The subject of conversation this Paris Fashion Week Men’s rarely strayed from the oppressive temperatures as a Europe-wide heatwave engulfed the city (with the mercury tipping 40 degrees, it was the epicentre of the weather phenomenon). Shows were moved from the heat of the day to early morning; venues came with paramedics on standby; and the endless flickering of fans provided the backdrop to almost every show. Marking the closing act of a sweltering fashion month, it left questions of how sustainable a fashion week is in the heat of mid-June, should this become the new normal.

And yet, the show went on. Across a six-day schedule, there were shows from fashion’s biggest houses – notably Saint Laurent, Dior, Celine and Louis Vuitton (the latter gauged the mood by making its show set a beach with an enormous ‘tidal wave’ at the end of the runway) – as well as those that define the cultural zeitgeist, like Rick Owens (his looks came with pre-installed air conditioning), Dries Van Noten (Julian Klausner’s ethereal lightness looked particularly attuned to the heat), and Willy Chavarria (the American designer talked finding joy in times of ‘chaos and darkness’). Elsewhere, Nick Wakeman hosted her debut runway show for Studio Nicholson, 16 years after its founding, and Kiko Kostadinov marked 10 years of his own eponymous label.

As the week concludes, Wallpaper* looks back over Paris Fashion Week Men’s to pick our highlights – from Jonathan Anderson’s ‘sampled and remixed’ collection for Dior (inspired by the music of Fred Again, who also soundtracked the show), to Michael Rider’s brilliant first menswear show for Celine, which closed out proceedings on Sunday.

Saint Laurent

Anthony Vaccarello has made the Tadao Ando-designed rotunda of the Bourse de Commerce – Pinault Collection gallery the location for his Saint Laurent runway shows for a number of seasons – a suitably monumental setting for the vision he has honed at the house over the past decade, one of cinematic sensuality and the uncompromising repetition of a single silhouette in a given collection. This season, the space was transformed by Fujiko Nakaya’s Cloud #07156, currently on display in the institution. The installation, one of a series of ‘fog’ sculptures by the Japanese artist, sees water vapour emitted from the floor, before being manipulated by a series of high-pressure pumps and nozzles for a 16-minute display (the technology was originally developed in 1969 alongside engineer Thomas Mee). ‘Fujiko Nakaya does not depict fog; she sculpts it,’ says art critic Anne‑Marie Duguet in the installation’s accompanying catalogue.

It set the scene for a collection in which Vaccarello explored the idea of ‘restraint as seduction’, the lingering fog around the models a symbolic gesture of the kind of undefinable desire that certain figures can provoke. ‘Nobody is trying to seduce you,’ he said of this season’s protagonist. ‘What makes them seductive is that they do not need to.’ Touchstones for this figure were ‘Marguerite Duras, whose writing found meaning in what remained unsaid; Tina Chow, whose legendary style embraced reduction rather than excess; and the fictional Mr Ripley, whose outward composure concealed a far more complicated interior life,’ as he explained via the accompanying notes.

It led to a collection defined by lightness and simplicity: there were featherweight ribbed knits that traced the contours of the body, shrunken waistcoats worn with nothing beneath, and the reemergence of the windbreaker, here in breezy hues of yellow and orange (Vaccarello said he imagined it as a collection which could be easily packed into a suitcase for travel). Tailoring this season remained broad across the shoulder, though had an easy, oversized line, while nods to the opulence of Yves Saint Laurent came in jewellery-like buttons and trench coats rendered in molten gold. Though the use of the luxurious hue was less about excess, Vaccarrello argued; rather, it was used to venerate the garment itself, ‘transforming the utilitarian trench into something extraordinary’. Jack Moss

Auralee

Auralee’s Ryota Iwai dealt with the expectation-versus-reality of the summer season in his S/S 2027 collection for his Japan-based label – the total vacation switch-off we fantasise about while on home soil, and then the slightly uncanny version of ourselves that actually shows up, still plugged in but perhaps a little more susceptible to chance.

Played out in three chapters: ‘The anticipation of departure, the sense of freedom that travel awakens, and the return to everyday life – subtly changed, soaking in the afterglow of the trip,’ looks became more relaxed as things progressed. What started as summery – but still smart – tailoring in office-appropriate blues and greys gave way into softer beach cover-up styles, brighter hues, and the addition of cute trinkets. India Birgitta Jarvis

Louis Vuitton

Pharrell Williams drew an unlikely yet astute comparison between surfers and dandies for Louis Vuitton’s S/S 2027 collection, noting their mutual reverence for performance, craft and travel. Where the dandy peacocks in a more urban context, the surfer commands the beach and rides the waves, but both are drawn by impulse and a certain non-conformity. In fact, ‘dude’, that enduring hippie slang which calls to mind tousled beach-waves and shark-tooth necklaces, used to mean dandy, once upon a time.

The two archetypes converged within Williams’ artfully staged show – a beach scene with real sand, boardwalk and an eight-metre-tall wave set within the Cité Internationale Universitaire de Paris. Classic city pieces, including two-piece suits and collared shirts, were given the surf treatment with tailored jackets constructed in neoprene and what the brand described as ‘hand-spun’ textures. Blue was the prevailing colour, from flashes of ultramarine to dusty-shaded denim which appeared time-worn and sun-bleached. This was not just a tribute – Louis Vuitton has pledged its support to reef conservation projects and enlisted the help of competitors at the Tahiti Pro, taking place this August, to monitor progress. IBJ

Dior

This season, Jonathan Anderson drafted the British producer and musician Fred Again to soundtrack his S/S 2027 show, held at Paris’ Musée Nissim de Camondo, a decorative arts museum in the 8th arrondissement. Fred Again, who produced songs for artists including Skepta and Charli XCX, rose to prominence with his three-volume Actual Life mixtapes, an aural diary of the years 2020-2022 which comprised voice notes from friends, spoken word and samples, alongside his own music. Anderson said that Fred Again’s creative process had inspired his approach to this season, which he described as ‘sampling and remixing to carve out new meaning for what’s known’.

As such, Anderson presented a collection which traversed eras – frock coats and 19th-century embroidered met tattered denim, baggy polo shirts and leather pants – while transforming familiar garments as one might remix a record. This included the tuxedo, this season’s protagonist, which shape-shifted across the collection, reimagined in a draped, organza-like fabric printed to look like tailoring wool, elongated into a robe-like coat, or transformed into a windbreaker-style jacket with a toggle fastening at its hem. Elsewhere, moments of eccentricity and play that have defined Anderson’s approach at both Dior and Loewe before it continued to come to the fore, from shimmering metallic jeans and zig-zag tote bags to corsage brooches and skewiff bow ties. ‘Fashion has to be enjoyable,’ he said. ‘It has to be fun.’ JM

Rick Owens

As Europeans across the board reckon with heatwave-proofing their homes, debating the merits of windows closed versus windows open and so on, Rick Owens was typically one step ahead. The S/S 2027 collection not only incorporated Adidas’ ClimaCool technology, but was supplemented with in-built fans and ice elements, creating a ‘personal air conditioning system’.

This technology means that Owens may have just cracked the technique for wearing all-black through the warmer months – and, to prove it, the 72-look collection was almost entirely black with the occasional contrasting buff-tone. In addition to the signature Rick Owens sharply elongated silhouette, S/S 2027 offered more sporty options, including track pants (with Adidas stripe) and puffer coats – ones which literally puffed, thanks to the air circulating within. IBJ

IM Men

‘In Praise of Bamboo Shadows’, as IM Men’s S/S 2027 was called, celebrated every conceivable association of the plant. Its usefulness and versatility as a material was expressed through fabric made from a blend of bamboo fibres and organic cotton, on which graphic designer Rikako Nagashima had printed shadowy patterns. Its deliciousness as an ingredient came through in supple leather bags, inspired by chimaki, a Japanese dish of steamed bamboo leaves filled with glutinous rice.

Most important of all were the aesthetic and cultural associations. The patterns cast by bamboo forests, light dappled in beams, was translated in a Japanese dyeing technique called ironaki, and the repeated straight lines created by the plant found their echo in hand-pleated pieces. Papery textured outerwear ‘[drew] inspiration from the jūnihitoe (the twelve-layered kimono) worn by Princess Kaguya in The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter, one of the oldest Japanese folktales,’ and denim in graduated colour evoked traditional ink wash paintings. IBJ

Dries Van Noten

Julian Klausner’s latest collection for Dries Van Noten came with a warning prior to the show: guests could expect to be subjected to extreme temperatures in the Tennis Club de Paris showspace due to the heatwave which continued into Thursday evening. So much so, on arrival, two paramedics stood on standby, ice lollies were distributed to guests, and fans were left on the seats which stretched the length of the monumental space. Luckily, this is a house with an enormous amount of goodwill, one which has extended from the eponymous Van Noten – the designer exited his brand in 2024 – to Klausner, who has astutely evolved the Belgian house’s codes with a series of lauded men’s and womenswear collections.

His S/S 2027 menswear outing was equally beguiling, a masterclass in lightness and beauty that more than distracted from the venue’s heat (in fact, the collection’s diaphanous layers looked all the more appealing). The inspiration had come from L’Après-midi d’un faune (The Faun’s Afternoon), an 1876 poem by Stéphane Mallarmé in which a ‘dream-like creature’ wakes up in the woods having dreamt of dancing nymphs; in his slumbering state, he cannot remember if the scene happened or not. ‘I was moved by the haziness the verses depict, by the constant blurring between the real and the imagined and by the fluidity with which the senses and fantasy slip one into the other,’ said Klausner.

In the collection, this feeling was conjured in the reimagining of a ‘masculine wardrobe’ in delicate, sheer fabrications or adorned with embellishment – from a breezy parka decorated with transparent paillettes, to vividly printed silk trench coats and safari shirts – while colours moved from watercolour hues and sun-bleached pastels to inky black and navy. ‘The idea of sensuality guided many of our choices, colours and fabrications, rendering wardrobe staples as clothing that feels soft and intimate,’ Klausner continued. ‘Like a dream that vanishes upon waking up, I hope everything feels loose, delicate, easy to remove, ready to fly away.’ JM

Studio Nicholson

‘This is who we are,’ declared Studio Nicholson, the British brand that held its first runway show in its 16-year history as part of Paris Fashion Week Men’s. The collection doubled down on its position as a leader of discerning, minimalist style: high-quality fabrics presented with low intervention, expertly cut and relatively unisex. The S/S 2027 show included both men’s and womenswear, but the majority of Studio Nicholson pieces could be worn interchangeably – a shared wardrobe for tasteful couples.

Although this was their first show, in ways it also served as a retrospective. ‘The Sorte’ trouser, which has been a mainstay for Studio Nicholson since the very beginning, opened the show in navy gabardine, and slightly barrel-legged jeans (the brand is the well-established go-to for this cut) appeared multiple times throughout. There was an expansion in other categories, particularly accessories and shoes, which included, in true summer style, espadrilles, flip-flops and garden clogs. IBJ

Junya Watanabe

The number of collaborators listed in the show-notes for Junya Watanabe’s S/S 2027 collection totalled 17: from other clothing brands, including Carhartt, Kappa, and New Balance, to every fashion assistant’s bête noir… DHL. The multinational’s logo appeared on caps created by another collaborator, artist Kota Okuda, which were blingified with ostentatious gold chains and strings of pearls.

Costume jewellery ran through the collection, which closed the gap between traditional tailoring techniques and more recent sportswear tropes, with more than a sprinkle of 1980s references throughout. There was a stone-washed denim jacket, cropped short and worn on top of a Wall Street blue-and-white striped poplin shirt. Tracksuits were high-sheen and colour-blocked, and bouclé accents and the occasional exaggerated epoulette called to mind classic yuppie style, albeit with more swagger. IBJ

Willy Chavarria

Since transplanting from New York, Willy Chavarria’s Paris shows have become a highlight of the schedule – previous outings have included a near-religious experience in the American Church of Paris, while last season’s all-singing, all-dancing spectacular played out like a telenovela on steroids. This season, Chavarria chose Espace Niemeyer, the Oscar Niemeyer-designed former Headquarters of the French Communist Party, for the show, which took place under its futuristic subterranean dome. The setting felt apt: the utopian architecture provided a reflection of a collection that Chavarria said was about a search for joy amid a time of ‘chaos and darkness’.

Soundtracked by a quartet of musicians, he titled the S/S 2027 outing Comunión (flyers for the show posited it as ‘New Age Group Therapy’) and drafted a group of friends and collaborators, including Bella Freud and Romeo Beckham, to walk the runway. Their looks continued to hone Chavarria’s signature aesthetic, one which reimagines work- and sportswear silhouettes in expansive proportions (and with new elegance) while his growing womenswear offering riffs on mid-century silhouettes.

This season, vivid colours were inspired by the work of Louis Carlos Bernal, and bolstered the joyful mood, while an exposure of the body – T-shirts were pushed over the head to reveal models’ chests; shorts sliced so short that the pockets hung beneath the hem – lent a pulsating sensual undercurrent. ‘There are two strong feelings in this collection,’ he told Wallpaper*. ‘One is joy, colour, levity, and playfulness. The other is shock and awe.’ JM

Kiko Kostadinov

Kiko Kostadinov was in a self-referential mood this season, which he began by ‘looking back at the minimal geometric forms of the previous season and asking what could be challenged and pushed further’. With engineer-like precision, the collection emphasised structure and materiality, eschewing embellishment for a streamlined finish.

There was an air of Y2K cyber-core about the 33-look collection, which borrowed its colour scheme from the Apple iMac G3 range: turquoise, dove grey, grape. The canvas interventions of the late Italian artist Agostino Bonalumi were referenced through shape and drape, and through the use of internal boning to create ‘curved, rippling protrusions, emphasising a tension between softness and structure’. IBJ

Wooyoungmi

Madame Woo was searching for a universality in her research for S/S 2027, particularly what various cultures and geographies have in common when it comes to reading joyfulness in apparel. Her answer was threefold: ‘light, colour and the imprint of individuality’.

Light was articulated through surface treatments which gave garments an aged appearance, as if sun-bleached. Colour, mostly pastel but with occasional flashes of vivid chartreuse or tangerine, was applied liberally. And a sense of individuality came from pieces appliqued with playful, juvenile pictures, leather keyrings hanging from belts, and ties worn rebelliously around the head. Applying these principles imbued the 47-look collection with a feeling of levity which can be recognised the world over. IBJ

Celine

Taking place on the final day of menswear fashion month, American designer Michael Rider presented one of the collections of the season with his first standalone men’s show for Celine, held in an all-white showspace constructed in the Tennis Club de Paris. Honing an already distinctive aesthetic which is based on the idea of developing an evolving wardrobe – and combining an American preppiness with the Parisian insouciance synonymous with the house – Rider said he was thinking less about thematics, and more about what he (and his team) actually want to wear. ‘[It’s about] enjoying what we do in the studio, and desiring it ourselves, all of it, the clothes and the characters,’ he said.

Besides a multitude of great clothes (this collection will be much-imitated, particularly in its playful, thrown-on styling), what is striking about Rider is his ability to evoke a ‘Celine man’ (or indeed woman), despite the eclecticism in the looks on show. Much of this is down to his own belief in what he puts down the runway: a navy cummerbund over a red sweater, an enormous bag slotted into the crook of the arm, ballooning pants, a mix of the slouchy and the shrunken – these are familiar garments that he has somehow made feel entirely new. And, while the show might have presented these pieces in more unconventional combinations, take these looks apart and this is a wardrobe that can be adopted by a wide gamut of men. ‘It’s about building towards something bigger,’ he said. ‘Something with legs, and roots.’ JM

A review of the beauty looks from the A/W 2026 season, which finished in Paris earlier this week, contains a surprise: a lot of it was a mess. That’s not a put-down. Rather, the intriguing messiness of the season was deliberate, with even some of the most consistent purveyors of sleek, minimalist beauty, like Hermès and Alaïa, featuring hair that had a ‘I just got out of bed’ quality.

A similar look was seen on the Prada runway, with models in smudged raccoon-eye make-up and hair in half-done ponytails that had strands haphazardly escaping. The show had a novel concept: 15 models, wearing 15 looks, with each model changing four times throughout the show to create a new composition of the previous look. The beauty complemented the idea by suggesting a woman always in motion, always in a rush, too busy to refresh her make-up or even redo her ponytail over the course of the day.

The best beauty looks of A/W 2026

In New York, Collina Strada took messy hair to the next level with hairstylist Mustafa Yanaz giving models bed-heads that looked like they took many sleepless nights to achieve. While in London, the teased, matted hair at Simone Rocha was paired with punk details in, of all places, the eyebrows, such as multiple eyebrow rings and a black-pencilled eyebrow that curved dramatically at the edges. The result was an unkempt, delinquent appearance that complemented the bow, taffeta and glitter-heavy femininity of the clothes.

Yet, when it comes to this season’s messy beauty, no one did it better than the contingent of Japanese designers who show at Paris Fashion Week each season. At Comme des Garçons, hair by Takeo Arai and headpieces designed by HIZUME, combined to create a fascinating, strange beauty, with matted worms of hair – for lack of a better term – emerging from what looked like ripped sheer tights or oily bird’s nests.

At Yohji Yamamoto, black lips were paired with excessively gelled, Siouxsie Sioux-style hair. While at Junya Watanabe, hair stylist Eugene Souleiman and make-up artist Isamaya Ffrench created plastered-down, finger-wave wigs and streaming black eye makeup for a memorable 1920s-flapper-after-a-really-terrible-night look.

A similar look was also seen on the Saint Laurent runway, although more sleekly done, with hair gelled to helmet-like perfection and a flawlessly executed smoky eye and dark red lip (here, though, the inspiration seemed to be the severe beauty of Helmut Newton’s photographs of Saint Laurent in the 1970s). Demna’s first Gucci show also featured contoured cheeks, saturated red lips, and fanned-out smoky eyes. The most noteworthy saturated lips and smoky eye combination, however, was perhaps those at Tom Ford, where the velvet lips engineered by Lucy Bridge were so richly pigmented they looked almost fake.

Speaking of fake, there were those like Matières Fécales and Rick Owens who ostentatiously subverted beauty conventions with the use of prosthetics. The Matières Fécales collection, which satirised the style of the one per cent, translated the ideas behind its clothing into fake black eyes and faces practically deformed by plastic surgery.

While Owens, always one for bold beauty, built on the codes he’s been developing for years with make-up artist Daniel Sällström, to create eyes obscured by colour contacts and extra-long fake lashes that were emphasised by painterly strokes of neon eyeshadow. Sällström was also the make-up artist behind Vaquera’s white painted faces and multi-winged cat eyes, which combined to create a kind of modernised 18th-century aristocrat. The show also featured one model with lime-green pubic hair, which was, if nothing else, memorable.

But when it comes to the most memorable beauty look of the A/W 2026 runways, the winner might be a brand that was more playful than provocative. We are, of course, speaking about one of the most lauded shows of the season: Matthieu Blazy’s sophomore ready-to-wear outing at Chanel.

As the show progressed and the clothes transitioned into more iridescent evening wear, the subtle beauty of the runway looks began to take an iridescent sheen as well. Models’ slicked-back hair appeared covered in a glittery, chromatic coating with matching metallic eye make-up, while one particularly noteworthy look featured long, mermaid-style pastel locks with matching pastel eyeshadow. All in all, a shining end to the season.

Paris Fashion Week culminated yesterday, marking the end of a month-long season of shows that has seen previous stops in New York, London and Milan.

With a nine-day schedule standing at nearly double the length of its counterparts, Paris remains the defining city of fashion month – not least because it comprises shows from fashion’s heavyweight houses, among them Chanel, Dior, Louis Vuitton and Saint Laurent (to name just a handful).

