 29/09

Stella McCartney
'Imprint' by Must Die feat. Tkay Maidza; 'Bugatti' by Tiga; 'Kero Kero Bonito' by Kero Kero Bonito; 'Jane' by Girlpool; 'The Rain That Never Came' by Apache Sun
Music production: Tony Farsides

Wunderkind
'Drown (Bonus Track)' by EMA; 'Rollin' & Tumblin'' by Kyoka; 'Ring Of Fire' by Wall Of Voodoo; 'Shanghai Freeway' by Fatima Al Qadiri; 'Locust' by &ME; 'In A Landscape (Solo Piano)' by John Cage & Sylvano Bussotti
Music production: Javier Peral

Saint Laurent
'1,2,3' by Aleide
Original song written and recorded by Aleide

TUESDAY 30/09

Chanel
'I'm Not Scared' by The Pet Shop Boys; 'Transperu' by Koudlam; 'Khan' by E-Versions
Music production: Michel Gaubert

Valentino
'Body Double' by Pino Donaggio; 'Metti Una Sera A Cena' by Ennio Morricone & Edda Dell'Orso; 'Outside Looking' by Michael Nyman; 'Metti Una Sera A Cena' by Ennio Morricone and Edda Dell'Orso

Alexander McQueen
'Kodama' by Haruomi Hosono (from the O.S.T. Tales of Genji); 'Red Sex' by Vessel; 'Fairy Link' by Susumu Yokota; 'Drowned In Water And Light' by Vessel; 'Shambala Tsushin' by Haruomi Hosono and the Yellow Magic Band; 'Soul Love' by David Bowie
Music production: John Gosling

WEDNESDAY 01/10

Louis Vuitton
'The Sound Of Silence' by Simon and Garfunkel
Music production: Leopold Ross and Michel Gaubert

Moncler Gamme Rouge
'Auto Music 2' by Brian Reitzell; 'Home: "Ruitor"' by Richard Pinhas; 'Il Sogno Di Una Cosa' by Kreidler; 'Prismatic Reflections' by Bitchin Bajas
Music production: Frédéric Sanchez

Miu Miu
'Female Trouble' by Melvin & Redd Kross; 'Past, Present and Future' by the Shangri-Las; 'Past, Present and Future' by Giddle & Boyd; 'Piano Sonata no 2: Moonlight' by Beethoven; '----S' by Moon Relay; '///////L' by Moon Relay; 'Female Trouble' by Divine

Kenzo had us captured at their spring show before any look walked into their intriguing show space. Working with their trusted set collaborator Etienne Russo, Carol Lim and Humberto Leon colonised a Parisian skateboard rink, installing huge screen less video projections amongst the smooth cement hills and setting their models off on a journey into the colossal space. Kenzo's clothes come fast and furiously; and there were a lot of them to digest. The designers presented a whole wardrobe of off-duty and dressed-up clothing that spanned from the simplicity of boxy tops and sweatshirts to more fashion forward jumpsuits and exaggeratedly flared oversized trousers. If there was a theme this season it was volume, as the designers blew air into almost all of their silhouettes. This didn't work on every piece, but it looked fantastic on the pieces cut from sturdier or more compact fabrications such as their three-quarter length black skirts that opened to reveal side slits or their perorated printed tank dresses that draped with volume around the ankles. Our favourite pieces in this show, however, were the broderie anglaise and denim looks - the latter of which showed exactly what a creative twosome can devise for the world's most worn fabrication. In Lim's and Leon's hands, denim came in a soft sky blue and was cut in boxy, unusual shapes, such as kick skirts and tunic style jackets that lent a very fresh touch to jeanswear.

Kenzo designers Humberto Leon and Carol Lim have been mining from the mysterious oeuvre of film director David Lynch for their last two collections, an indirect homage that came to a more marked crescendo for Winter. Rather than admiring the cutting-edge director from afar, the New York-based duo actually lassoed him in the flesh to design both the set and music for today's Paris show. The result was as creepy as you might expect: a giant wavy mirror backdrop featured a huge cadaver-like skull with punched-out eye pockets that floated eerily within a glass box. It had a horror-like element to it that was in synch, in some ways, with the Kenzo invitation: a black block whose inner core glowed like an icy blue igloo. What all of these cool effects had to do with the clothes on the runway remained somewhat of a mystery, but as a whole, the nicely produced package was all well appreciated. This was, in fact, a very strong collection for Leon and Lim, as they upgraded their signature sporty clothes into something a bit more glamorous and expensive looking. Intricate jacquards, embroideries, sequin bedazzled knitwear and elaborate printing techniques added a luxurious new layer to the collection this season. The designers relied heavily on co-ordinated separates, such as elongated skirts with matching jackets or sweaters, which gave the looks a precise air, despite their zany patterns. Quirk is this brand's new middle name, so it was good to see these designers maintaining their frenetic, street-fused spirit in patterned turtleneck sweaters, quilted suiting and oversized hooded outwear, but pushing these pieces into a more sophisticated stage.