After last season’s debuts dominated the S/S headlines, A/W 2026 was about the sophomore show, as designers settled into their positions as creative directors. Without the weight of expectation, we saw some brilliant shows – notably Jonathan Anderson at Dior, Michael Rider at Celine, Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez at Loewe, and Matthieu Blazy at Chanel (all were showing their second ready-to-wear collections).

Here, reported by Wallpaper* fashion & beauty features director Jack Moss and contributing writer India Jarvis, we pick the standout shows that defined the week.

The best of Paris Fashion Week A/W 2026

Dior

Jonathan Anderson staged his A/W 2026 runway show for Dior in Paris’ Jardin des Tuileries, constructing a circular show set around one of the park’s ponds (for the occasion, it had been populated with Monet-esque lily pads, meticulously constructed to look like the real thing), while the invitation comprised miniature versions of the park’s signature green metal chairs. Across the pond’s centre ran an elevated runway, echoing the line of the Tuileries’ Grand Allée, a historic promenade since the park opened to the public in 1667 after a renovation by Louis XIV. It led to a collection about ‘seeing and being seen’, a contemporary imagining of the promenade, ‘[where] a walk in the park becomes a performance’. Cue a ‘panoply of Parisians’ in eclectic, time-hopping attire, from the woozy ruffles of the Belle Époque (here transformed into mini dresses with bouncing trains) to plays on bourgeois tropes, such as fabrics that recalled heritage tweeds, blazers with golden buttons, and shearling jackets reimagined with wave-like hems. What was most striking, though, was a feeling of levity: lily-pad-adorned footwear, polka-dot motifs and crystallised denim were both playful and pretty. ‘Dior has this giant past, and I had to start there,’ Anderson said. ‘Now I feel free to release it from that.’ Jack Moss

READ: Jonathan Anderson’s latest Dior show was a walk in the park

Saint Laurent

A cinematic offering from Anthony Vaccarello unfolded in a simulacrum of a sleek, modernist home; at its centre, a sized-up recreation of a bust that lived in Yves Saint Laurent’s own apartment. Through it strode this season’s Saint Laurent heroine, her heavy-smoked eye and slick, side-parted hair a nod towards Helmut Newton’s Paris Vogue photograph of a model in Yves Saint Laurent’s ‘Le Smoking’ tuxedo on Rue Aubriot in 1975. Indeed, tailoring was central to the A/W 2026 collection: eight trouser suits opened the show, while various other iterations appeared throughout (including Vaccarello’s own riff on the tuxedo, worn by model Loli Bahia, who walked exclusively for Saint Laurent this season and closed the show). Here, the silhouette was sloped across the shoulder and narrowed at the waist – though not constricted – for a riff on the power suit that was more ‘insouciant shrug than swagger’. As a counterpoint, Vaccarello looked towards the ‘troubled heroines’ of Gore Vidal and Tennessee Williams, as well as Romy Schneider in the 1971 film Max et les Ferrailleurs (she was this season’s protagonist, he said), to capture an ‘elegance tinged with ennui… the beauty of intimacy and vulnerability’. To capture this mood, a series of slips and dresses came in lace coated in silicone, while enormous fur coats had a vivacious confidence. Jack Moss

Dries Van Noten

For many of us, the stylings of awkward adolescence are best not dwelt upon – after all, who looked or felt their best as a teenager? Evidently, Julian Klausner takes a more romantic view of this impressionable time, but, then again, Klausner was likely a more sophisticated brand of teenager than most. In any case, this was the impression given by his A/W 2026 collection for Dries Van Noten, which was inspired in part by a visit to Lycée Carnot, and the memories of being an adolescent ‘work-in-progress’. The Lycée is a Rive Droite public school with alumni including Gilles Deleuze, Guy Debord, and Daft Punk, and its Gustave Eiffel-designed great hall has been the backdrop for numerous Paris fashion shows over the years – in other words, a suitably rarefied and creatively rich starting point.

The 61 looks at Dries Van Noten asked that most teenage question: who am I going to be today? For the confident moment, a navel-bearing button-up knit with a vibrant silk skirt. When a suit of armour is required, a protective duffel coat that does the talking for you. Or maybe one day the mood might be scholastic – collegiate blazer and pleated skirt, but always, always customised, an embellishment here, a contrasting trim there. ‘Just like a pixelated picture, the more one gets far from that time of endless questioning, the clearer it becomes,’ Klausner said, a metaphor he extended through prints with digitally warped 17th-century Flemish still life paintings. Opulent, mature fabrics and finishings were styled with a youthful irreverence best summarised by the final lines from Gala Dragot’s vocal performance, which soundtracked the show: ‘Don’t be too serious... Wear a collar... Keep it blurry though.’ India Jarvis

Acne Studios

If Dries Van Noten was an homage to the experimental attitude of youth, then Acne Studios marked its 30th birthday year with a collection that declared (as one does at 30): I know exactly who I am. A/W 2026 was an affirmation of the house’s irreverent signatures, such as a revival of the particular 1996 cut of jean that made their name, and photographic elements that nod to the brand’s unconventional marketing style, including the bi-annual Acne Paper.

The setting for this season was a succession of intersecting cuboid rooms that, viewed simultaneously from the end of the runway, appeared like a Josef Albers work made three-dimensional. According to Jonny Johansson’s show notes, this was conceived ‘like an enfilade of salons … the portals marking what has come before, and what might follow’. Where a salon in the Parisian tradition might mean a bringing together of clashing or complementary ideas, at Acne Studios, the determination is to blur those boundaries as much as possible. Standout looks saw cropped aviator jackets worn with skin-tight jodhpurs and desirable point-toe pumps, Prince of Wales check jackets worn over one shoulder, and larger-than-life portraits of art school students, taken by Paul Kooiker, printed onto stiff pencil skirts and draped dresses.

Alaïa

Late last year, just after the completion of the Italian house’s sale to Prada, it was announced that Dario Vitale would be leaving his position as creative director of Versace (he lasted a single, but impactful season), to be replaced by Belgian designer Pieter Mulier. It meant that this season’s Alaïa show, watched by designers Matthieu Blazy and Raf Simons, was to be his last: the swansong of a five-year tenure defined by commercial expansion and critical success (he has also established a coterie of model muses, many of whom walked this final show, and will likely follow him to Versace). Held in an intimate showspace in the former Fondation Cartier – Mulier said he wanted it to recall a 1990s pre-iPhone runway show – the collection itself eschewed his more recent experimental silhouettes in favour of stripping things back to the essence of the house, from simple body-contouring tank dresses to lean tailored overcoats, stretch knits, and peplums and ruffles (the last flourishes rendered in Mulier’s contemporary, streamlined style).

‘This collection is about clothes to wear. What is a jacket? What is a dress?’ he said backstage after the show. ‘It’s basically a vocabulary of the last five years. It’s what I learned at Alaïa, that I’m giving to the next designer. It’s like leaving the keys on the table. At Alaïa, I learned precision, editing and [that] real luxury is not what we all think. It is a perfectly cut jacket.’ Jack Moss

READ: Pieter Mulier delivers a swansong collection at Alaïa: ‘It is a vocabulary of the last five years’

Rabanne

Of all the distinct fashions of the long 20th century, it could be argued that 1940s style is the hardest to reference without veering into the territory of costume. Perhaps it’s because boxy tailored silhouettes and victory rolls are so much associated with the vast canon of British war movies, or perhaps because austerity-driven ‘make do’ dressing is antithetical to contemporary fashion at either end of the high-low scale. It’s a testament to Julien Dossena’s eye, then, that for Rabanne A/W 2026 he incorporated patently 1940s-inspired styles – T-bar heels, tea-dress florals, and clashing knitwear – without evoking even a hint of reenactment.

After all, Rabanne has always been a house noted for its futuristic bent. Unconventional, industrial materials, like metal and plastic, are at its very heart, and remained so this season alongside those more vintage ideas – coming together in a collection that the brand called ‘a little louche’. This take on modernist femininity was told through blink-and-you’ll-miss-it glimpses of a slip through an unbuttoned blouse, a hint of lace underneath a more conservative skirt, and pussybows left suggestively undone. Dossena told Wallpaper* post-show that the character he wanted to build with these contrasts was that of ‘a resistant woman’, and that for him, there was a suggestion of retro-futurism with the 1940s-derived shapes (for example, hair pulled into sculptural pompadour styles was less Vera Lynn and more replicants in Blade Runner). India Jarvis

Rick Owens

What might the cyberpunk cousin of Marlene Dietrich wear for a night on the town? It’s a question that could only be answered by Rick Owens – whose A/W 2026 collection was an homage to the ‘dignified sequence of her life stages’, all shot through with classics from his own particular design language. Think body parts augmented through prosthetics and sci-fi silhouettes in a post-apocalyptic landscape heavy with dry ice and punctuated by magnesium-bright beams of light. Presenting the collection as the second part of ‘Tower’, which premiered during the men's collections, Owens drew from Dietrich’s qualities of ‘steeliness’ and ‘grit’, and interpreted them as sheath-like dresses, abundant piles of faux fur, and flight jackets.

Just as the German star’s enduring legacy was in part a product of her striking collaborations with Josef von Sternberg, Owens is an artist quick to credit the rich input his work receives from his creative partners. This season, much attention has been lovingly devoted to name-checking the hands through which his raw materials pass – from the third-generation, family-run mill in Como, Italy, which weaves a high-performance fibre called Kevlar (purportedly five-times stronger than steel), to the Veneto-region wash house committed to reducing water waste, which treats industrial indigo canvas. India Jarvis

Loewe

Presented on a bright-yellow runway populated by German artist Cosima Von Bonin’s plush figures of clams, octopi and dogs, Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez’s sophomore Loewe collection was a welcome jolt of energy on the Friday morning of Paris Fashion Week. ‘What is fashion but an open field for endless creative play?’ said the American designers, whose poppy A/W 2026 collection translated their colourful beach-ready debut for the winter months, resulting in a riot of curvy dégradé shearling parkas, 3D-printed slips and shaggy-hemmed dresses with trailing trains. Other elements had a sporting feel – like face-shielding sunglasses, boldly coloured anoraks and chunky riffs on half-zip ski sweaters – while inflatable elements meant garments could be transformed in size and proportion (a lobster-claw-shaped pump, shown at the re-see the following day, will be sold separately).

Such experiments were made possible by the abilities of the Loewe atelier, particularly when it came to leather: bouclé overcoats were made from intricate loops of leather yarn, while the gradient shearlings were treated ‘in the same manner as poodle grooming’. ‘As we began [creating] our second collection, we were struck by a simple truth: for us, the act of making is, at its core, an expression of joy – an intellectual, process-driven pursuit charged with playfulness,’ said the designers. ‘The path taken matters as much as the end result. It is the idea of play as rigorous experimentation and problem-solving, moving between instinct and experience, between a devotion to craft and its endless opportunities for innovation.’ Jack Moss

Issey Miyake

For Satoshi Kondo, the role of designer is as much about relinquishing control as it is wielding it. Knowing when to hold back, not to overstep the mark, to let the materials speak for themselves. This was the credo he brought to the fore for Issey Miyake’s A/W 2026 offering – a characteristically Japanese recognition of innate, simple beauty.

Titled ‘Creating, Allowing’, the collection navigated this specific tension understood by designers through pieces where the artist’s hand was inserted sparingly, never tampering with the true essence of the fabrication, only enhancing. At its best, this looked like expanses of cloth cut with technical lines that left their impression on the negative space, like the wine-coloured single-breasted coat with inbuilt cape that the model held up over her shoulders to exaggerate its rectangular construction. The innate movement of the house-signature pleats was used only intermittently and, instead, dramatically inflexible lacquered washi paper was introduced through breast plates, bodices and belts – creating a contrast between motion and restriction. Kondo’s intention with this was that the most important impact was made through the human frame, by ‘minimising design intervention and leaving the form-making to the wearer's own body’.

As for the space itself, the Carrousel du Louvre was transformed with a layer of silvery sand and ‘finely shredded aluminum foil, [serving] as a device for the interaction between "material", "people", and "clothing"’. This surface became marked and patterned as the models moved across it, another allusion to Kondo’s metaphor of ‘considered disruption’. India Jarvis

Lanvin

This year marks the centenary of menswear at the house of Lanvin – a celebration that filtered into the season’s womenswear outing through nods to the boyish silhouettes that characterised interwar ladies’ fashion. It was a time when overtly feminine curves were flattened into straight lines from bust to waist, creating an elongated, athletic outline that came to epitomise the emancipated New Woman.

Peter Copping, who took the reins at Lanvin in late 2024, imagined ‘a dialogue between generations’, which came together beautifully to meld the concerns of Jeanne Lanvin’s customers in the 1920s with those who shop the brand in the present. What do they have in common? Evidently, a love of opera – gloves were cuffed and elbow-length, and belted opera coats were voluminous enough to be worn over an evening gown, and trimmed with faux fur. They wear hats (Jeanne Lanvin’s first foray into fashion was as an apprentice milliner), with A/W 2026’s borrowing from cloche shapes but with exaggerated sou’wester-style brims. They favour a dash of restrained glamour. If some of the cuts leaned slightly austere, they were countered with an opulence of fabric and finish: hand-embroidered bead droplets, inky velvets, laser-cut fringes.

Lanvin is the oldest French maison still in operation, its HQ still in its original site – therefore, the weight of its legacy must hang heavily over every designer who takes its helm. Its founder insisted on le chic ultime, a phrase that surely needs no translation, and which is no small order. It is a comfort that, for every moment of reinvention it undergoes, Lanvin is still a place that women can go to for guaranteed elegance. India Jarvis

Givenchy

The idea of individual style was a throughline of Paris Fashion Week, one expressed by Sarah Burton with her third collection for Givenchy – the former Alexander McQueen designer’s most liberated outing yet (and, as a result, her best). ‘How can we put ourselves back together in the world we’re living in?’ was the question Burton asked this season, elucidating after the show that she was thinking about the multiplicities of a contemporary woman’s life (as such, it found a companion with the Prada show in Milan, where Miuccia Prada asserted that ‘as a woman, your life is layered – each day demands not only a shifting of clothes, but a richness of identities within yourself’). So there was some typically brilliant tailoring (Burton is known for her prowess in the medium, and has recently brought over her tailoring team from Alexander McQueen), though also more vivid expressions of style – a dress, hanging from razor-thin straps, in bright yellow leather; shimmering leopard spots that burst into tassels; silk T-shirts that had been refashioned by Stephen Jones into headpieces – as well as oversized riffs on carpenter jeans, off-the-shoulder bombers, and high-collared white shirts. ‘I wanted to make it feel very personal,’ said Burton. ‘Each woman is her own person, each silhouette is her own character.’ Jack Moss

Junya Watanabe

Junya Watanabe lets the clothes do the talking. The A/W 2026 collection was accompanied by show notes that came to two single sentences: ‘The Art of Assemblage Couture explores form born from pure creative instinct, free from conventional notions of dressmaking. Through the direct presentation of raw materials, this approach expresses the surrounding social environment.’ This succinct summary belied a frenzy of ideas, which played out over one of the most entertaining shows of the week.

Classic couture silhouettes were fashioned from a mish-mash of consumer goods and mass-produced garments. The opening look, worn by Irina Shayk, comprised a gown in a 1950s prom style, constructed from gloves, with a mesh flounce. A puff-sleeved dress, with a squared neckline and a central slit that showed a silver interior, appeared to be made from a gold Mylar blanket – its creased folds still visible, like it had just been ripped from its packet. Another dress used kitschily patterned curtains, pinch pleats and all, for its full, trained skirt, while its bodice was made from – what else? – scrap number plates.

So far, so Watanabe, but this season offered more in the way of spectacle than just unconventional materials. In a more choreographed display than usual, Watanabe called in the services of Poland-born movement director Pat Boguslawski. He directed a languid yet melodramatic routine for Watanabe’s models, who threw garments onto chairs with tango-inspired passion, and turned their heads with the kind of simpering doe-eyed expressiveness of silent movie starlets. This reference was reinforced through Eugene Souleiman’s hair design, sculpted curls slicked to the foreheads and cheeks in the manner of Josephine Baker, and glam make-up by Isamaya Ffrench – winged, heavy-lashed and sometimes tear-streaked eyes. India Jarvis

Celine

It hasn’t taken long for Michael Rider to define a signature look at Celine: a preppy, uptown-inflected uniform that feels like a vision of Parisian style through American eyes (Rider had worked at Celine previously, under Phoebe Philo, though more recently headed up US label Polo Ralph Lauren). And it has worked: his collections thus far have felt like you could wear them off the runway and straight onto the street, full of clever riffs on quotidian pieces that will no doubt be much copied by lesser brands (they have also been full of great accessories, from abundant charm bracelets to colourful handbags and slipper-like loafers). For A/W 2026, Rider continued his upward trajectory with a show held at the Institut de France amid a series of beautiful modernist speakers in wood and metal, presenting a collection that favoured perennial style over ephemeral trends. ‘Celine is a style: a mix of old and new that feels urgent and dreamy,’ said Rider. ‘Making the things we all dream of finding and wearing.’ And in among this ready-to-wear wardrobe (in the truest sense), flourishes of the playful and the romantic emerged, from enormous sequins and flashes of animal print to feathered headpieces and bold punctuations of colour. ‘Putting on clothes, a look, can change the day – [it can] change how we walk and feel,’ said Rider. ‘I love that.’ Jack Moss

Hermès

Staged on a runway of moss and soil (strangely, a trend of the week, later seen at Miu Miu and Louis Vuitton), Nadège Vanhée’s latest outing for Hermès saw her conjure what she called a ‘liminal realm’ between dawn and dusk, earth and space. It lent the collection an alien, otherworldly feel: models emerged from glowing orbs and looped around the Garde Républicaine show space on an inky runway, which also inspired the clothing’s palette of deep blues, greys and black. Mashing up the equestrian codes that remain at the heart of Hermès – here, sliced-away jodhpurs-cum-cycling shorts, dressage blazers and knee-high leather boots – with lean, futuristic silhouettes, it was a clever hybrid of the past, present and future, a liminal realm of Vanhée’s own. Ostrich and leather jump suits, with contrasting knit sleeves, were the season’s show pieces – the result of the house’s superlative leather atelier, they straddled sex appeal and function – while visible zips added an almost sci-fi feel, running down the front of dresses or slicing across the chest of a jacket. Prints came via AM Cassandre, an art deco artist, and saw clouds intersected by a geometric structure – a reflection of Vanhée’s own juxtapositions between the graphic and the elemental. Jack Moss

Comme des Garçons

A strong Comme des Garçons collection saw Rei Kawakubo find solace in her favoured colour, black, which – save for a brief interlude in bright, candy pink – made up the majority of the A/W 2026 collection. And, while recent collections have seen Kawakubo grapple with tumultuous world affairs, the choice of the colour was not necessarily to represent grief or mourning – instead, the Japanese designer said it captured the expansiveness of the creative process. ‘I have come to realise that, after all, black is the colour for me,’ she said in a typically brief statement issued to the press. ‘It’s just the strongest, the best for creation, and the colour that embodies the rebellious spirit. And has the biggest meaning: the universe and the black hole.’ Indeed, the use of a single colour allowed Kawakubo’s typically provocative forms to come to the fore: this season, pillow-like constructions draped in semi-sheer black tulle, undulating pile-ups of shirred ruffles and tassels, or saucer-shaped protusions that looped around the upper body. Like any Comme collection, it was a Rorschach test – revelling in the unfamiliar, Kawakubo always challenges you to draw your own conclusions. Jack Moss

Balenciaga

Of all the creative directors at the nascent stages of new tenures, Pierpaolo Piccioli might have one of the steepest mountains to climb at Balenciaga. In the 16 years he spent at Valentino, prior to taking this new position in the spring of 2025, he demonstrated a Cristóbal Balenciaga-worthy approach to dressmaking that prioritised proportion and colour. But while Piccioli was sending out breathtaking confections of ballooning silk taffeta at Valentino, Balenciaga the brand was being injected with a new edge, at the hand of Vetements-founder Demna, whose zeitgeist-defining designs were laced with subversion and irony. How to bring the grandeur and romance that are Piccioli’s calling cards, without alienating the new demographic of customers who flocked to the brand under Demna?

For this season, his second collection, Piccioli pinned his hopes on a collaboration with Sam Levinson – the creator of Euphoria, the teen drama responsible for making internationally recognised stars out of its cast, which includes Jacob Elordi, Sydney Sweeney, and Hunter Schafer. Audiences at the Balenciaga A/W 2026 show were treated to a preview of clips from the HBO show’s third series (airing publicly in April), which played on screens across the venue; its interplay of light and dark was found running through the collection, which Piccioli had titled ‘ClairObscur’. The collection itself was a largely black affair, in light-catching high-gloss fabrics, punctuated by the occasional neon-toned print that harkened to Euphoria's colour-saturated visual style. If Euphoria – boundary-pushing, youth-orientated, and ever so slightly contentious – feels more spiritually within Demna’s wheelhouse than Piccioli’s, the High Renaissance references (‘ClairObscur’ is a play on clair-obscur or chiaroscuro, the artistic style beloved by Mannerist painters, which manifests as dramatically contrasting tones to create intense depth) brought proceedings firmly back into Piccioli’s world. India Jarvis

READ: Balenciaga taps Euphoria’s Sam Levinson for A/W 2026

Jean Paul Gaultier

After the shock factor of his debut last season – one which divided both critics and online commentators with its barely-there silhouettes and trompe l’oeil prints of nude bodies – Dutch designer Duran Lantink seemed to hit his stride this season, using his eye for the surreal and the sculptural to create a disruptive cast of archetypes, from the raver to the cowboy. Marlene Dietrich (or, more specifically, a treasured mesh T-shirt printed with the filmstar that Lantink had found in a vintage shop) was one figure on the moodboard, inspiring the clever opening tailoring, which came with jutting folds and sculpted lapels, while also being printed on a dress installed with dry ice (a nod to her favoured vice – cigarettes). The designer said she was a master in subverting tropes: ‘dominant, sexy and graceful, the ultimate hybrid’ – a mood that informed the shape-shifting collection. Tailoring metamorphosed into tech-y sportswear, trompe-l’oeil bodysuits of artist’s dummies were overlaid with lingerie, and puffer jackets became bodysuits. ‘It’s a spirit that suits the house of Gaultier, a place where the world is perpetually turned upside down,’ said Lantink via press notes. ‘Feminine and masculine, inside out, vintage and new, underwear as outerwear, technical and tailored all at once.’ Jack Moss

Chanel

Matthieu Blazy said that his sophomore ready-to-wear collection began with a quote from house founder Gabrielle ‘Coco’ Chanel. ‘Fashion is both caterpillar and butterfly. Be a caterpillar by day and a butterfly by night,’ she said. ‘There is nothing more comfortable than a caterpillar and nothing more made for love than a butterfly. We need dresses that crawl and dresses that fly.’ It seemed an apt description for Blazy’s own vision for Chanel thus far, one which elevates the quotidien through expressive acts of craft, and finds joy in both the functional and the glamorous. These are special clothes, no doubt (as anyone who has had the chance to see them up close can attest), though they are designed to be worn, not simply exalted. As such, he will no doubt be satisfied by the busy shop floors earlier this week as his debut collection landed (it was an ongoing fashion-week talking point), and more so to see those purchases worn by attendees to the show on Monday evening (and not just by the usual high-spending customers, but editors and stylists alike).

Staged amid a series of vast primary-coloured cranes – Blazy is, after all, still in the process of constructing his Chanel – the designer’s A/W 2026 collection was a brilliant and comprehensive exercise in wardrobing, which, to borrow Coco Chanel’s categorisation spanned the ‘caterpillar’ (roomy blazers, tweeds reformulated into lumberjack-style overshirts, simple jersey dresses), but also the ‘butterfly’. The latter came in an extraordinary stream of lustrous, colour-sturated looks at the end of the show, loaded with embellishment – appliqué flowers, lace and beads – and matched with models’ pastel-coloured or metallic hair. Over the 78 looks, there was a multitude of iterations of the Chanel woman, and the accessories to match (from gleaming metallic court shorts, to squashy crescent-shaped bags that recalled croissants). ‘Chanel is day, Chanel is night. It represents the freedom to choose between the caterpillar and the butterfly whenever you want,’ said Blazy. ‘I wish to create a canvas for women to be unapologetically who they are and who they want to be.’ Jack Moss

READ: Matthieu Blazy’s sophomore Chanel collection is made for ‘women to be unapologetically who they are’

Louis Vuitton

Nicolas Ghesquière staged his A/W 2026 collection for Louis Vuitton amid a show set by Severance production designer Jeremy Hindle, seeing rolling green hills – like those found in pastoral landscapes – abstracted into a series of sharp, futuristic peaks. The collection itself had a similar rationale, drawing inspiration from nature – ‘mountains, forests, plains’, and the clothing traditionally used to live among such elemental landscapes – and reimagining them through a series of Ghesquière’s typically idiosyncratic, time-travelling silhouettes. The idea of expedition seemed a throughline – supersized-wide-shouldered jackets, shearling hats and furry-hooded duffel coats seemed primed for protection, while bags hung on leather staffs like bindles – though there was a ceremonial feel to garments, which recalled traditional rural dress (though, in Ghesquière style, they were mashed up in such a way that the references were hard to place). ‘It is not an escape from our realities, but an echo of them,’ said Ghesquière of the vivid collection, which also featured the ‘urban pastoral’ works of Ukrainian artist Nazar Strelyaev-Nazarko. ‘[It is] a new folklore, for the future.’ Jack Moss

Miu Miu

Miuccia Prada has long interrogated a woman’s place in the world: how they move through it, and a wardrobe that feels reflective of their needs. For A/W 2026, she was thinking about the ‘smallness of the body’ – not in its physical proportions, but in opposition with the vastness of the world around us. It feels like a response to our current era of overload: the runway at Palais d’Iéna was covered in a layer of soil and moss, a reminder that beyond the pomp and ceremony of luxury fashion, we are simply humans living in communion with the earth (as a seatmate commented, perhaps this was her instruction to ‘touch grass’). ‘I am obsessed with the smallness of the body – in a human sense, the contrast between ourselves, our bodies and the vastness of that which surrounds us,’ she said. ‘Who we are, and the scale and magnitude of what we have to face. This collection is not about fragility – there is a confidence, and a strength. But always about a confrontation between a human and the expansiveness of the world.’

As such, the collection segued between moments of strength and intimacy: for the former, enveloping trapper hats, hiking shoes and sporty shearling-lined parkas, for the latter, slip dresses, satin shoes and bejewelled embellishment. There felt something of the 1990s to it: not only in the more minimal looks, which intersected the middle of the show, but in that contrast between glamour and utility (a parka over a mini dress; a studded handbag; a block heel), and also the appearance of Chloë Sevigny, a longtime house muse who first walked for Miu Miu in 1996. She was joined by a coterie of ‘individuals’ on the runway, from models Gemma Ward and Kristen McMenamy to the actress Gillian Anderson, who closed the show. Jack Moss

READ: Miu Miu’s all-star cast for A/W 2026 featured Gillian Anderson and Chloë Sevigny

This has been a watershed year in fashion. A quarter of the way through the 21st century, 2025 saw the industry hit refresh: in September alone, 15 designers made their debuts as creative directors of fashion’s major houses, ushering in a bold new era in style (and, as with any such change, prompting passionate – and oftentimes divided – online commentary).

Here, as selected by the Wallpaper* style team, are the 25 fashion moments that defined the zeitgeist in 2025 – from a viral Marty Supreme track jacket and Saint Laurent’s thigh-high wader boots, to big-name buyouts, runway returns and, of course, all those debuts.

Willy Chavarria made his mark in Paris with a powerful duo of shows

In January, CFDA Award-winning designer Willy Chavarria chose to shift his runway show from New York, where he lives and works, to Paris. A striking first show, held at the American Church on Quai d’Orsay, came just a few days after Trump’s inauguration, with Chavarria – whose runway shows have long been a clarion call for the rights of immigrants and the queer community – soundtracking the show with Reverend Mariann Edgar Budde’s sermon imploring the incoming president to ‘have mercy’ towards marginalised communities. ‘It was so beautiful, and it fell exactly in line with what we were doing,’ he told Wallpaper* of the speech. ‘I wanted to show that everyone is welcome, and to do that in a church seemed like the most pronounced way of showing queer people, trans people, in this environment where they were the saints’. His sophomore Paris show, this summer, was similarly impactful: it opened with 35 kneeling men wearing white T-shirts made in partnership with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), a reference to those being unlawfully detained by ICE in the United States.

READ: Willy Chavarria: ‘We’re still so stuck in fashion’s old guard’

Faux fur and shearling took over the runway

Not a moment, per se, though the proliferation of faux fur and shearling on the runway – spanning both the men’s and women’s collections – was one of the year’s undeniable style takeaways (so much so, we even spotted it on the spring/summer runways). ‘When worn, it becomes a heady meeting place of signifiers – luxury, wealth, power, but also protection, armour against the elements, an ancient and primal urge to be swaddled in the spoils of the hunt,’ we wrote earlier this year of the renaissance of fur – albeit in imitation fabrics – which seemed to a response to the tumult of contemporary living. Indeed, at Prada, where co-creative directors Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons presented a collection of ‘Raw Glamour’, ‘fur’ coats – constructed from cleverly manipulated shearling – had strange protusions at the collar or were trapped under plastic. ‘We asked ourselves, what is femininity today? It is a constant questioning,’ said Mrs Prada. ‘It is not my job to be political, but when you open a newspaper – oh my God! Our job is to think about what clothes a woman can wear, about what kind of femininity makes sense in this moment.’

READ: Faux fur and shearling dominated the A/W 2025 runways – these pieces capture the material’s ‘raw glamour’

Alessandro Michele entertained with a showstopping haute couture debut for Valentino

Haute couture was always going to be a medium which suited Alessandro Michele, the former Gucci creative director who now heads up Valentino. For his first couture collection for the house – presented this past February – the Italian designer, known for theatrical runway shows and richly imaginative collections, hit new heights, employing the ‘petits mains’ of the Valentino atelier to create a series of showstopping gowns. In a style typical to the deep-thinking designer, they were explained in the book-length collection notes through the language of philosophy and semiotics – Homer, James Joyce and Italo Calvino were all mentioned – with each gown representing a ‘list’ of words and influences (‘[lists] confine the infinite extension of the existing within a meaningful framework… to bring some order to the chaos of the universe,’ Michele wrote, quoting Umberto Eco). These surreal lists scrolled across the show’s set on a series of ticker-tape screens as the dramatic looks wandered across the stage, a millefeuille of satin, lace and tulle – eclectic, intricate and, as fashion sleuths showed after the show, rooted in the Valentino archive. ‘To attempt to describe each look – and its multitude of elements – would require a pages-long list of its own,’ we wrote at the time. ‘It was best to simply let yourself be entertained.’

READ: Inside Alessandro Michele’s showstopping debut haute couture show for Valentino

Martine Rose held her first gallery show – an ode to Bronski Beat’s radical energy

During London Fashion Week in February, Martine Rose hosted her first gallery show at Sadie Coles HQ, revisiting her 2016 film Everything Must Change – a Sharna Osbourne-shot short starring Bronski Beat frontman Jimmy Somerville. ‘Pop charts at the time I was introduced to Jimmy Somerville’s voice were dominated by gay musicians: Erasure, Bronski Beat, Marc Almond,’ Rose told Wallpaper*. ‘Mainstream pop by out and proud gay men making serious, respected pop music – not tokenistic – which can never be replicated. It was a radical time for music, all about individuality, no stylists, all genuine expression.’ It’s a statement that captures the radical, subculture-infused energy of Rose’s own work: later that year, in June, she staged a one-off show in an abandoned west London job centre, adorned for the occasion in boudoir-style ruffled curtains. ‘I was exploring this new shrunken silhouette,’ she said after the show. ‘Everything feels a bit cinched, a bit too tight, slightly awkward, but somehow still sexy, I hope.’ It is this idiosyncratic approach – at once strange, sexy and real – which has made Martine Rose one of London’s defining voices, doing things her own way for close to two decades.

READ: Martine Rose’s first gallery show celebrates the radical queer energy of Bronski Beat

Calvin Klein returned to the runway with a new ‘sexitude’

In February, Calvin Klein hosted its first runway show since the departure of Raf Simons in 2018 (under him, the runway collections went under the moniker Calvin Klein 205W39NYC; now, they are back to being called Calvin Klein Collection). In one of the year’s first notable debuts, it was former The Row designer Veronica Leoni who took the helm, seeking a mood of sensual minimalism she dubbed ‘sexitude’ – a nod to the pulsing undercurrent of eroticism which ran through the brand’s advertising campaigns and collections in the 1990s. ‘When it comes to sexiness, it’s more like an attitude,’ the Italian designer said backstage. ‘You own it in the way you wear the clothes. I think it’s really intimate being sexy – regardless of the silhouette, the amount of skin, it’s about the confidence.’ The collection came with the blessing of Mr Klein himself, who watched on from the front row. ‘He told me he was happy he had found a new coat to buy,’ she said. ‘I’m really proud for him to feel at home again.’

READ: For her Calvin Klein debut, Veronica Leoni stripped it all back

Fendi celebrated its centenary with a blockbuster show in Milan

2025 was a definitive year for Fendi: not only did it mark a century since the fashion house was founded in Rome, but, after the departure of artistic director of womenswear and couture Kim Jones in October 2024, the beginning of its new chapter. As such, in February, Fendi opened the doors to its newly renovated Milanese headquarters for a celebratory runway show, seeing house scion Silvia Venturini Fendi take the reins for the blockbuster spectacle which included a cast of Fendi muses, past and present. The granddaughter of house founders Adele and Edoardo Fendi, Venturini Fendi started at the house in the 1990s under Karl Lagerfeld, and would go on to head up menswear and accessories, though this was just the second time she had also designed the womenswear line (the first was after Lagerfeld’s death in 2019). Talking to Wallpaper*, she said that it was an honour to head up such a definitive show for both her family and the house – but was adamant this was not about living in the past: ‘I tried to avoid any precise reference because, to me, anniversaries are beautiful, but you don’t want it to be a retrospective or nostalgic’. After presenting a second co-ed collecti on in September, she stepped down from the creative role to become ‘honorary president’. Her successor will be former Dior creative director Maria Grazia Chiuri in a much-rumoured move.

READ: Silvia Venturini Fendi on luxury, lineage and looking to the future: ‘If it reminds me of something we’ve already done, we move on’

Prada agreed to purchase Versace for $1.375 billion

The subject of much speculation and rumour after Donatella Versace stepped down from her role as creative director the month prior, in April, it was confirmed that the Prada Group reached an agreement to purchase Versace after the Italian house was put on sale by former owner Capri Holdings earlier in the year. Agreeing to a deal of $1.375 billion for 100 per cent of the company – well below the initial $2 billion asking price – it marked a definitive move from the Prada Group to establish an Italian luxury conglomerate (The Prada Group comprises Miu Miu, Church's and Car Shoe; in 1999, it purchased controlling stakes in Jil Sander and Helmut Lang, though they were later sold). ‘We are delighted to welcome Versace to the Prada Group and to build a new chapter for a brand with which we share a strong commitment to creativity, craftmanship and heritage,’ said Patrizio Bertelli, Prada Group chairman and executive director, at the time (the deal was completed in December). ‘We aim to continue Versace’s legacy, celebrating and re-interpreting its bold and timeless aesthetic; at the same time, we will provide it with a strong platform.’

READ: Donatella Versace is stepping down as creative director

The Met’s Costume Institute explored the figure of the Black Dandy

In a year which was notable for its slew of fashion exhibitions – from the confection-like gowns of ‘Marie Antoinette Style’ at London’s V&A to a Rick Owens retrospective featuring a lifelike sculpture of the designer ‘urinating’ water into a trough below – the Metropolitan Museum’s annual Costume Institute exhibition in May still demands the most attention. This is largely because of the accompanying Met Gala – the starry event heralds the exhibition’s opening – though it is also down to the Costume Institute’s head curator Andrew Bolton’s eye for finding intriguing subject matter in the Met’s extensive archive. This year, he drafted Monica L Miller, author of Slaves to Fashion: Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Diasporic Identity, to help curate the exhibition, which traced the sartorial history of the Black Dandy from the 18th century to the present day. Titled ‘Superfine: Tailoring Black Style’, alongside historical garments, it featured the work – or personal wardrobes – of Virgil Abloh, Andre Leon Talley and Grace Wales Bonner, among others, with set design for the arresting exhibition courtesy of artist Torkwase Dyson. ‘I clocked into how people have fashioned themselves as a manipulation of autonomy and ownership in which clothing is a resistance,’ she told Wallpaper* of the design, which riffed on her signature trapezoid sculptures.

READ: Torkwase Dyson’s set design for ‘Superfine: Tailoring Black Style’ at The Met meditates on ownership, charisma and histories

Saint Laurent’s viral knee-high boots heralded menswear’s dark, sensual mood

At Cannes film festival, while promoting queer ‘dom-com’ Pillion – a film which explores a dom/sub relationship between a shy parking attendant and a biker – Swedish actor Alexander Skarsgård donned a thigh-high leather wader boot by Anthony Vaccarrello for Saint Laurent. Shown at the house’s runway show earlier that year, it became one of the viral accessories of the year, worn by everyone from Pedro Pascal to Marc Jacobs, and ubiquitous in magazine spreads. Inspired by an imagined meeting between two men who designed the aesthetic of the 1980s – Yves Saint Laurent and Robert Mapplethorpe – the collection captured a mood of dangerous sensuality which ran throughout the season, from Prada’s patchworked leathers to Maximilian Davis’s S/S 2026 Ferragamo collection, inspired by the languid sensuality of Pina Bausch and the Tanztheater Wuppertal. Vaccarello dubbed it a ‘menacing, seductive elegance’ – classic menswear with an inflection of kink.

READ: Inspired by Robert Mapplethorpe, Saint Laurent’s surprise menswear show captured ‘a menacing, seductive elegance’

Homme Plissé Issey Miyake channelled la dolce vita in Florence

It would prove one of the most memorable show locations of the year: unfolding against a painterly Florentine sky at sunset, Homme Plissé Issey Miyake staged its S/S 2026 show at Medicea della Petraia, a former Medici residence on Monte Morello in the rolling Tuscan countryside. A guest of Pitti Uomo menswear fair, the Issey Miyake offshoot used the occasion to introduce a new roving format of runway show: eschewing its usual place on the Paris Fashion Week schedule (its position has been taken by IM Men, another brand in the Issey Miyake family), it will show in a series of locations around the world in the coming seasons. As such, collections will draw inspiration from local landscapes: here, it was done via an evocative use of colour, utilising hues sourced through trips the design team had taken around Italy (from ’Cinque Terre Yellow’ to ‘Zucchini Flower Orange’). The result was a collection which fused Italian charm with Homme Plissé’s pioneering fabrications: played out in the villa’s winding, maze-like gardens, it was impossible not to be seduced.