Ermenegildo Zegna Couture: Hollow, geometric blocks created a thought-provoking backdrop for Stefano Pilati's heavily industrial show interior, conceived to reflect the designer's take on architecture and space. American lighting designer AJ Weissbard then cemented the scene's raw feel by adding a misty, sullen lighting set-up that further enhanced the season's graphic, linear silhouettes and muted colour combinations

Moncler Gamme Bleu: Designer Thom Browne staged the next instalment of his legendary sporting events for Moncler Gamme Bleu within Milan's Palazzo del Senato. For S/S, it took the form of a boxing match. Dressed in patriotic brand colours, the sparring ring delivered a knockout fashion fight if ever there was one

Dior Homme: All eyes were initially on the floor at Dior Homme's Tennis Club de Paris presentation, where colour-blocked horizontal and vertical lines met at the runway's central cross-junction. Bold primary strips interjected the floor's sandy wooden boards, reflecting the bold stripes and hyper-hued scribbles that were drawn across Kris Van Assche's S/S collection

Brioni: For S/S 2015 we watched Brendan Mullane's Los Angeles inspiration come to life in grand cinematic form. The surrounding walls of his presentation space screened films by American artist Collier Schorr, depicting scenes from the Brioni man's LA life. As a direct reflection of this image, the show's models stood on black podium structures, replicating open-plan Californian homes, looking out across the twinkling city skyline

Cerruti 1881: Lighting aficionado Thierry Dreyfus once again set the scene for Aldo Maria Camillo's menswear show. Flashing stadium-style spotlights highlighted the venue's patch-worked wooden flooring, creating a warm glow over the simple setting

Dsquared2: The Caten twins took us to the inception of their creative process for S/S 2015, setting their show within a working artist's studio. The space's theatrically hazy skylights, aged walls and half completed paintings offered the perfect canvas for their Pop art inspired collection

Dunhill: The sophisticated surrounds of John Ray's salon style S/S 2015 presentation at One Horse Guards in London allowed the Dunhill man to feel right at home. French doors flooded the space with natural sunlight, which bounced off the venue's white surrounds - from ecru ottomans to bleached wooden floorboards

Salvatore Ferragamo: A simple, rectangular blonde wood catwalk framed Ferragamo's spot-lit show space in Milan. Similar basic benches were installed for the audience, while the setting was backed by an installation of hanging wooden beams, saturated in glowing blue light

Paul Smith: This season Sir Paul returned to Paris' Bourse de Commerce to present his bohemia tinged S/S 2015 offering. Under the building's classic domed ceiling, Smith's boys were surrounded by a terracotta-potted garden of succulents and cacti that also showed up in his prints

Gucci: Frida Giannini extended a little feminine subtlety to her creamy S/S 2015 setting in the house's traditional Milanese location, directing the focus towards the show's watery digital backdrop. The predominately beige seating was also perfectly matched with the polished ecru flooring

Maison Martin Margiela: The stark grey wood and metal features of Paris' Pierre-and-Marie-Curie University provided an aptly institutional backdrop for the house's schoolboy-inspired collection

Philipp Plein: This German designer's summer pool party at via Carlo Botta was a far cry from the backyard gathering that its name usually implies. Sharks were cast as mega mascots with Plein's PP monogram proudly inscribed between the toothy critters, before all matter of water sports began. Cue synchronised swimmers and suited jet skiers thrashing through this adult water park

Kris Van Assche: The Belgium designer explored the idea of a never-ending runway for this season's set up at the Halle Freyssinet. Referencing the show's title 'Illusion', the basic surroundings of the warehouse space were heightened by an artwork at the end of the runway, featuring continuous opening doors that the models started and ended their walk through

Raf Simons: Lighting took centre stage a Raf Simons' S/S Espace Vendome show space, which was otherwise left raw and unembellished - an aesthetic that was accentuated by the omission of seating. Spotlights cast a moody red and green glow over the scene, including the standing audience, as the models weaved their way through them

Prada: The outdoors were brought inside at this season's AMO-designed Prada show space, with Mrs Prada's boys circling a striking cobalt blue pool. Surrounded by a contrasting suede brown seating gradient, the collection was poetically reflected in the azure-hued water

Versace: Donatella Versace strung up everything but the kitchen sink on the arches of her S/S 2015 men's runway in the house's Via Gesù HQ. The church-like set offered up the full weight of the brand's homewares collection. Versace bed sheets draped the walls, which were then covered in all manner of Medusa-logoed chairs, cushions, plates and lamps - no doubt an offering to the Gods of living large

Kenzo: Paris' ornate Pont Alexandre III offered a fitting backdrop to Kenzo's S/S 2015 show, which embraced the city's key icons both as a show venue and later seen through the collection's Tour Eiffel patchworks

Kenzo: With the help of Villa Eugenie, Humberto Leon and Carol Lim walked their colourful collection over the historically elaborate landmark, while the audience sat out of the rain on blocky, pale green benches

Wooyoungmi: The South Korean brand's newly appointed co-creative director Katie Chung presented an eerie, sci-fi inspired centrepiece for S/S 2015. In the show's closing sequence, draped transparencies separated the audience from the clothes, which were mystically lit by Eyesight Productions, offering a moody finale to the presentation