READ: With an ode to Italy, Homme Plissé Issey Miyake brings its brand of fashion magic to Florence’s Pitti Uomo

Rick Owens spread the love with a Paris retrospective

‘I’m surprised I got so far,’ Rick Owens told Wallpaper* in a wide-ranging conversation to mark the opening of ‘Temple of Love’, a career-spanning retrospective at Paris’ Palais Galliera. A celebration of the American designer’s singular approach – one laced with both subversion and wit – the exhibition took attendees on a trip from his early years on Hollywood Boulevard in the 1990s (a recreation of his Los Angeles bedroom of the time appears in the exhibition) towards his blockbuster spectacles at Paris’ Palais de Tokyo (indeed, in June, an opening party took place just after his S/S 2026 menswear show, with guests simply having to cross the road from one institution to another). ‘Michèle [Lamy, Owens’ wife] kept telling me, ‘You gotta stop calling it a retrospective!’ She doesn't like the finality – I'm leaning into it,’ he said. ‘A retrospective implies a decline, it makes you think about legacy and mortality and ageing, and how long do you stay relevant, and how important is that? I don't have the answers to any of those things, but I am thinking about them and addressing them publicly.’

READ: ‘I’m surprised that I got this far’: Rick Owens on his bombastic Paris retrospective, ‘Temple of Love’

Jonathan Anderson rebooted his brand – and debuted at Dior

It was a busy June for Jonathan Anderson. Alongside his much-anticipated debut show at Dior – a menswear offering for S/S 2026 presented at Paris’ Hôtel National des Invalides, which astutely reworked formal dress codes – the Northern Irish designer also revealed a rebooted vision for his eponymous, London-based label JW Anderson, which propelled him to renown after it was established in 2008. Doing away with the label’s usual seasonal runway shows, the new vision centres on the idea of the shop: in Paris, during haute couture week, he constructed a simulacrum of a new store concept by architects Sanchez Benton which included not only a fashion collection (a greatest hits of sorts, seeing signature pieces imbued with a greater commitment to craft) but a curation of intriguing objects and curiosities, from ceramics and vintage gardening tools to furniture, art, even honey. 'I like change. I have wanted to change things around for two years now, and finally I feel at one with who I am today and what the brand means,’ he told Wallpaper*. ‘It’s things that I either want to wear or want to live with.’

READ: Jonathan Anderson’s Dior debut: ‘bringing joy to the art of dressing’

Craig Green returned to the runway – and to Paris

After just over a decade in business, Craig Green remains one of British fashion’s definitive voices – a singular creative force whose imaginative collections transform humble menswear archetypes (workwear, uniforms, biker jackets) through imaginative construction and unusual fabrications, oftentimes evoking sculpture. This year, he made his return to Paris Fashion Week, having shown a year prior in his London studio, and elsewhere via lookbook (Green is one of a handful of designers who seem to be flourishing outside of the typical fashion calendar). The show was one of our highlights of the year: a poetic, free-thinking collection inspired by The Beatles, psychedelics and 1960s bed sheets – albeit in his typically inventive style. ‘Creativity how everything moves forward,’ Green told us in the October 2025 ‘Long View’ issue of Wallpaper*, in which we documented the process behind the collection. ‘You need creative thought for things to progress, and for new things to happen. You have to have the freedom to make mistakes, to create work and not live in fear.’

READ: ‘You have to be fearless’: inside the free-thinking world of Craig Green

Glenn Martens unveiled his vision for Maison Margiela

The task was unenviable: as the new creative director of Maison Margiela, Belgian designer Glenn Martens would not only have to follow the house’s namesake – arguably the most influential designer of recent times – but also John Galliano, his predecessor, whose final collection, which conjured a troupe of contorted dolls on the drizzly moonlit banks of the Seine, was a true fashion epic. But Martens, who comes with a pedigree of his own after zeitgeist-defining stints at Y/Project and Diesel, was more than up for a challenge. His own creatures were sheathed in masks (a nod to a Margiela hallmark, that of anonymity) and appeared pulled through the the walls of history – quite literally, with a melange of jacquards, Renaissance motifs and embossed leather (inspired by 16th-century Flemish wallpaper), evoking the faded grandeur of abandoned stately homes (indeed, the show set was a series of ‘palatial interiors’ printed on crumpled and crased paper). We called it a ‘thrilling’ debut, a task of ‘reinvention and reconstruction – a precarious balance of what to take and what to leave behind’.

READ: Glenn Martens’ thrilling Maison Margiela debut was a balancing act between past, present and future

Fashion East celebrated a ‘rowdy and raw’ 25 years of nurturing emerging talent

In September, Fashion East’s S/S 2026 runway show doubled as a celebration: 2025 marked 25 years of the Brick Lane-based talent incubator, which was founded by Lulu Kennedy to help forge the careers of London’s rising stars. The roll call of names which have passed through its doors is proof of its success: Jonathan Anderson, Martine Rose, Kim Jones, Craig Green and Grace Wales Bonner are all alumni of the unique scheme, which has long encapsulated London’s unique brand of young talent – defiantly creative, ‘rowdy and raw’ (as Kennedy herself described in a letter distributed to guests at the show). Taking place at the ICA, this season’s show – comprising collections by Nuba, Jacek Gleba and Mayhew – doubled as a Nike-sponsored exhibition tracing Fashion East’s impressive quarter century through its memorable clothing and ephemera, from Green’s ‘broken-fence’ chestplates to a leopard-print cake by Mowalola. Later in the year, in December, Kennedy and her creative partner Raphaelle Moore collected a Special Recognition Award at the 2025 Fashion Awards. ‘We’re proud to have created a unique space where designers have both the freedom to create fearlessly, and a family unit to uplift them,’ they said.

September’s fashion week saw almost too many debuts to count

2025 was fashion’s big reshuffle, seeing an unprecedented number of designers making their debuts at fashion’s biggest houses – from Dior to Chanel, Gucci to Celine. It was September fashion month, though, that was a true changing of the guard moment, with over 15 designers presenting their first collections as newly installed creative leads. These spanned an energetic and playful debut from Nicholas Aburn at Area in New York (the former Balenciaga designer riffed on the figure of the party girl in irreverent style), Simone Bellotti’s masterful first outing at Jil Sander, which saw him astutely explore ideas of modernity and lightness (staged in the brand’s white-walled Milan headquarters, it was a true clean slate momet), or Pierpaolo Piccioli’s typically heartfelt first collection for Balenciaga (an appearance from the Duchess of Sussex ensured column inches).

Elsewhere, notable debuts included Louise Trotter at Bottega Veneta, Glenn Martens at Maison Margiela, Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez at Loewe and Duran Lantink at Jean Paul Gaultier. And, while these debuts were largely lauded – particularly by critics – fiercer debates broke out online in the depths of Instagram comment sections. ‘I have read some really heinous comments about the work of many designers in these last few days,’ wrote Perfect magazine’s Edward Buchanan, former design director of Bottega Veneta, in a much-shared post. ‘It is not always perfect, and it is not always what you personally imagined it to be. You don’t have to like everything… but why not celebrate and talk about what you love?’

Though in Paris, it was Chanel and Dior which commanded the most attention

There were two debuts, though, which commanded the most attention: Jonathan Anderson’s womenswear debut for Dior (he had previously shown his first menswear collection in June) and Matthieu Blazy’s opening act for Chanel. Shrugging off the weight of expectation, both collections provided an astute and contemporary viewpoint on the future of two of fashion’s most storied houses – Anderson through a fearless ‘recoding’ of the house’s archive in his idosyncratic style (we said it was a collection of ‘bravery, vision and instinct’), Blazy through a collection of unbridled freedom and optimism (a twirling Awar Odhiang in a gown of kaleidoscopic feathers, the model who memorably closed the show, encapsulated the ‘triumphant’ mood). After Chanel, which marked the end of fashion month, we said that after all of the debuts, it finally felt like a ‘weight had been lifted’. ‘There will be no more anticipation or speculation, no more guessing games or gossip. The designers are in place, and a new chapter of fashion has begun – from there, the hard work begins.’

While Demna marked his Gucci debut with a Demi Moore-starring film

In what proved an astute move, the Georgian designer Demna – previously of Balenciaga – got ahead of the season’s other debuts by presenting his first collection as creative director of Gucci on the first day of Milan Fashion Week, allowing him a moment in which he dominated the narrative (and, of course, social media). Revealed first through a lookbook of Gucci ‘archetypes’, rewritten in his typically irreverent and subversive style (he called it a ‘bold, sexy new chapter’ for the house), it was followed up by a Spike Jonze and Halina Reijn-directed short, premiered at Milan’s Palazzo Mezzanotte. Titled The Tiger, it starred Demi Moore as the fictional ’head of Gucci international and chairman of California’ whose world begins to unravel at a family gathering. Even cleverer? Demna will get another ‘debut’ in 2026 when he holds his first runway for the house during Milan Fashion Week, in February.

READ: Gucci reveals its ‘bold, unapologetically sexy’ new era under Demna

The fashion world mourned the death of Giorgio Armani

In early September, the fashion world mourned the death of Giorgio Armani, an arbiter of Italian style who founded his eponymous house half a century ago, in 1975. One of fashion’s great success stories, Mr Armani began the label using funds made from selling his old Volkswagen Beetle; on his death, he left behind a multi-billion dollar empire spanning not only fashion but homeware, hotels, restaurants, fragrances and cosmetics. To mark his death, after a private funeral held earlier in the month, well-wishers gathered at Milan Fashion Week in September for his final Giorgio Armani show. Originally intended to celebrate 50 years in business, it took place at Brera’s Pinacoteca di Brera, where an accompanying exhibition unfolded in the galleries above. As ever, the S/S 2026 collection – modelled on a cast of Armani models past and present and watched on by muses Richard Gere, Lauren Hutton and Cate Blanchett – encapsulated Mr Armani’s brand of soft elegance, culminating with model Agnes Zogla in a glimmering gown adorned with his face. Afterwards, guests milled the galleries, where the designer’s work took its fitting place amid the great Italian masters – from Bellini to Raphael.

READ: In Milan, the fashion world gathers to say goodbye to Giorgio Armani at his final show

A Virgil Abloh exhibition celebrated his landmark legacy

Just over four years since his death, American designer Virgil Abloh leaves behind a towering legacy – one which was celebrated this September in Paris with the opening of an exhibition at the Grand Palais. Open for just a few days (cue a sold out booking system and snaking queues around the block), the exhibition opened the doors to his prolific archive of objects, clothing, ephemera, furniture and art, displayed across sprawling tables and shelves as if stepping into his headquarters. Indeed, one senses the polymathic designer – who made history as the first Black creative director of Louis Vuitton – would enjoy the exhibition’s approach, which eshewed the behind-glass formality of the traditional museum (only self-restraint stopped you from picking up the objects on display). Titled ‘Virgil Abloh: The Codes’, the idea is for it to go on display around the world. ‘This is a true celebration of Virgil's vision and ethos,’ said the late designer’s wife, Shannon Abloh. ‘This offers an invitation to the world to engage and to build upon his ideas.’

READ: Inside the Paris exhibition cataloguing Virgil Abloh’s extraordinary archive

Grace Wales Bonner is appointed at Hermès

In late October, Hermès announced the appointment of Grace Wales Bonner as the house’s head of menswear, replacing Véronique Nichanian who made the choice to step down from the role after a record-breaking 37-year tenure (the longest of any working creative director at a fashion house). It felt long overdue for the British designer. An LVMH Prize-winning designer whose deeply felt collections for her eponymous label Wales Bonner – exploring themes of Black masculinity, migration and luxury – have consistently won plaudits for rich storytelling and meticulous craftsmanship, leading many to question why she hadn’t been chosen for a creative director role sooner (she had been rumoured for roles at both Louis Vuitton and Givenchy which went to Pharrell Williams and Sarah Burton respectively). On social media, there was a rare positive consensus on the decision: in her own post, the designer, who was born in South London to a British mother and Jamaican father, expressed her ‘deep honour’ at being chosen for the role. ‘It is a dream realised to embark on this new chapter, following in a lineage of inspired craftspeople and designers,’ she wrote.

READ: Lauded British designer Grace Wales Bonner is the new head of menswear at Hermès

1980s ‘architect of glamour’ Antony Price returned to the runway

The fashion critic Alexander Fury – who is an avid collector of his work – has called Antony Price, a British fashion designer who came to prominence in the 1980s, as ‘criminally underrated’. Best known for creating the visual universe of Roxy Music, and staging similarly dramatic runway shows in the decade, the ‘architect of glamour’ made a welcome runway return in November, courtesy of a one-off salon show with London-based label 16Arlington. Staged in the latter’s east London studio, the high-profile cast – from Lily Allen to Adwoa Aboah – prowled the runway in the high-voltage creations, puffing on cigarettes before posing for photographer Felix Cooper. ‘I personally felt Antony never really received his flowers,’ Capaldo told Wallpaper*. ‘To have been able to witness such a legend at work has probably been one of the most incredible and pivotal moments in my career. It's been really magical.’ Sadly, it was announced that Price passed away at the age of 80 on 17 December 2025.

READ: ‘Architect of glamour’ Antony Price makes a high-voltage return to the runway with 16Arlington

Dario Vitale said goodbye to Versace

It was to be one of fashion’s shortest tenures – just a few short months after his debut, in December, it was announced that Italian designer Dario Vitale would be exiting Versace. The former design director of Miu Miu, and the successor to Donatella Versace, the news came as some surprise: Vitale’s debut show at Milan Fashion Week, though divisive, had won over critics and was already being worn by celebrities (Olivia Dean wore custom Versace for a recent SNL appearance, while Addison Rae was also an early adopter). We said that Vitale had ‘stripped back conceptions and ushered in an energetic new vision: sexually charged and ‘reckless’, one that harkened back to the dress codes of Gianni Versace without nostalgia.’ On social media, the announcement came with some disappointment at the way in which designers are given so little time to make their mark: ‘There’s a disturbing pattern across the fashion industry: giant companies, plucking creative directors, placing them on a pedestal, parading them as the future, and then discarding them just as quickly,’ wrote casting director Anita Bitton in a much-shared Instagram post.

In Vienna, there was a chance to see Helmut Lang’s fashion archive for the first time

Though he exited the industry 20 years ago, Helmut Lang’s influence on fashion remains palpable. A definitive figure of the 1990s, he proposed a vision of sensually-charged minimalism and utility which continues to define the way that we dress today. He also changed the way we consume fashion, too: his memorable New York runway shows stripped back the artifice of the 1980s and its elevated runway, drafting friends to walk alongside supermodels, while stripped-back campaigns were captured by a young Juergen Teller. This revolutionary spirit is celebrated in ‘Séance de Travail 1986-2005’, an exhibition which opened in December at MAK in Vienna, which marks the first time Helmut Lang’s fashion archive is on show to the public – from memorable garments to archival film, ephemera, even recreations of elements from his equally definitive stores (Lang donated his archive to the institution in 2011). ‘Looking at Helmut Lang’s store architecture, it became obvious: his stores were all about directing the gaze. This is also what exhibitions need to do, but here it was essential. A photo wouldn’t suffice; you have to experience it,’ curator Marlies Wirth told Wallpaper* of the exhibition, which is designed to immerse you in the Lang universe – all the way down to the floor, which features a seating plan from a runway show.

READ: Inside Helmut Lang’s fashion archive in Vienna, which still defines how we dress today

Marty Supreme birthed the year’s viral garment – thanks to Timothée Chalamet

The Marty Supreme press tour has already come with some memorable sartorial moments – the film’s star Timothée Chalamet and girlfiend Kylie Jenner in matching orange Chrome Hearts for one – though it was more humble track jacket which went viral in December (the Josh Safdie-directed film is out on Christmas Day in the United States). The nylon windbreaker, created by the film’s production company A24 alongside California-based label Nahmias, was part of a merch drop for the film – adorned with ‘Marty Supreme’ and three gold stars, Chalamet has barely taken it off since. Pop-ups in New York and London have seen queues around the block to lay their hands on the $250 jacket – with resale sites selling the garment for up to for up to £4,366 (that’s over 20 times its original price). It speaks not only to A24’s marketing prowess, but also to the rise of movie merch – at the end of 2024, Mary Cleary explored its rise for Wallpaper*. ‘How it will continue to play out is yet to be seen, but one thing is almost certain: movie merch will continue to take over fashion,’ she wrote – and was right.

In my eyes, a book might well be the perfect gift: chosen correctly, it can feel deeply personal – an expression of your knowledge of the recipient’s interests and enthusiasms, whether their desire to be engrossed in a novel or adorn their coffee table with an aesthetically pleasing art monograph.

Here, we offer a line-up of gifts for the style aficionado – a selection of fashion books, all released in 2025, that offer a wide-ranging and visually lush survey of contemporary style, from retrospective compendiums on the work of fashion provocateurs Rick Owens and Jean Paul Gaultier to weighty volumes on Loewe and Louis Vuitton. Alongside are thoughtful studies on the Black Dandy – accompanying this year’s Costume Institute exhibition at The Met – and a deep-thinking exploration of fashion imagery and the domestic space.

Chosen by the Wallpaper* style editors to inspire, intrigue and delight, they are an invitation to contribute to your loved one’s fashion library – or simply build your own.

Fortune, it turns out, really does favour the bold; at least when you’re looking to collaborate with Rick Owens. ‘I wrote a story about my daily life in a magazine in which I said: “I brush my teeth with Selahatin toothpaste because I love their font,” which was true,’ says Owens. ‘Then, on Instagram, I saw a Selahatin ad with my blurred face and my quote over it. I thought that was bold. I contacted them and complimented them on their cheekiness. I told them: “We should do a collaboration!” That’s how we got here.’

‘Here’ is a collaboration between the oral care brand and the Dark Prince of Fashion that includes a handmade horn toothbrush, as well as a whitening toothpaste, a mouthwash and a concentrated mouth spray with a flavour and scent inspired by Owens’s bold, brutalist aesthetic. Selahatin’s speciality is creating products for your teeth that are composed with the same rigour and offer the same sensory pleasure as fine food or perfume (think a toothpaste that’s flavoured with lime, salt and peppermint; or a eucalyptus, honey and menthol mouthwash). For the Rick Owens collection, founder Kristoffer Vural was pushed to think even farther outside the box.

‘Throughout the process, Rick urged: “Go harder. I smoke cigarettes, drink coffee and gin – I need something stronger”,’ says Vural. ‘It’s unorthodox – but that’s the point. It’s Rick.’ Rick, as a toothpaste, opens with a potent blend of verbena, Madagascar vanilla, and Sichuan pepper, followed by fresh juniper, dark citrus, and rosemary, and finished off with a black pepper and peppermint base for a slightly metallic finish.’

While it was Vural’s bold marketing tactics that brought the pair together, their real alignment is born out of a shared belief that life's most mundane moments can often be the best opportunities for a ceremonial experience. Vural launched Selahatin after a stroke left him with a hypersensitivity for taste and smell that made even brushing his teeth with traditional minty toothpaste an uncomfortable ordeal.

As he told Wallpaper* in an interview last year, toothpaste ‘tastes so synthetic, so chemical, so strong. It’s got to be the most loveless product with no meaning… When you’re stripped of everything [you realise] it’s the small things that make up 50 per cent of your life. If you can fix the small things, you have a really good baseline.’ Or as Owens says, ‘[Vural] wanted the most essential things around him to be magnified. I also believe in the idea that you don’t need to have many things, but that essential things should be made special.’

For Vural, the collaboration is a full-circle moment, a perfect expression of how he turned the darkest moment of his life into an opportunity for creativity and collaboration. ‘Selahatin was born out of a simple idea: to transform the ordinary into the extraordinary,’ he says. ‘Collaborating with Rick Owens fully brings that vision to life. After a stroke left me starting over, creating Selahatin became a way to find myself again. What began as an attempt to elevate a mundane act evolved into a lifeline that helped me climb out of a dark place. That this improbable journey would lead me here, alongside Rick Owens, is beyond anything I could have imagined all those years ago.’

If fashion and art were once reticent bedfellows, the past two decades have seen the two mediums enter symbiosis through a near-endless slew of collaborations, exhibition sponsorships, artist-designed runway sets and art-filled boutiques. It is unsurprising, then, that when it comes to the arrival of Frieze Week – whether the fair’s New York, London, Los Angeles or Seoul iterations – a line-up of fashion activations follows.

Such is the case for Frieze London 2025, which opens for previews today (15 October), with numerous fashion brands hosting events across the week. And, while a number of these might seem opportunist grabs for the art world’s cultural heft, an equal number show the potential spoils of the partnership – whether Stone Island’s sponsorship of Frieze Focus (the scheme supports emerging galleries), Dunhill’s always-illuminating Frieze Masters talks, or the arrival of Prada Mode in London, the Italian fashion house’s roving programme of cultural events. For this edition, the house hands the reins to Berlin-based duo Elmgreen & Dragset, who have created a surreal cinema that will host a curated programme of talks, lectures and screenings over the coming days.

Here, Wallpaper* selects the best fashion happenings to add to your Frieze London 2025 schedule.

Dunhill will host its annual Frieze Masters talks

The relative calm of Frieze Masters provides a welcome respite from the frenetic main fair, where low-lit booths and hushed chatter surround an always intriguing display – from ancient antiquity to mid-century masterworks, and all that came in between (the cut-off year to be displayed at Frieze Masters is the year 2000, with the oldest objects dating back millenia). It makes the perfect setting for Dunhill’s tranquil ‘Frieze Masters Talks’, which sees the British heritage house invite a line-up of artistic luminaries – from those with works displayed in Frieze Masters to curators, writers and collectors – to take part in a series of talks across the week, giving visitors a well-earned moment of quiet contemplation amid the noise elsewhere.

Always illuminating, this year’s schedule is curated by director of Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi Arturo Galansino and includes conversations between Tracey Emin and director of the British Museum Nicholas Cullinan (‘Confessions in the Museum’ is the title of their talk), artist Edward George and author Matthew Harle (they will discuss George’s ‘Black Atlas’ project), and artist Anthony Gormley who will discuss ‘Sculpting a New Humanism’ alongside Galansino himself (a full schedule is available on Frieze Masters’ website). Always impeccably staged, the intimate talks and enveloping interiors have the feel of an exclusive member’s club – not unlike Dunhill’s sanctuary-like Bourdon House in Mayfair, the former residence of the Hugh Grosvenor, the 2nd Duke of Westminster.

Discover the full programme here.

Prada Mode arrives in London

Prada Mode is the Italian fashion house’s immersive arts-led programme, which has taken place in a series of locations around the world – the last edition took place in Abu Dhabi earlier this year, seeing American artist Theaster Gates curate a schedule of talks and events in a site-specific space in the city’s MiZa district. After previously taking place in London back in 2019 (the house took over the subterranean basement of 180 Strand, turning it into a surreal jazz bar), the 2025 edition sees Prada Mode return to London, curated by Berlin-based duo Elmgreen & Dragset.

They have created a special installation for the event titled ‘The Audience’ in Town Hall, a recently opened cultural centre close to King’s Cross station, comprising a simulacrum of a cinema populated by a series of their hyper-realistic figures (on the screen, a purposefully blurred movie plays). Running for previews from today (15 October) until 19 October, participants include the artists themselves, as well as Shona Heath, Elizabeth Diller, James Massiah, Kirsty Sedgman, James Price and more, with a series of talks, events and screenings unfolding in the surreal cinema space.

Register for Prada Mode here.

Stone Island continues its support of Frieze Focus

Part of its global Frieze partnership, Italian technical-wear brand Stone Island will support this year’s edition of Frieze Focus, an offshoot of the fair which gives exhibition space to emerging galleries and the artists that they represent. This year, the eclectic line-up spans 35 international galleries, from London’s Nicoletti, which will show works by Texas-born, London-based artist Gray Weilebinski, to institutions in Beirut, Cairo, Shanghai, Warsaw, Seoul and Athens (among many others).

‘This year marks the third consecutive year of our sponsorship of Frieze Focus, a partnership that celebrates the influence of contemporary art within Stone Island’s global community,’ says Robert Triefus, Stone Island’s CEO. ‘We are delighted to continue our support of the Focus section at Frieze, championing emerging gallerists and the artists they represent’

Dover Street Market celebrates Frieze 2025

For each edition of Frieze London, Rei Kawakubo and Adrian Joffe’s Dover Street Market hosts a buzzy evening in the Haymarket concept store, inviting artists and fashion designers alike to set up shop. Taking place on Thursday evening – with further activations happening across the weekend – the eclectic line-up includes a window display featuring pieces by Georgia O’Keefe (Kawakubo has curated the line-up), a showing of work by British artist Sonia Boyce, as well as installations from Air Jordan by Assouline and Stone Island Denim Research. For fashion fans, the event also heralds the arrival of Saint Laurent in the store – the Parisian house will be unveiling their new dedicated space as part of the festivities – and there will be an opportunity to shop a series of special launches, including a series of portable ‘seats’ by Craig Green, revealed by the designer today on Instagram.

Rick Owens displays his furniture at Carpenters Workshop Gallery

Multi-hyphenate fashion designer Rick Owens has chosen Frieze week to open a new exhibition at west London’s Carpenters Workshop Gallery, displaying a series of furniture created alongside his wife Michèle Lamy (she also serves as the exhibition’s curator). Titled ‘Rust Never Sleeps’, the various creations – each in Owens’ signature monolithic style – are largely crafted from patinated metal inspired by London’s long tradition of Brutalist architecture. We got a special walkthrough from Lamy last week, with memorable highlights including an enormous elm bed complete with antler horns, a rusted steel and crocodile leather day bed, and an enormous marble urn, rendered in Owens’ moody, visually arresting style. ‘Taking its title from Neil Young’s 1979 anthem – the exhibition transforms the phrase into a manifesto for artistic endurance: it is better to burn out than to fade away,’ read the lyrical press notes.

Rick Owens: Rust Never Sleeps runs at the Carpenters Workshop London until 14 February 2026.

Phoebe Philo supports Peter Doig’s new exhibition, ‘House of Music’

Phoebe Philo, the former Celine and Chloé designer who now helms an eponymous London label, serves as the principal sponsor of Peter Doig’s new exhibition – a testament to her own long-standing link with the art world. Titled ‘House of Music’, the exhibition at the Serpentine Galleries invites visitors to ‘sit, linger, take a nap’ in the space, which sees the British artist’s paintings displayed amid midcentury furnishings and backdropped by a sound system featuring a bespoke soundtrack comprising over 300 records. ‘The idea of having furniture and chairs here is that some people feel like they can linger, they may even want to have a nap,’ he told Wallpaper*, noting that it was a rare opportunity to see works that are in private hands made public. ‘The paintings often end up in private hands, and the people who get to see them are very few. So, it's making all aspects public.’

READ: ‘Sit, linger, take a nap’: Peter Doig welcomes visitors to his Serpentine exhibition

It is a truth universally acknowledged that, when it comes to fashion, the basics are the hardest to master. Chief among them: the white T-shirt.

The white tee is the quintessential element of the capsule wardrobe. It adapts to nearly any aesthetic: it can be dressed up or down, layered or worn solo, accessorised or left plain, and is a year-round essential, equally useful under shirts, jumpers and jackets when the temperature falls.

Wallpaper’s fashion and creative director Jason Hughes and fashion features editor Jack Moss are united in their devotion to the white tee. ‘It’s the foundation of almost every outfit I wear,’ says Jason, who is rarely seen without a flash of white peeking from beneath a sweater or shirt. For Jack, the white T-shirt is ‘probably the garment [he wears] most’, again, usually layered under a shirt or sweater. As for me, I favour a pared-back, Scandinavian aesthetic, for which the white tee is indispensable. Pair with low-rise jeans, tailored trousers, a silk skirt… the options are almost endless.

What makes the perfect white T-shirt?

This elusive garment avoids extremes: not too tight at the neck, shoulders or waist – but not tunic-loose. The sweet spot? A slightly dropped shoulder and a relaxed silhouette. As for length, aim for hip level – just long enough to flatter the form without skewing proportions.

‘Because a T-shirt is so simple, its shape really matters,’ says Jack, who gravitates toward looser, boxier fits, adding, ‘it has to have a high crew neck’. Loose and boxy is a good rule of thumb for women, too; a too-snug tee will bunch at the waist and pull at the hips. If you want a smooth silhouette, don’t be afraid to go oversized. Acne Studios, COS and Arket all do models that fit the bill.

The best white T-shirts are substantial but breathable, with a GSM which offers structure and longevity. Jason’s go-to is a heavyweight crew-neck from US utility brand Pro Club. Jack also leans toward heavier cottons, swearing by classics like Gildan and Fruit of the Loom, but lately he’s been enjoying Extreme Cashmere’s cotton-cashmere blend (‘it falls really nicely’, he says, thanks to the softness of the superfine knit).

The best white T-shirts, according to Wallpaper*

Classic white T-shirts

Cult white T-shirts

Luxury white T-shirts

Sustainably-minded white T-shirts

Everyday white T-shirts

‘Rick Owens, Temple Of Love’ at Paris’ Palais Galliera is no typical retrospective. A meditation on a singular career, it spans the iconoclastic designer’s Los Angeles beginnings on Hollywood Boulevard to the present day, featuring over 100 of his silhouettes, which often defy categorisation but are entirely his own.

Spilling over to the exterior, monolithic statues on Palais Galliera’s façade are draped in sequinned fabric. The garden is studded with 30 brutalist-style cement sculptures referencing his furniture creation, and, for the duration of the retrospective, Rick Owens has had the garden landscaped with all-blue flowers, including his Californian favourites, Morning Glories.

Previewing after his S/S 2026 runway show at Palais de Tokyo this evening (26 June) – just across the road – at the exhibition’s heart is the idea of love. ‘I felt that love is the best word to put out there,’ he says. ‘Maybe it’ll help manifest something.’

Rick Owens takes over Palais Galliera with a subversive, multi-media survey of his life’s work

Wallpaper*: This is your second retrospective, the first, ‘Subhuman Inhuman Superhuman’, was at La Triennale di Milano in 2017.

Rick Owens: At the time, it was wonderful to be accepted by a cultural institution at the top of its game. While I was doing it, I thought, ‘Wow, this is amazing! Nobody gets to write their own obituary this way.’ But I only did it because I was allowed to be in complete control; I didn’t want anybody interpreting me.

W*: Two retrospectives in eight years is a lot of introspection. How are they different?

RO: That Milan show was where I used the phrase ‘I would lay a black glittering turd on the white landscape of conformity’ and it was very that. So I thought, if I ever do another show, I would do a softer one that focuses more on the beginnings, the craft side. The urgency to control wasn't as intense. It’s more humble and more raw, there's a lot more focus on the LA studio experience.

Michèle [Lamy, Owens’ wife] kept telling me, ‘You gotta stop calling it a retrospective!’ She doesn't like the finality – I'm leaning into it! A retrospective implies a decline, it makes you think about legacy and mortality and ageing, and how long do you stay relevant, and how important is that? I don't have the answers to any of those things, but I am thinking about them and addressing them publicly.

W*: Why the theme of love?

RO: I felt that love is the best word to put out there. Maybe it'll help manifest something. People get the impression that I am this dystopian disruptor, and that I am aggressive, but my motivation has always been to be a contrast to the condemning judgment that I experienced in my youth, and that I have declared war on. There have always been creators like me who are cheerfully depraved, and that is my response to all who felt contempt or oppression, and I'm putting the opposite of that out there in my own little way.

W*: You’ve been called The Dark Prince of Fashion, the Prophet of the Apocalypse… yet, you accept people with loving kindness, it feels contradictory.

RO: It's lovely to be called the Prince of Darkness – I love a sinister edge. This is a tool that people have used to address the discomfort of fear or powerlessness. I’m just a fun part of a subset of aesthetics that has existed forever. And that has been one of my motivating urges, to propose an alternative to the prevailing cultural aesthetics that can seem very narrow and a little bit cruel. I propose options that stretch that a little bit. That's why I have probably been referred to as a dark designer, because I try to address everything.

W*: Is there any provocation in this gentle, loving retrospective?

RO: A little bit! Condemning judgment is always accompanied by prissiness and squeamishness, I roll my eyes at this. I like very simple provocation, with genuine innocence, and I think it's cheerful. And if somebody's clutching their pearls, let them clutch! When there can be such cruel forces in the world, a little bit of giddiness is not the worst thing. This show is bombastic because I just can't help it.

W*: You live between Paris, Venice and LA. Has Paris become home?

RO: I love Paris. Italy is where I have the quiet to create, with a lot of support; Paris is where I’m judged. I like that. I have to rise to the occasion in Paris. Recently, I realised I've been here for 20 years, this is where I feel the most secure, and I said, ‘OK, so I’m going to get old in Paris!’

I love what I’m doing, I’ve reached this great level, and I have a very nice rhythm in my life – I work a lot, which I love, and I take a nap every day to give my brain a break, and I work out for an hour every evening. It is amazing to have a wonderful sense of purpose.

Then I thought: ‘What, at 63 years old, is the most satisfying thing that I could be doing with my life?’ and that was when we started talking about the retrospective.

W*: Working out is working out for you, you look fantastic.

RO: It’s just about trying to do the best with what you’ve got. Working out is modern couture! No outfit is going to make you look as good as you will feel with a good body. So buy less clothes and go work out. It’ll satisfy your vanity in a way that clothes just can’t.

W*: How was working with the Palais Galliera?

RO: I went to so many exquisite shows at the Galliera; how they put things together was so admirable, so precise, so beautifully documented, I was more open to suggestion here, because I want to see their perspective. So I've been working with head of collections Alexandre Samson – I’m a huge fan of his. Focusing on the studio experience when we started was Alexandre’s idea. It wasn’t easy, I have so few archives from back then. We didn’t think about archives, we thought about survival – ‘let’s sell anything we can!’

W*: That was in pre-digital 1994, you were working with sketches and swatches?

RO: Yeah, we had to search for stuff, and Alexandre’s like a detective, he unearthed amazing things.

W*: You recreated your Hollywood Boulevard bedroom with army surplus felt walls, complete with the bed you and Michèle slept in. Why?

RO: The bedroom is probably the kernel of our furniture collection because it was the first ever bed we built for ourselves, and it was very representative of our furniture and of that time. I thought it was a nice sentimental, nostalgic thing to include.

W*: Are you fascinated by last season’s fashion musical chairs, Jonathan [Anderson] and Matthieu [Blazy] and Pierpaolo [Piccioli] and Demna?

RO: Isn’t it crazy? There is an artificial desperation to it all. I don't mean to gloat, but in a weird way, it just kind of solidifies my position; it allows me to be more me.

W*: Will you always remain independent?

RO: I don't mind that we’re a small group that doesn't have the resources of major groups, it makes you more inventive. I like that puzzle, having a certain amount of time, a certain amount of resources – how do you make it into something compelling?

And when you look at a Picasso, you're thinking, yeah, it can be done. I’m not comparing what I do to Picasso, but I'm saying that it is a great lesson of restraint and power from reduced materials and reduced elements.

W*: I feel like fashion hasn’t replaced art, but it’s kind of up there.

RO: I take fashion very seriously. Clothes are powerful tools of communication, and we were put on Earth to communicate. In fashion, you have to speak to your audience, who feels some kind of integrity, some kind of personality, some kind of truth, four times a year, year after year, with a compelling, relevant message, to maintain this connection. I don't know if I see that in art.

W*: Will you ever stop?

RO: Never. I wouldn't know what to do with myself! I would be lost without it. It’s the scaffolding of my life. I have found a way to connect with the world around me. I’ve sent out a message and received a positive response. What could be more profoundly satisfying than that? I know that I'm so lucky. It’s a miracle. I'm completely surprised that I got this far.

‘Rick Owens, Temple of Love’ runs at the Palais Galliera, Paris, from 28 June 2025 – 4 January 2026.

palaisgalliera.paris.fr

After a smattering of off-schedule shows in London this past weekend, including outings from Martine Rose and Charles Jeffrey Loverboy, Men’s Fashion Week S/S 2026 officially commences today in Florence (17 June 2025) with the opening of the 108th edition of the city’s historic menswear fair. In surging mid-30s heat, this season’s guest shows will include a no-doubt colourful outing from Homme Plissé Issey Miyake at Villa Medicea della Petraia on the slopes of Monte Morello on Wednesday evening, before eyes turn to Milan on Friday, seeing the latest collections from Prada, Giorgio Armani and Dolce & Gabbana shown amid a slew of presentations, showrooms and (much-needed) aperitivo.

The final stop is Paris, where – despite a packed six-day-long schedule – it is Jonathan Anderson’s debut show for Dior which will absorb the fashion world’s attention (the former Loewe creative director is now overseeing Dior’s menswear, womenswear and haute couture). Indeed, when the Wallpaper* style editors and contributors were straw-polled on what they were most looking forward to this menswear month, everyone put his inaugural collection for the Parisian house at the top of their list. But there was plenty more – read on for everything the Wallpaper* editors are looking forward to at Men’s Fashion Week S/S 2026.

Men’s Fashion Week S/S 2026: what the Wallpaper* editors are looking forward to

Jason Hughes, fashion and creative director

Like most people in fashion, I’m most looking forward to Jonathan Anderson’s debut at Dior on the Friday of Paris Fashion Week – I was a big fan of his work at Loewe, where he created such a universe around his clothing. I own a lot of pieces he designed there, so I’m excited to see what he has in store. If it’s anything like his work at Loewe – or indeed his work at eponymous London label JW Anderson – it will shift the fashion needle, and have us all wanting something new.

In Milan, it's all about Prada: you can always expect the unexpected from Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons, from the show set – which in recent seasons has included dripping goo, sci-fi tunnels and surreal officescapes – to the clothes themselves. Elsewhere, I've been impressed by London-based designer Kiko Kostadinov in the last couple of seasons. His idiosyncratic approach to pattern cutting and colour always veers towards the strange, in the best possible way. He’s showing his latest menswear collection on the final Sunday of Paris, closing out Men’s Fashion Month.

Jack Moss, fashion features editor

One of my highlights has actually already happened: a surprise off-schedule show from British designer Martine Rose this weekend in London, held among a maze of ruffled boudoir curtains in an empty job centre close to west London’s Edgware Road (on a lower floor, Rose had curated a market from her creative community of designers, record sellers and magazine publishers). Befitting the show set (‘our version of a salon’), Rose said that the collection was about finding beauty in the unexpected, seeing her trademark underground style (queer and cruising culture have been a longtime reference) softened with flourishes of lace, satin and silk, while silhouettes were shrunken to the body. ‘Everything feels a bit cinched or too tight, a bit awkward but still sexy, I hope,’ she said after the show, tequila already in hand. It was. Weird, sexy, desirable, and entirely on her own terms, it was my favourite collection of hers in some time.