Y-3: A world away from last season's cleanly graphic setting, we hit the waves at Yohji Yamamoto's summer surf shack. The Couvent des Cordeliers venue's 'wooden lodge' was plastered with paint and posters decrying 'surf now, apocalypse later'

Saint Laurent: Hedi Slimane likes a light show and this season's cube-shaped, concert-style light installation doubled as a fiery runway backdrop. Gleaming and flashing in alternate increments, the set illuminated the tiled, cubic catwalk within the Marais' Carreau du Temple

Dior Homme: Kris Van Assche's latest collection for Dior Homme merged the businessman with the bohemian artist. To that end, Anthony Turner kept hair groomed, and softly set in place, whilst working with the natural texture of each boy's mop. Lucia Pica kept faces clean with a defined cheekbone and perfectly matte skin

Acne Studios: Three words inspired Acne's menswear collection: awkward, askew and askance. These were also reflected in the hair direction with models' fringes gelled or tucked to one side to create a more graphic shape around the face. To contrast, skin was kept bare, with a luminous glow

Paul Smith: Sir Smith brought the outside in for S/S 2015 with green foliage replacing last season's oriental carpets, and with it came an inherent calmness. This ease was also echoed in the grooming, which saw Matt Mulhall create an artfully messy style that looked as though the boys had fallen asleep in a park on a warm summer afternoon. As sunglasses shielded eyes, make-up artist Lynsey Alexander added in a little bronzer to warm the skin

Hermès: Designer Véronique Nichanian has mastered the art of casual, but extremely luxurious summer dressing. To co-ordinate, Vi Sapyyapy created a hair look that was perfectly in sync, read: cool, relaxed and softly textured. Alexandra Schiavi's make-up was similarly dewy and fresh, delivered with a rested, just-returned-from-holiday ease

Valentino: Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pierpaolo Piccioli's S/S 2015 collection may have taken inspiration from fantastical birds, beasts and butterflies, but their grooming took a more pared-back turn. Classic, but not overly tidy, side partings were paired with clean, matt skin

Kenzo: Carol Lim and Humberto Leon's passion for colour was repeated in this season's make-up with Aaron de Mey painting bold blocks of colour on select models' cheekbones or foreheads. To counterbalance, Anthony Turner left the hair natural, using just a little gel to add texture

Haider Ackermann: Hair was gently slicked back, or carefully ruffled to match Ackermann's languid silks and relaxed tailoring for S/S 2015, while skin was left dewy to reflect the show venue's early evening sun

Dries Van Noten: The Belgian designer envisaged a more 'sensual' Van Noten man for S/S 2015, his inspiration drawn from Soviet-born ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev. As a result, the season's grooming look resembled a man who had just finished rehearsal. Cue softly flushed pink cheeks giving the impression of exertion, and gently tousled hair suggesting movement

Cerruti 1881: Inspired by a recent trip to California, Aldo Maria Camillo took a more relaxed approach to dressing for S/S 2015. This was similarly reflected in the grooming that saw Matt Mulhall offering up wet-look hair, as Karim Rahman prepped the skin to be neither too tanned, nor pale, instead alluding to the light touch of the West Coast sun

Raf Simons: In a show that was a tender revisiting of some of Simons' most valued memories, the season's youthful casting left little work for Peter Phillips when it came to the models' fresh, clear skin. Hair on the other hand was greased, and left long, with delicate extensions falling casually over the face. The effect recalled Simons' own long hair era, documented by a teenage passport photo of the designer that was pinned to the back of one of his jackets

Kris Van Assche: Reaching ten years of his eponymous label, Kris Van Assche's S/S 2015 collection was both a celebration of the past and a glimpse into his future. The show's grooming, however, was entirely dedicated to youth. Gina Van Den Bergh left a heavy shine on the high points of the face, whilst Anthony Turner pulled the models' straightened hair forward as fringes, adding some texture in the back, to reduce any heaviness as hair fell over their eyes

Givenchy: Riccardo Tisci showed both men's and women's looks on the runway this season, leaving stylist Luigi Murenu to bring coherence to the hair line-up by utilising sheer, black unisex skullcaps. Pat McGrath left the models' skin clear, merely adding a light sheen, while brushing brows upwards to keep the look strong

Louis Vuitton: Kim Jones journeyed to India, his exotic travels also inspiring make-up maestro Peter Phillips' approach. As a result, the artist brought a warmth to the skin, leaving it sun-kissed with a gentle glow. Guido Palau in turn smoothed hair into neat side-partings that weren't heavy on product or fuss

Rick Owens: The American designer's collection was inspired by a mischievous faun. To reflect the mythology theme, hair was artfully slicked back and held in place with plenty of gel - the shape's pointed sweep almost mimicking the ears of a mystical animal. Skin was left mostly bare, save for a few looks, which saw Lucia Pieroni use full body make-up to paint models in Owens' new pastel palette

Lanvin: The S/S 2015 Lanvin man is on the move with designer Lucas Ossendrijver contemplating how men travel around a city. For Guido Palau and Houda Remita this meant a grooming look that was quick and fuss free. Hair was not overly styled, looking freshly washed with a little product to hold it in place, while skin was moisturised and powdered