Elsewhere, I'm of course excited for Jonathan Anderson’s Dior debut (who isn’t?), while in Milan I join Jason in looking forward to Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons’ latest vision for Prada menswear (as ever, it will likely set the tone for the season ahead). An on-schedule Saint Laurent menswear show, on the opening day of Paris Fashion Week, is also on my highlights list, as is a duo of exhibition openings (also in Paris) from two of the city’s boundary-pushing designers: Demna, who will stage a retrospective of his work at Balenciaga prior to leaving for Gucci next month, and Rick Owens’ ‘Temple of Love’ exhibition, which opens at the Palais Galliera on June 28.

Scarlett Conlon, Milan contributor

The big reveal that I’m most looking forward to is, of course, Jonathan Anderson at Dior during the Paris leg of the shows. I’m fascinated to see how he brings the idiosyncratic charm that he has carved out a niche in to the storied French maison.

Elsewhere, with presentations outnumbering shows in Milan, I always love the opportunity that menswear provides to get up and close with the sartorial expertise of the clothes and talk with the designers; Brioni, Tod’s, and Brunello Cucinelli are always highlights, each finding new ways to make their super luxe offering feel relevant and fresh (and I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t already planned what time I’ll be at the famous parmesan wheel at the latter).

Orla Brennan, contributing fashion writer

Besides seeing what Jonathan Anderson will do with his first collection for Dior – a moment we are all very excited about – I’m most looking forward to Prada. If Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons’ last few shows are anything to go by, I predict an intriguing show set and cast of interesting (possibly celebrity) characters coming down the runway – plus, of course, their usual agenda-setting fashion, guaranteed to shift what we find desirable.

I’m also looking forward to Wales Bonner’s return to the Paris Fashion Week schedule. The brand isn’t known for big spectacles, but the stories, music and clothes are always so clever and soulful – a testament to the eponymous designer’s superlative world-building ability.

Read the full Men’s Fashion Week S/S 2026 preview here.

Paris Fashion Week A/W 2025 took over the French city this week with a packed schedule of runway shows from industry titans – among them Dior, Louis Vuitton, Saint Laurent, Chanel and Givenchy, the last marking the much-anticipated debut of former Alexander McQueen designer Sarah Burton.

Her opening gambit for the storied Parisian house took place on Friday morning (7 March 2025), seeing Burton draw inspiration from a cache of long-hidden patterns by house founder Hubert de Givenchy, reimagining his signatures for the woman of today. ‘I want to address everything about modern women,’ she said. ‘Strength, vulnerability, emotional intelligence, feeling powerful or very sexy. All of it.’

Elsewhere, Haider Ackermann made his debut at Tom Ford on Wednesday evening (5 March), having succeeded Peter Hawkings earlier this year; Julian Klausner held his first show as creative director of Dries Van Noten at the Opéra Garnier (also on Wednesday), while Alessandro Michele unveiled his sophomore ready-to-wear collection for Valentino in a surreal, red-hued ‘public bathroom’ (those awaiting Matthieu Blazy at Chanel, though, will have to wait until September for his official arrival).

A handful of intriguing younger names also populated the schedule, including LVMH Prize-winning designers Duran Lantink and Hodakova, while the usual contingent of Japanese designers – among them Rei Kawakubo’s Comme des Garçons, Junya Watanabe and Noir Kei Ninomiya – presented typically thought-provoking collections on Saturday (8 March 2025).

Here, Wallpaper* fashion features editor Jack Moss – with additional reporting from Orla Brennan – unpacks the best of Paris Fashion Week A/W 2025.

Saint Laurent

A ‘simplicity of silhouette – as if created with a few pencil strokes’ is how Anthony Vaccarrello described his masterful A/W 2025 collection for Saint Laurent, which replaced Louis Vuitton this season as Paris Fashion Week’s finale. Now adept at visual spectacle – sleek, monolithic runway sets have become a hallmark of his tenure – Vaccarrello staged this season’s show on what he called ‘a grand onyx oval’, the oil-slick black runway surrounded by panels of mineral rock.

The collection itself was an exercise in singularity, the mining of a silhouette over and over: from the broad shoulder and raised neckline of the collection’s opening looks (this season achieved without use of padding, but instead through the garment’s construction) towards enormous full skirted-gowns, which despite their grandeur, recalled nighties or slips (‘I really liked this idea of elasticity, of movement—all to give a sense of freedom,’ he said). A richness of fabric and colour enlivened these singular looks, from guipere lace and richly-hued satin to a plasticky animal-print material achieved by dipping printed cigaline silk into resin. It made for a transfixing closing act. JM

Miu Miu

Earlier this month in Milan, Miuccia Prada – alongside co-creative director Raf Simons – presented an A/W 2025 Prada collection titled ‘Raw Glamour’. ‘We asked ourselves – what is feminine? What is feminine beauty?’ the designer said at the time, conjuring a dishevelled elegance which confronted notions of conventional beauty. At Miu Miu, the designer – here working solo – continued that interrogation of womanhood with a collection which saw her evoke the symbolic markers of feminine dress, from fur stoles and pointed bras to handbags and heels. ‘These accessories of femininity – bras, furs, brooches – they are things we have had forever. Are they relevant today? Do they lift us up?’

The resulting collection captured a mood of bourgeois Milanese glamour: oversized overcoats were worn with a ‘fur’ stole thrown over the arm and ladylike handbag nestled in its crook, delicate ribbed socks worn with shuffling brown loafers, while blazers were pinned with brooches on each side of the chest. ‘I don’t see these things as clichés,’ she asserted backstage, though they were presented here in disruptive manner: from the pointed bra tops which jutted outwards from beneath delicate, sugary knits, to the construction of the tailoring which was folded strangely at the chest or cut to fall purposely off the shoulder (other jackets were cropped as if sliced in half).

Played out in a surreal showspace covered in girlish yellow moiré on a cast which included actress Sarah Paulson and musician Cortisa Star, these ‘accessories of femininity’ were recast as objects of power – a provocative pitch for independence from the perception-shifting designer. ‘We need femininity in this difficult time to lift us up,’ she said. JM

Kiko Kostadinov

Laura and Deanna Fanning staged their A/W 2025 show for Kiko Kostadinov in Brasserie Mollard – a 130-year-old restaurant on Rue Saint-Lazare covered in its original Belle Époque gilded tiling, where guests were seated around white linen-covered tables as if about to have lunch. The charm of the largely unchanged eatery set the perfect scene for the identical twin design duo’s latest collection, which explored the ‘rakish’ spirit of discovering yourself in a new city. Their muse for the season was Vali Myers, an Australian dancer who moved among Paris’ bohemian set in the 1950s, imagining her ‘gallivanting bravely through the city as the sun rises, just a topcoat thrown over a slip’.

The resulting collection was one of the sisters’ sexiest yet. Taking shape around vintage women’s underpinnings, pointed bras and structured crinolines gave the body an angular sensuality, while a louche softness emerged in lingerie-informed abstract paisley appliqués, liquid darted blouses, and ultra-thin knitwear layers that clung close to the skin. Always offsetting the girly with something rougher, the Fannings looked to the rebellious Teddy Girls – working-class teenagers in 1950s London who wore Victorian-era menswear – and the masculine layering of the modern ‘tomboy’. Suiting and shirting came in skew-whiff shapes and piratey stripes, baggy Japanese denim was splattered with paint, and rounded batwing jackets and tiny cigarette trousers were fastened with rope. Textures and colours, meanwhile, were eccentrically mashed – mohair, moleskin, and alpaca came in primary colours merged with earthy tones – while accessories took on ‘personalities’, from a doctor’s bag to a sprite’s pointed cap.

A display of depth and originality, the collection affirmed the sister’s confidence in the Kiko Kostadinov woman they have been building together since 2018 – one that has been embraced by a devoted community of women around the world. ‘We are thinking of women taking up their bodies, being sexual and monumental, strong minded and soft,’ they said following the show. ‘Finding a path for oneself in the in-between of opposites, the way only a woman can.’ OB

Chanel

A monumental installation by Canadian designer Willo Perron, evocative of an unfurled black ribbon – a perennial Chanel signature – backdropped the house’s A/W 2025 collection. Designed by Chanel’s ‘Creation Studio’ as the house awaits the arrival of Matthieu Blazy (the former Bottega Veneta designer will not present his first collection until September), it was a collection designed to ‘alter perceptions’, whether through size and proportion, or illusory tricks. This was largely achieved through reimagining Chanel emblems – from pearls, ribbons and bows to quilted handbags and tweed suits – in imaginative ways, whether enormous pearl necklaces worn like a sash (they were actually handbags), shimmering trompe l’oeil bows, or cleverly layered tweed ‘three pieces’, comprising a shrunken jacket, wrap skirt and loose-cut trousers worn at once. The idea of illusion continued in degradé ‘denim’ shirts and jeans in printed chiffon, while sheer tulle overlays – sitting over tailored jackets and dresses – had a spectral effect. The result was a collection both playfully surreal and reassuringly Chanel, the perfect placeholder as we await Blazy’s much-anticipated ready-to-wear debut next season. JM

Louis Vuitton

Presenting to just 400 guests – a relatively intimate showcase by Louis Vuitton standards – Nicolas Ghesquière staged his A/W 2025 collection for the house at L’Étoile du Nord, the headquarters of France’s national railway, just next door to Gare du Nord train station. ‘Recreating the bustling atmosphere of a Parisian train station – where fleeting moments are shared between strangers, weaving a tapestry of stories’, the designer explained of the roots of the collection, which played out in a set by Es Devlin, featuring rows of colourful metal seating – a surreal play on the furniture of waiting rooms or train platforms – while film projections of the shadows of travellers-on-the-move appeared around the upper windows of the building’s atrium.

As such, the collection itself comprised a series of characters one might encounter at a train station – albeit with Ghesquière’s eclectic, postmodern sheen. There were colourful raincoats and anoraks, some with a sporty Louis Vuitton logo; business-like trenches and pussybow ties; futuristic ‘uniforms’ recalling those of conductors or attendants; while expressions of old-world glamour, from twisting turban headwear to glittering fur coats and flouncy ruffled dresses recalled what Ghesquière called ‘the excitement of 19th-century rail travel… [a world of] adventure and enchantment.’ Bags, unsurprisingly, were a highlight – slouchy holdalls, slung over the shoulder, met violin and hat cases, blanket bags and vanity boxes – while the cover of Kraftwerk’s 1977 album ‘Trans-Europe Express’ became a motif throughout the collection.

‘The euphoria of discovery… the exhilaration of travel,’ Ghesquière described of the show, which culminated in the models watching over the space from the atrium’s balconies. ‘The enthusiasm of departure or the comfort of return.’ JM

Sacai

This season, Sacai’s Chitose Abe was thinking about the rituals of dressing with a collection titled ‘One Tender Moment’. Namely, the idea of ‘wrapping’ – how we wrap fabrics around our body for warmth, protection or comfort. As ever, this was achieved through adept pattern cutting (she worked as a pattern maker for both Comme des Garçons and Junya Watanabe before starting her own label), with garments which twisted and looped around the body, like the blazer transforming into forms reminiscent of capes or enormous scarves. The silk foulard was a symbolic motif of the collection’s thrown-on mood, transforming into twisted handkerchief dresses or inset into jackets. Meanwhile, flourishes of adornment – from faux-feather appliqué to oversized paillettes – gave the collection an insouciant, sensual glamour, which Abe said was also reflected in the evocation of Man Ray’s teardrop works in ‘photo stitch’ embroidery. ‘[They] highlight the lips and the eyes – the purest essence of sensual beauty,’ she said. JM

Rokh

Rok Hwang designs his clothes for shy girls – women who might not be the loudest in the room, but who want their wardrobe to relay a certain strength about who they are. This season, the Korean-American designer and Celine alum (Hwang was at the brand during the Phoebe Philo years) explored the idea of ‘Fractured Motion’, applying his signature style of deconstruction and poetic drape to a muted, chalky wardrobe that played with ideas of fragility. Guests were invited to a crumbling French maison to see the show unfold, its rough grandeur setting the stage for a collection that balanced structure and spontaneity. Rather than lean into pure romance, Hwang subverted the tropes of classic tailoring, turning rigid forms into fluid sculptures. Wool coats bloomed into floral shapes, sculptural dresses clung and collapsed in unexpected ways, and layered fabrics gave the feeling of perpetual motion. A series of body pieces were Hwang’s most theatrical – strict, corset-like structures with unravelling edges, and illusion pieces that made models’ torsos resemble the marble busts of Rodin. A love letter to the sensitive souls who have supported his brand since he launched in 2016, this was Hwang at his most experimental and refined. It was about ‘tradition and boldness silently told,’ he said of the collection following the show. OB

Valentino

Alessandro Michele brought his flair for the theatrical to his sophomore ready-to-wear outing for Valentino, which unfolded in a specially constructed showspace at Paris’ Institut du Monde Arabe. Evocative of an enormous public bathroom – cubicles ran around the edge of the room, as did sinks and mirrors – the red-hued space provided a surreal but cinematic backdrop for a show exploring ‘ideas of private and public, surfaces and depths’ (Michele called the set ‘Lynchian’). Titled ‘Le Méta-Théâtre des Intimités’, the designer explained in his typically esoteric show notes (references included the philosophers Romano Màdera and Ludwig Wittgenstein), that this was a show about intimacy as performance: before the models emerged from the swinging cubicles, we saw glimpses of feet from beneath the door, as if the person inside was stood in the nude.

It set the stage for a sensually charged collection from the designer: undone lace body suits were inset with narrow satin bras, 1970s-style dresses in clashing shades of red and pink, while thrown-on ‘fur’ coats had a hedonistic glamour. If not stripped back – Michele remains a maximalist at heart – there felt like new clarity to this collection, pulling back some of the more extraneous flourishes of last season towards a harder vision of glamour. Indeed, the collection felt like it was unfolding in the bathroom of a nightclub, with models prowling the space, checking their outfits in the sink mirrors, before disappearing away back into the cubicles. What they were doing inside – and with whom – was left to the imagination. ‘The deepest intimacy is theatre,’ Michele concluded, having put on his own thrilling – and seductive – show. JM

Akris

The vaulted main hall of Le Collège des Bernardins, a former Cistercian refectory, was flooded with blue light for Albert Kriemler’s latest Akris outing, which celebrated the evocative power of the hue. Titled ‘The Blue Hour’, the designer called it ‘a story of clarity, of euphoria, of blue – blue in nature, blue in spaces, blue in artworks, just blue,’ which began by thinking about the moment ‘when day and night cross.’ As such, garments melded codes of day and eveningwear: a macintosh-style jacket, sliced away at the waistline, was reimagined in rich midnight-blue velvet, a ribbed-knit sweater worn with a floating organza skirt, while a zip-up hoodie was adorned with hundreds of iridescent blue paillettes. Feathers were a motif that ran throughout, whether sprouting from a high-heeled pump or in blue and black waves across the collection’s closing look. Kriemler said he wanted them to ‘evolve with movement, continuously changing as they follow the body [and] right to the next party.’ JM

Balenciaga

Demna staged his latest collection on a darkened, labyrinthine runway with ‘multiple entrances and exits’ which the Georgian designer likened to the way you can lose yourself in the creative process. Though having established such a design signature of the house, namely a subversive take on wardrobe archetypes, this was a collection which saw Demna continue, clear-minded and defiant, down his own path. He called the collection, which attendees viewed from up close (everyone had a front-row seat), a study of ‘standard dress codes, and what it takes to twist standard fits and garments into a fashion context… a sociological observation of the wardrobe.’ As such, the catalogue of looks – which moved between sharp, corporate attire, twisted sportswear (a collaboration with Puma featured) and dishevelled eveningwear, with lace and polka dot dresses hiked up to reveal the leg – felt like a revisiting of Demna’s greatest hits, albeit here with new rigour (he talked about a ‘pursuit of the golden ratio… a rethinking of standards’). Highlights included a series of furry-hooded puffer jackets whereby the quilting had been cleverly reworked to recall the shape of a corset or bodice, or tailoring with deep, in-set creases – reminders of the designer’s potent ability to reimagine the familiar anew. JM

Duran Lantink

Duran Lantink invited guests down to an office space – soon to be fashion-favourite design studio Bureau Betak’s new HQ – lined with cubicles to see his A/W 2025 runway unfold. One might have expected a collection of grey office-core formality to have appeared, but that would have been too on the nose for Lantink. Instead came a series of brash, sculptural creations that played with animal prints and ideas of ‘bad taste’. Moving away from the padded bubble forms that have defined previous seasons, more tapered silhouettes used the body as a framework for dramatic character-building; jackets in zebra-print pony hair rose up to the earlobes, velvet leopard print hugged heads in balaclavas and legs in flared trousers, and snakeskin fabric became alien-like neck-swallowing bodysuits. Taking his signature three-dimensional sculpting to wry new territories, the LVMH Prize-shortlisted designer self-titled the collection ‘Duramnimal.’

Mixed in with these jungle prints, a storyline of absurdist Americana ran through battered varsity jackets, camo prints, padded trapper caps and oversized denim that was constructed to have the illusion of floating in front of models' hips. Having his fun with small town Southern aesthetics, one pair of jeans even took the style of assless chaps. But it was the opening and closing looks that were the most talked about – Mica Argañaraz in an Action Man-style latex six-pack torso, and a male model with waxy, swinging boobs. ‘I love the idea of women as action figures,’ the designer said in explanation. ‘I think everyone should feel empowered to create their own identity and not feel restricted by anything.’ OB

McQueen

During his tenure at McQueen thus far, Irish designer Seán McGirr has largely found inspiration on the streets of London – his adopted home city where he arrived to study at Central Saint Martins in the early 2010s. This season, in a more intimate presentation, his third collection for the British house, he said post-show that he was thinking about ‘Victorian London… particularly Charles Dickens’ Night Walks, conjuring a nocturnal dandy ‘who walks on the streets until dawn’. Historical inflections came in raised ruffled collars, capes and carved waistlines, while extreme elongated footwear – recalling the shape of a winklepicker – lent a strangeness to the silhouette. In a continuation of the crystallised finale looks of last season, the collection was heavy on embellishment, from bejewelled facemarks to scores of surface adornment on leather jackets and dresses, or the gilded embroidery on the frock coat which closed the show.

Another reference was Oscar Wilde, a writer McGirr said he grew up with as a teenager and who is synonymous with the figure of the dandy. ‘To me, dandyism is the ultimate act of adornment; deeply personal, playful and transgressive. It raises questions of character and identity, idealism and gender,’ said McGirr. ‘I wanted to explore the enduring relevance of the dandy’s radical spirit in our modern world.’ In this translation of past to present, McGirr also spent more time in the McQueen archive this season, paying particular attention to Lee McQueen’s hourglass-shaped tailoring. ‘McQueen is all about the waist… I wanted to rework [that] in a way that made sense for today.’ JM

Comme des Garçons

Rei Kawakubo’s latest runway show was a declaration of independence. ‘Recently we feel that big business, big culture, global systems, world structures maybe are not so great after all,’ she issued in a brief statement on her A/W 2025 show, presented in Paris on Saturday afternoon. ‘There is also strong value in small. Small can be mighty.’ She is proof: now over half a century since she founded the convention-defying label in Tokyo, Japan in 1973, Comme des Garçons provides alternative to the luxury fashion conglomerate, shepherding a small umbrella of designers (among them Junya Watanabe and Noir Kei Ninomiya) and incubating several more (the designers behind Vaquera, one of those labels, were in attendance at the show). As such, the collection’s opening felt like a send up of the corporate uniform: tailoring fabrics, from Prince of Wales check to pinstripes, were reimagined into Kawakubo’s strange, undulating forms. That off her chest, the rest of the collection looked towards tropes of femininity, from ruffles, pleats and floral motifs (the latter as a 3D adornment on the inside of a tartan dress, which the model held open as she walked) to textures of velvet and satin. As ever, it was a free association of ideas from a designer who, at 82 years old, remains one of fashion’s most liberated – and independent – voices. JM

Hermès

Upon entering the low-lit Hermès space, the feeling underfoot was like stepping onto a particularly plush material – though, as your eyes adjusted, the spiralling runway was actually covered in a soft layer of soil. It set the stage for a ‘determined’ collection from Nadège Vanhée, who in lieu of thematics described the collection’s mood as ‘sculptural, resilient, seductive… [the woman] moves forward, never looks back. She has everything she needs.’ So out stomped her largely leather-clad cast in riding boots and high-heeled brogues, the latter’s perforations also appearing as leather piping on sculpted dresses and mini shorts. Leather was a focus throughout – an expression of the house’s extraordinary command of the material – from enveloping reversible overcoats to a stripped-back riff on the biker jacket and pin-sharp tailoring, or the sensual line of a ribbed wool and leather dress. In its movement between the everyday – albeit reimagined in hyper-luxurious style – and a pulsing undercurrent of sensuality, it was the latest chapter in Vanhée’s ongoing interrogation of womanhood at the house. Now in her tenth year, it is a vision that looks more desirable than ever. JM

Andreas Kronthaler for Vivienne Westwood

Andreas Kronthaler was feeling sentimental this season. ‘This collection is about honouring the place I have lived for more than 30 years: London,’ he said ahead of his A/W 2025 show, which – if not a touch ironically – was held in Paris yesterday afternoon. His ode to the city began with the anchors of every Westwood collection – knitwear and tailoring – which the designer subverted through a series of witty, swashbuckling silhouettes that channelled the distinctive creative language he shared with his late partner, Vivienne Westwood, for three decades.

Heritage fabrics were pushed to new realms of invention, so that Harris tweeds came in a carnival of shades and stripes, deep blue Yorkshire wools were transformed into fuzzy bodysuits, and bolshy Scottish tartans appeared in Clueless-esque wonky suiting. Ties, meanwhile, were so exaggeratedly long they skimmed the knees. Elsewhere, a love letter to Westwood’s style of drape, cut and corsetry ran through the designer’s more feminine looks, where cowl necks and boning exposed bare chests, and silhouettes roved between Victorian to Grecian and bohemian.

Drawing inspiration from a lengthy list of figures the brand admires – among them Quentin Crisp, Gertrude Stein and Rihanna – the result was a collection that unified a hodge-podge of characters and sensibilities. Not unlike the subcultural melting pot of London itself, Kronthaler’s school of A/W 2025 was a place where an office-punk, windswept chiffon goddess, padded 1980s ski instructor, and a bodiced gothic bride (who closed out the show) could happily coexist. ‘Vivienne taught me the love of tailoring and knitting,’ said Kronthaler. ‘The formality it gives you is a framework to express yourself. There’s nothing sexier than a suit.’ OB

Noir Kei Ninomiya

Until 2019, Noir Kei Ninomiya showed his raven black collections in stark white rooms – just natural light, no music – with the idea that others could see the clothes ‘deeply and simply’. Things have changed quite substantially since then. Yesterday morning, guests of the Comme des Garçons designer’s A/W 2025 show were welcomed into a darkened space that was lit solely by the glow of UV, illuminating the outfits of the oft-too serious front row like dancers in a neon rave.

The collection that followed was, as ever with Kei Ninomiya, an expression of unrestrained invention. Soundtracked to glitchy electronica, the opening looks had the colour and cheer of a kindergarten crafts room; bulbous plastic shapes resembled squishable toys in gashapon vending machines, an assemblage dress of massive bows had the texture of multi-coloured pipe cleaners, and dozens of yarn pom poms were adjoined into a modish ultra-mini dress topped with a mushroom stool matching hat. Designing from impulse rather than reference, the designer summed up the collection in a typically mysterious fashion – ‘a kind of feeling that is uncertain and hard to understand.’

While the Japanese designer has, in recent years, introduced a more vivid palette, his most enduring fascination remains in the language of black – as reflected in the closing looks of his A/W 2025 collection. Showcasing his gift for adorning the body in unconventional materials ‘to achieve expressions impossible with just fabric‘, this time resin was the star of these monochromatic creations. Taking on alien proportions, balls of shimmering fronds exploded from the body, while inky tailoring saw spines of spiky white plastic that glowed under the UV sprout and spiral from jackets. It made for a spectacle of sensory overload that only Kei Ninomiya could have produced. ‘Black is just the word, but it really has a meaning, very strong and very beautiful, and very deep,’ he once said of the beloved shade. ‘It has such a feeling.’ OB

Junya Watanabe

After a rugged Junya Watanabe MAN show earlier this year – which largely riffed on tropes of classic American sportswear – the Japanese designer was back to a more experimental mood for his latest womenswear outing, shown in a stripped out former shop on Paris’ Rue Auber. ‘I'm fascinated by creating clothing that appears to be unrealistic. This time, I created everyday clothing from a cubist perspective,’ he elucidated, explaining the collection’s protruding spikes or sharp, geometric surfaces, which transformed pieces like the leather biker jacket or trench coats into surreal – but undeniably Watanabe-esque – forms. Others had enormous pitched shoulders, or became strange hybrids, like a pair of lace-up leather boots which became the sleeve of a jacket. Another inspiration was the musician Jimi Hendrix, which lent the collection a rock and roll inflection, from amped-up fuzzy jackets and shades to python-print pants and garments crafted from hair and wigs. JM

Victoria Beckham

This season, Victoria Beckham found inspiration close to home – within the four walls of her own dressing room, to be precise. Unveiled in a stark runway space in Paris yesterday evening to a sultry soundtrack that moved between jazz and trip hop, her A/W 2025 show was about the ‘tricks’ and ‘happy accidents’ that shape the way we put on clothes every day. Doubling down on the flattering cuts that are the backbone of her brand, the resulting collection roved freely between dress codes, as if pulled instinctively from every rail of the wardrobe. Raincoats and parkas were exaggerated or cropped, exposing body-hugging garments that took cues from the knicker drawer. Elsewhere, Beckham played with the ways women might borrow their boyfriend’s clothes and adapt them, so that masculine shirting was rolled up at the sleeve and oversized trousers were cinched at the midriff. Winking at the make-up tutorials she films at home, silk dressing gowns were reconstructed into lustrous evening dresses, while the designer’s initial-emblazoned bathrobe was slashed into pussy-bowed smoking jackets in terry-cloth towelling. It was a love letter to spur-of-the-moment dressing that was firmly rooted in Beckham’s own personal language of chic – clothes that she and the brand’s customer have worn, and will wear, time and again. OB

Issey Miyake

Since the late 1980s, Austrian artist Erwin Wurm has invited members of the public to hold specific objects – from plastic buckets and chairs to stacks of oranges – for a minute or so (Wurm discourages specificity on timings). A practice the artist has returned to over the decades, Wurm’s ‘One Minute Sculptures’ see the ‘participating viewer become part of the sculpture for an ephemeral time,’ as a blurb on the artist’s website describes. On Friday afternoon in Paris, Wurm staged his latest edition of ‘One Minute Sculptures’ as the backdrop to Issey Miyake’s A/W 2025 runway show. Held at the Carrousel du Louvre, a group of performers were invited to interact with Issey Miyake garments, stretching them into strange, body-like forms for the duration of the show – an apt reflection of the playful spirit of the Japanese label, which has long been fascinated by fabric and form.

The collection itself was titled ‘[N]either [N]or’, seeing head designer Satoshi Kondo look towards the ‘ambiguity and many in-betweens’ of Wurm’s project for a collection that was rooted in the ‘freedom of wearing [clothing] in one’s own way and the exciting possibilities that are yet to be discovered within the garments’. As a result, there was a spirit of play in Kondo’s clothes – trompe l’oeil prints of Issey Miyake knitwear ran along undulating plissé gowns, blown-up paper bags became colourful strappy tops, and clever new heat-pressed knits made structured, paper doll-like silhouettes. A liberated use of colour, evocative of Wurm’s photographs, ran throughout.

It was a collection that continued Kondo’s recent winning streak. His garments have the illusion of spontaneity, though they are actually the result of several months – even years – of fabric experimentation and craft. ‘Issey Miyake was tenacious and stubborn. It’s something that echoes with me, too – that tenacity, that perseverance,’ Kondo told Wallpaper* in the recent March 2025 Style Issue. ‘He continued until he found something really original. It’s a mindset. When you want a really beautiful flower, you don’t go to the florist, you go out into the forest.’  JM

Givenchy

Sarah Burton’s first collection for Givenchy began with the discovery of a cache of pattern pieces, stuffed in brown envelopes and hidden behind a wall at the former Givenchy maison at 8 Avenue de Vigny, found during a recent renovation. Created by Hubert de Givenchy, they date back to 1952, the year he founded the eponymous house. For the former Alexander McQueen designer – who is known for a meticulous hand when it comes to cut and make – they sparked the exploration of contemporary womanhood which unfolded at the Givenchy salon on Avenue Georges V on Friday morning. ‘It’s my natural instinct to go back to pattern-cutting, to craftsmanship,’ she explained, noting that each garment was fitted at least three times on the body before walking the runway. ‘To cut, shape and proportion. It’s what I feel, how I work, and want to do.’

It led to a collection that eschewed theatrics for clarity and purpose, though not without flourishes of glamour and romance. ‘I want to address everything about modern women,’ she said. ‘Strength, vulnerability, emotional intelligence, feeling powerful or very sexy. All of it.’ So there was precise tailoring, carved narrow at the waist and wide at the shoulder (edges were left raw as if to suggest an act of construction), trapeze-shaped overcoats, and roomy leather shirts and jackets, while eveningwear moved from intricately embroidered opera coats tied with enormous obi-style bows towards bouncing layers of lemon yellow tulle, flared ballet skirts and tuxedo-inspired tailoring, sliced at the waist or turned back to front. Meanwhile, in splashes of the surreal, tops and dresses were constructed from make-up powder cases and tangles of jewellery.

It was a strong start which, despite its sheen of modernity, was nonetheless rooted in Hubert de Givenchy’s archival designs. In the sunlit salon – which is also the historic site of the house’s couture atelier – the intimate guest list perched on symbolic piles of pattern pieces, like those discovered hidden on Avenue de Vigny. ‘To go forward, you have to go back to the beginning,’ Burton said. ‘To me, that’s about the atelier. It’s the heart and soul of Givenchy.’ JM

Chloé

Chemena Kamali continued to hone her breezy, bohemian vision for Chloé – one that recalls Karl Lagerfeld’s free-spirited early collections for the French house – though this season, the German designer talked about seeking ‘evolution… to redefine and to evolve the Chloé woman’s state of mind’. There was certainly a more opulent feel to the collection, which borrowed from bourgeois dress codes – namely a proliferation of ‘fur’ (like most designers this season, it was actually shearling with the illusion of fur), whether as nipped, patchworked jackets, trims or stoles, while heritage overcoats, ladylike chain handbags and Mary Jane footwear struck a similar mood.

They were welcome additions to the Chloé uniform, which this season felt more grounded in everyday wear – Kamali talked about a finding mood of ‘realness and instinctive ease’ in flared jeans and leather trousers, as well as the eclectic, thrown-on styling. That said, there was still fun to be had in the romantic gowns in the millefeuille ruffles of taffeta and lace which have become the designer’s signature. ‘I thought about how we romanticise the past through an intuitive lens, blending traces of tradition and historical fragments, pieces passed down through generations, what we once loved with what we love today,’ she described. JM

Rabanne

It is astounding how fur – albeit in faux or shearling iterations – has dominated this season’s runways, emerging time and again across the four major cities. No doubt it speaks to our desire for protection against the elements, both real and existential – an idea that will surely be unpacked by commentators in the coming weeks. It was at Rabanne Julien Dossena conjured some of the most arresting ‘furs’ of the month so far, spanning knit gowns with tassel-like ‘tails’ around the hem, sliced shearling skirts and tabard tops, and bombastic fur coats lined with shimmering, tinsel-like fabric – at once glamorous and primitive. Dossena called the juxtaposition one of preciousness and protection: opposing impulses which also met in clear plastic raincoats worn over gleaming chainmail dresses, or the hardy, outdoorsy wools and leathers clashed with delicate beadwork or sequins. These tonal shifts were intriguing and beautiful, confirming Dossena’s status as one of Paris’s most consistently impressive designers. With another stellar collection under his belt – and having served over a decade at Rabanne – the question lingers: will Dossena be one of fashion’s next big moves? JM

Rick Owens

Held in one of the vast interior wings of Paris’s Palais de Tokyo – a longtime show location for the designer – Rick Owens called his latest womenswear collection ‘Concordians’, the same title as his menswear show held earlier this year. It references the industrial Italian town of Concordia, just outside Venice, where Owens produces the bulk of his collections each season.

Having travelled there for over two decades (in various dwellings, from a couch in his office to a ‘serial killer hotel’ and now his own apartment), the town’s relative banality has become a part of his and his team’s creative rhythm: ‘a studious isolation… almost bleakness. This cloistered life seems to be what it takes to be able to focus on reaching for something weird and wonderful.’

The spoils of that isolation were on show here in a collection which channelled a subversive, Owensian glamour: whether the ‘chain-linked’ laser-cut leather dresses which appeared on the body like scales or feathers (a collaboration with Parisian designer Victor Clavelly), towering, broad-shouldered overcoats in wool or leather, or, in another continuation of the menswear show earlier this year, ‘megacrust’ denim, whereby the fabric is intricately layered with bronze foil and wax. ‘I want to depend on fewer things but make them as supernatural as possible,’ he said after the menswear show, and here he seemed to retain that focus – this was a collection which was undeniably Rick Owens, though here evolved through extraordinary craft and make.

Iggy Pop’s ‘Mass Production’, which soundtracked his very first show 23 years ago, made a nostalgic return – another suggestion that Owens was digging deeper into his label’s rebellious roots. ‘We won’t legally be able to use it on YouTube,’ the designer said, ‘but it’s a song that yearns for the weird and wonderful, as much to me now as it did back then.’ JM

Schiaparelli

What would the world be like if we woke up tomorrow and there were no men? How would women dress? These musings are usually the stuff of playful debate over the dinner table, though yesterday in Paris, Daniel Roseberry brought them to life with a high-glamour A/W 2025 collection for Schiaparelli. Observing ‘that the women I know rarely, if ever, dress for men… when they do dress up, it’s for other women, and it’s women’s praise that matters to them,’ the American designer imagined how women would remember masculine archetypes in an alternate reality where they ‘inherited the earth’.

The resulting collection, which Roseberry titled Lone Star, pulled from his fantastical couture offering in January, as well as old Hollywood tailoring and gunslinging Western tropes that paid tribute to his upbringing in Texas. Balancing ideas of dominance and tenderness, his women appeared in decadent velvets, voluminous furs and sheeny satins in silhouettes that played with juxtapositions: feline second-skin dresses, demure oversized 1940s suiting and spangled cinched-waist drama fit for the red carpet. Southern charm came in waves of bow-legged denim, leather fringing, cowboy boots and low-slung belts that were accentuated through the house’s gilded codes. It was, he says, a tribute to the strong women in his life.

‘In this post-social media era – when many of us have become weary of and disgusted by living our lives through the screen – many of us are asking what makes life meaningful,’ Roseberry said in a letter to attendees. ‘I’ve spent the past few months speaking less and listening more. I wanted to make things that can inspire. The women in my life are lone stars – there’s no one else like them, and there could never be. I hope they, and all women, feel the same about these clothes.’ OB

Tom Ford

Haider Ackermann made a confident start to his tenure at Tom Ford, which he described as an attempt to capture the mood of seduction which he sees as foundational to the label. ‘I hope I seduced you all,’ the designer said backstage after the show, which instilled the uninhibited glamour synonymous with the label – founded in 2005, just after the eponymous designer’s departure from Gucci – with something more louche and darkly romantic, a hallmark of Ackermann’s own work at both his now-shuttered label and Berluti, where he was briefly creative director. Comprising both men’s and womenswear, the collection deftly shifted between daywear – largely in leather and largely black – towards showstopping eveningwear in the bold, painterly hues with which Ackermann has become synonymous. A sinuous yellow gown was hiked up above the hip on one side, another came in striking green satin sliced seductively along its back (a particularly Haider-esque gesture), while a lilac dress was adorned with shimmering tassels. For men, tailoring was pin-sharp, with smatterings of sparkle a nod to the more overt glamour elsewhere. It ended with a standing ovation – the intimate show was packed with Ackermann’s friends and well-wishers – while Tom Ford himself gave a seal of approval with a warm embrace at the show’s close. JM

Acne Studios

Acne Studios latest collection played out amid a surreal skyline conceived by the set designer Polly Philp, whereby totemic metal ‘skyscrapers’ were interspersed with tapestry-covered ‘rocks’ by design duo Front, inspired by the natural landscapes of Sweden. This clash, between nature and the city, provided the impetus of Jonny Johansson’s latest collection, which saw the designer imagine his protagonist wandering from the windswept Nordic north and into an urban cityscape for ‘a dynamic juxtaposition of two worlds; an exercise in contrasts.’ As such, garments which suggested an overt glamour – like a power-shouldered body suit – were imagined in soft, teddy-bear like fabrics. Indeed the bear, inspired by a rewatch of Björk’s Human Behaviour video (the musician had ‘curated’ a newly mixed version for the soundtrack), became a trope, with the construction of a teddy bear’s limbs inspiring the blown-up proportions of tailoring and outerwear, as well as an enormous paw-like boot.

Alongside were pieces which conjured the surreal femininity Johansson has been honing in recent seasons – a dress covered in trailing ribbons and bows, crinkled leather pussybow shirts, hazy trompe l’oeil prints – while a sense of the homespun recalled the designer’s own roots in northern Sweden. ‘A Nordic upbringing develops a deep connection to nature. Nature and urban cities have always had a relation that fascinates me,’ he said. ‘It is the tension and contrast between the two of them that I have tried to portray within this collection.’ JM

READ: Acne Studios has created a surreal skyline for its A/W 2025 runway show

Stella McCartney

Stella McCartney was in a playful mood this season, holding her runway show in the surreal ‘Stellacorp’ headquarters, a simulacrum of a corporate office complete with spinning chairs and computer desks. Even more surreal were the handful of male and female pole dancers who emerged at the show’s finale, a nod to the collection’s title, which was ‘Laptop to Lapdance’. ‘A bold day-to-night wardrobe for the working woman,’ described McCartney of the collection’s roots, which saw her imagine the season’s protagonist heading from a day in the office to a night out on the town in typically irreverent fashion. Part Working Girl – power shoulders were a definite feature – the collection swayed between double-breasted tailoring, pencil skirts and office blouses (worn with a hefty dose of irony), and party wear, from tasseled jeans to T-shirts which read ‘Slippery When Wet’. And, while it made for a moment of much-needed escapism, McCartney remained fastidious about sustainability, with 96 per cent of the collection crafted from conscious materials (and, as ever, 100 per cent cruelty free). This included some impressive versions of python and ostrich skin, here crafted from the innovative Yatay M, an alternative leather made from mycelium. JM

Dries Van Noten

In the first of two debuts of the day – Haider Ackermann would present his first Tom Ford collection later that evening – Belgian designer Julian Klausner heralded the start of a new era at Dries Van Noten, taking over from the eponymous founder who made his exit last June. Having worked at he house since 2018, and arriving with the full blessing of Van Noten himself, the show at the Opéra Garnier was less about a full-scale revolution than it was about a steady transition from one designer to the next.

The show’s setting was a clue to the inspiration: Klausner imagined his protagonist for the season dashing through the gilded opera house grabbing pieces of fabric and wrapping them around her body intuitively, tied with shoelaces. As such, there was a sense of improvisation to the silhouette: a halterneck top appeared crafted from a handful of silk scarves, while dresses wrapped cleverly around the body, as if thrown on in haste. Opulent fabrications – sometimes clashing – nodded towards Van Noten’s own mastery of texture and print, though here there was bolder eclectism, like a series of garments adorned with hundreds of different curtain ties, or the amalgam of paillettes, animal prints, checks or brocade.

‘Looking back, I realised I made this collection in a very instinctive way,’ he said after the show. ‘I went towards things I always loved. I thought about the fact that the first time I fell in love with fashion was as a child playing in the costume box, just grabbing things that you love, combining them, mixing them. Dries wanted me to feel the freedom of doing it alone.’ JM

Courrèges

Nicolas Di Felice said he wanted to mine a feeling of optimism this season at Courrèges, despite what he admits are increasingly ‘uncertain times’. Set to a remix of Chantal’s 1990 house classic ‘The Realm’ and centred around a flurry of pink confetti cleverly conceived by French set designer Rémy Briere, Di Felice called the runway ‘a place to unite, to gather – a safe space for joy and togetherness’ akin to his beloved raves (the Belgian designer grew up in the 1990s rave scene, a constant touch point of his work).

It lent the collection a looser, more intuitive feel: a series of dresses, which wrapped cleverly around the body, were based on the idea of throwing on a scarf (the silhouette ran throughout, and was also inspired by the elongated rectangle shape of a streamer), while enormous ostrich feathers became tops (the musician Arca was already wearing one front row). Meanwhile archetypal garments – like the tank top, or the biker jacket – were twisted at their seams into intriguing new proportions, often with the illusion that they were slipping off the body.

‘This collection started from the first time I was pessimistic in my life, which was not like me at all, last season,’ Di Felice explained backstage, noting that photographs of confetti by the artist Dan Colen had brought him back to life. ‘So this [collection] is the total opposite. I found myself so happy, full of joy, an optimist again.’ JM

Alaïa

Marking a return to Paris after showing at New York’s Guggenheim Museum last season, Pieter Mulier staged his latest collection in the Alaïa atelier on Rue Servan. Populating the space were a series of monolithic heads in roughly hewn unfired clay by the contemporary Dutch artist Mark Manders. Mulier said he was drawn to the works for the way they appear to stand outside of time or place: ‘Manders’ work fascinates me – each of his sculptures seem itself a work either in progress, or marked by the passage of an imaginary time, reminiscent at once of many different cultures,’ he said. ‘And that idea of a non-linearity – of space, and of time – was inspiring.’

The idea of non-linearity – of garments which traversed time and space, a ‘beauty outside of any era or geography, free of boundaries’ – ran through the standout collection. Referencing at once ancient deities (on his Instagram prior to the show, he posted a carved Bronze Age figure of a woman, captioned ‘Modern Venus’) and the archival designs of house founder Azzedine Alaïa (notably, a focus on hooded silhouette and pleats), the resulting garments were what Mulier called ‘kinetic sculptures’. Romantic flourishes came in heart-shaped cut-outs and flower-like pom poms at the neckline, while looping gowns – held in place with twists of metal – continued the ‘gravity-defying’ silhouettes of last season.

‘The message is about singularity, individuality, the eternal strength and resilience of women, empowering them through their clothes,’ Mulier continued. ‘That always inspired Azzedine, and it always inspires me – the strength of beauty.’ JM

Dior

The idea of metamorphosis was at the centre of Maria Grazia Chiuri’s latest collection for Dior, an idea reflected in a theatrical mise-en-scène by the experimental American theatre director Robert Wilson which recreated the dawn of time in his symbolic style (from jagged glaciers that rose from the floor to a pterodactyl which zoomed across the space). Grazia Chiuri’s collection had also begun with something elemental, at least in fashion terms: the white shirt, which she linked with Gianfranco Ferré, who led the house in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and who was an influence here.

The foundational garment became a jumping off point for an exploration of historic dress codes, layered under corsetry or dramatically ruffled and elongated at the cuff, chiming with the Elizabethan-inflected frock coats, ruff-inspired pearl necklaces and flared-waist crinoline gowns elsewhere (Virginia Woolf’s Orlando, and its time-travelling, gender-shifting protagonist, were another inspiration). Meanwhile, tough black leather met playful faux-ermine stoles, while slouchy parka-style outerwear prevented the collection from feeling like costume. Grazia Chiuri also reintroduced the John Galliano-era J’Adore Dior T-shirt, including a version given new life with patches of delicate lace. ‘A femininity that imagines possible futures by mixing evocations of a past,’ the designer described. JM

Stay tuned for more from Paris Fashion Week A/W 2025.

Fashion currently feels in a state of limbo. With a slew of creative directors taking up tenure in the coming months, menswear fashion week – which took place in Florence, Milan and Paris this January – felt somewhat subdued, with the distinct feeling that designers and houses were taking stock ahead of some seismic changes ahead (the number of debuts taking place from now until September has reached the double digits, including Matthieu Blazy at Chanel, Sarah Burton at Givenchy, and Haider Ackermann at Tom Ford). As of yesterday morning, the changes kept coming: Kim Jones is set to leave his position as creative director of Dior Men after seven years at the creative powerhouse. As for his replacement, rumours abound.

The changes also meant a more scant schedule than in recent seasons: Gucci and Fendi were off the Milan Fashion Week schedule (both will show co-ed in February), as was JW Anderson, who has shown in the city since the summer of 2022. In Paris, Loewe was notably absent, as was Dries Van Noten (the latter will show its first collection by Julian Krausner next month), while Givenchy also chose to wait until womenswear fashion month to unveil Burton’s vision for the house. There were some additions, though: buzzy American designer Willy Chavarria swapped New York for Paris, and brought some much-needed energy, while Peter Copping debuted his men’s and womenswear collections for Lanvin on Paris Fashion Week Men’s final evening.

With all that said, there was still plenty to unpack from the month-long schedule of shows, which largely continued to move away from quiet, understated luxury towards a bolder, more eclectic wardrobe – Prada, Giorgio Armani, Louis Vuitton, Sacai and Magliano all proposed the idea of individual style over a prescribed uniform. There was also an intriguing re-examination of eveningwear, an influence of the outdoors, and some extraordinary expressions of craft. Meanwhile faux fur became the surprising fabric du jour.

Here, Wallpaper* fashion features editor Jack Moss unpacks the trends and takeaways from menswear month, which concluded in Paris this past Sunday.

Men’s Fashion Month A/W 2025: the trends and takeaways

Designers continued to embrace the eclectic

After Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons’ paean to individual style at their S/S 2025 womenswear show in September – complete with 49 radically different looks – the pair continued to eschew thematics for a bold assemblage of elements which Simons describe as akin to an ‘unconscious’ stream of thought. As such the collection teetered between the romantic – floral motifs, washed-out plaids, shrunken knits adorned with metal charms, boyish pyjamas – and something more ‘primitive’ in faux fur hoods and tabards, cowboy boots, and suits made from patchworked pieces of leather. Mrs Prada said it was about ‘instinct, passion and romance.... which is so crucial at the moment; it’s the season of artificial intelligence, and this is our move again towards humanity.’

It was a mood which infused much of the season, whereby designers largely rejected the quiet and understated in the pursuit of bolder expressions of personal style. At Giorgio Armani, the 90-year-old designer presented a collection of ‘elegance to live in’ which he said was a rejection of a ‘pre-packaged formula’ (as such, the collection moved between typically fluid tailoring, iridescent skiwear, and a multitude of enveloping textures and surface finishes). At Sacai, Chitose Abe drew inspiration from Maurice Sendak’s 1963 children’s book Where the Wild Things Are, in which the protagonist travels to a magical realm of beasts and creatures; in the collection, this meant a heady mash-up of faux fur, skiwear and the tuxedo, alongside playful collaborations with Carhartt and Ugg.

Opening Paris Fashion Week Men’s, Pharrell Williams drafted fellow designer Nigo to collaborate on a Louis Vuitton collection inspired by their personal archives – from CDs and toys to varsity jackets and sneakers – which were displayed in the Louvre showspace. The collection itself had a similarly eclectic mood, an uninhibited ride through the pair’s shared obsessions, from playful Japanese motifs to souped-up riffs on workwear and uniforms. Like at Prada, it was an invitation to experiment and play.

Evening wear was re-examined

‘I think it’s time to bring back the pleasure of wearing a suit, not because you have to, but for the fun of it,’ said Véronique Nichanian at the end of her A/W 2025 show for Hermès, which culminated with louche, 1970s-inflected tailoring. Indeed, a desire for dress up – and the continuing renaissance of tailoring – ran through the season, with designers embracing (or indeed deconstructing) traditional formal wear. At Wooyoungmi, a riff on the tuxedo opened a show which saw designer Madame Woo rework menswear archetypes (the suits were sculpted at the waist, and came adorned with 3D-appliqué flowers in tailoring wool), while at Sacai, the closing look saw black blazers sliced away to reveal their lining, trimmed with faux fur, or reconstructed into flared, peplum silhouettes. Meanwhile Kim Jones, in what would be his final collection for Dior Men, looked towards the ‘graphic and angular’ tailoring of Christian Dior’s mid-century Ligne H collection, presented in the mid-1950s. It led to some extraordinary pieces: a crossover single-breasted tuxedo, nipped at the waist; a ballooning black kimono jacket, or a white blazer adorned with a single white bow along its back. They continued Jones’ assertion that clothing must be precious to warrant your attention: ‘people want something that noone else has,’ he told Wallpaper* in 2024.

Faux fur was everywhere

Occasionally, a trend emerges in such a way that you feel convinced that designers must have plotted up the idea together beforehand. This season, it was faux fur, which began in Milan with Dolce & Gabbana’s shaggy 2000s-inspired hooded jackets (the collection was tilted ‘Paparazzi’, and the collection was an ode to celebrity street style) and continued in Prada’s S/S 2025 collection, whereby Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons said animalistic slices of faux fur represented an intuitive, primitive way of dressing (after all, the desire to swaddle oneself in fur and animal hides dates back to the neanderthals). In Paris, Auralee’s faux fur jacket – worn beneath an overcoat with a baby blue collar poking out from beneath – offered a more quotidien take on the trend, while at Saint Laurent, which closed the month with a surprise show, Anthony Vaccarrello showed a series of showstopping ‘fur’ coats which were actually constructed from thousands of feathers. In a similar vein, shearling was also in abundance throughout the season – Zegna, Hermès and Sacai all used the enveloping fabric in their collections – suggesting a collective want for protection against the elements (whether adverse weather or something more existential).

Designers were ready to head outdoors

Utility and pragmatism were a throughline of the season, with a number of designers looking towards outdoor-wear for inspiration (with the churn of world news continuing across fashion month, it was unsurprising that designers sought refuge in the call of the wild). A rugged collection from Japanese label Junya Watanabe MAN, featuring a series of burly, bearded models, set the tone with a collaboration with Filson, a historic American outdoorwear brand which dates back to 1897. Citing a desire for ‘something real’, Watanabe’s signature workwear silhouettes were presented alongside plaid shirts, waxed jackets, patchworked jeans and trucker hats (the sounds of bearded American folk singer Avi Kaplan provided the soundtrack). Both Giorgio Armani and Emporio Armani had whole sections of outdoor-wear (the former in gleaming iridescent skiwear, the latter in piled-up fluoro hiking gear), while at Yohji Yamamoto and IM Men (an Issey Miyake offshoot), quilted fabrics were used to enveloping effect. Most intriguing, though, was Kiko Kostadinov’s latest collection, which he said was inspired by the stark, isolated natural environments of Hungarian director Béla Tarr. In his signature queasy colour combinations, models trudged across a runway of fallen leaves, wearing riffs on fleece hiking jackets, military overcoats and swaddling ponchos, while a pair of tabi sneakers (the latest in a collaboration with Japanese sportswear brand Asics) were this season’s most covetable footwear.

High-level craft remained key

Rick Owens titled his latest collection ‘Concordians’, a reference to the industrial Italian town, close to Venice, where he produces his collections. In its austerity, he called it a kind of creative monastery, a space for him and his teams to work on ideas in total isolation (‘this cloistered life seems to be what it takes to be able to focus on reaching for something weird and wonderful,’ he said). As such, his A/W 2025 collection was an impressive demonstration of craft, from the ‘megacrust’ jeans (made from bronze foil and wax painstakingly applied onto denim), to the sweeping tops made from millefeuille layers of hand-cut rubber, or the incredible boots adorned with scale-like layers of laser-cut leather (a collaboration with Victor Clavelly). Make no mistake, despite their purposeful appearance of rawness and dishevelment – a Rick Owens signature – this craft was couture level.

Indeed, a focus on high-level craft ran throughout the season, not least at Dior, whereby his latest couture line for men (interspersed with the ready-to-wear collection) melded impressive construction with breathtaking beadwork and embellishment, like a twinkling of crystals across the shoulder of a blazer that gave the appearance of having been caught in the rain. At Louis Vuitton, there were mink intarsia hoodies replicating the house’s checkerboard motif, while at Saint Laurent, the aforementioned ‘fur’ coats were constructed from delicate fronds of feathers painstakingly hand-applied. Meanwhile at Giorgio Armani, which will celebrate 50 years in business this year, the show ended with a black velvet blazer adorned with smatterings of sparkle, evoking a night sky dotted with stars.

2024 has been a frenetic year in style: in a not-comprehensive list, Givenchy, Chanel, Lanvin, Valentino, Dries Van Noten, Tom Ford, Celine and Bottega Veneta have all had new creative directors named in 2024, while Maison Margiela, Y/Project, and Fendi’s womenswear line are currently without a named designer at the helm (while rumours of further departures abound).

Amid this mood of flux, bubbling under is a newly liberated spirit of eclecticism and experimentation. There was Prada’s boldly individual S/S 2025 collection in Milan, complete with 49 entirely unique looks (‘we thought of each individual as a superhero – with their own power, their own story,’ said Miuccia Prada’s co-creative director Raf Simons); Alessandro Michele’s expansive and eclectic opening act at Valentino; or an ode to the joy of clothes at Matthieu Blazy’s S/S 2025 show for Bottega Veneta (it would be his final collection for the house, having been appointed as artistic director of Chanel earlier this month). ‘The power of wow,’ he described of the fantastical show.

Here, the Wallpaper* style team pick their own personal fashion moments of 2024, from Rick Owens’ 200-strong Hollywood epic in Paris to an Eyes Wide Shut-inspired JW Anderson show, and a slicked-back beauty look at Saint Laurent.

Jason Hughes, fashion and creative director

‘As a longtime fan of Stanley Kubrick, it was a exciting to see Jonathan Anderson draw inspiration from the director’s final movie, Eyes Wide Shut, for his A/W 2024 menswear collection which was shown in January in Milan. Most intriguing, though, was the collaboration at its heart: interspersed throughout the collection were paintings by Christiane Kubrick, the director’s artist wife, whose works appeared in the backdrop of her husband’s movies (and are particularly prominent in the interiors of Eyes Wide Shut).

‘Anderson said he was inspired by the way in which the paintings represented a kind of compulsion to create, intrigued by the way that despite her husband’s fame she remained an artist working in the margins. “There is something deeply personal about Christiane’s work. I get the feeling that there is no other way – she has to do it,” he said.

‘It was thrilling then, for Wallpaper’s November Art Issue, to visit Childwickbury Manor, the Hertfordshire manor house where Stanley Kubrick lived and worked for much of his career (Christiane still maintains a studio in the home and her paintings decorate almost every wall). Alongside photographer Kalpesh Lathigra, we shot the collection in the home an its grounds for what was perhaps one of the most unique fashion shoots I’ve ever taken part in. I’m so thankful for Christiane and the Kubrick family – especially her grandson Jack Elliot Hobbs – for letting us document such a special place. It’s a day I won’t forget.

‘Another highlight of 2024 was seeing the evolution of Duran Lantink, an Amsterdam-based designer who won the Karl Lagerfeld Award at the LVMH Prize 2024. For the past few seasons he has riffed on archetypal garments in extraordinary style, creating playful sculptural forms which look like the pieces are inflated under the fabric or have emerged from a cartoon. And, while there have certainly been precedents for his work – there is no doubt a debt to the “lumps and bumps” of Rei Kawakubo’s S/S 1997 Comme des Garçons collection – it feels entirely new. I can't wait to see where he goes in 2025.’

Jack Moss, fashion features editor

‘I always love attending Rick Owens’ shows – the American designer has an innate understanding of the spectacle of fashion, staging monumental presentations on the forecourt of Paris’ Palais de Tokyo which are at once strange, glamourous, rousing and eerie, and always entirely in his own design vernacular (hence why they attract hordes of black-clad disciples Owens affectionately calls his ‘freaks’). He is a true iconoclast.

‘In 2024 we were treated to two very different types of Rick Owens shows: the first, early in the year, saw him open the door to own Paris home, a “concrete palace” in the former French Socialist Party headquarters on the city’s Left Bank. It was about as intimate as a runway show can get: guests sat on his monolithic furniture, while a cast of Owens’ community walked through the various rooms – a twisted take on the traditional salon show.

’The designer said the move towards closeness was a response to the “barbaric times through which we are living”. Clothing suggested a feeling of intimacy, albeit in Owens’ subversive style – enormous shaggy twists of fabric, cashmere “space suits” and delicate branch-like structures adorned with sequins – as did the casting, a community of collaborators which he described “creatives who live their aesthetic defiantly and completely”. I know we all felt lucky to be invited into his world.

‘Later in the year, in June, an altogether different spectacle: a 200-strong take on the Hollywood epic, staged back at the Palais de Tokyo amid plumes of smoke. He called the parading figures – largely cast from local art schools – his “white satin army of love”. It was a response, he said, to the small capacity of the shows at home (he presented both his A/W 2025 men’s and women’s collections in the space), positing the curative effects of being en masse once again. “I felt bad about making attendance so restricted, so this time around I wanted to welcome everyone,” he said of the spectacular menswear show, which would be repeated for his womenswear show in September with additional confetti. “Expressing our individuality is great but sometimes expressing our unity and reliance on each other is a good thing to remember too”.’

Hannah Tindle, beauty and grooming editor

‘I loved Anthony Vaccarello’s tribute to Yves Saint Laurent himself at Saint Laurent S/S 2025, with exaggerated double-breasted suiting and thick-rimmed glasses. The show’s hair and make-up by Duffy and Pat McGrath was a masterful demonstration of restrained runway beauty.

‘Tapping into the androgynous mood, models were given slicked-back styles or nonchalant blow dries. (Although, look 41 included peek-a-boo waves à la Veronica Lake). For the face, McGrath created a flawless canvas alongside barely-there contouring and lightly pencilled brows. Lips had been kept the same shade as the model’s natural skin tone and mascara – if any were used at all – was untraceable.’

The American fashion designer Rick Owens is known for operating at the extremes. Obsessed with the dark and the monolithic, his distinct aesthetic often sees the body distorted, turned upside down, sprouted with prosthetics, or strapped with wadded structures he calls ‘duvet donuts’. And earlier this summer he hosted perhaps the blockbuster runway show of the year: his take on a Hollywood epic, complete with a hundreds-strong ‘white satin army of love’ which marched around the forecourt of the Palais de Tokyo, some hanging from enormous scaffolding structures, amid plumes of smoke.

Revealed today, on Halloween – a date no doubt noted by fashion’s so-called prince of darkness – Owens explores the idea of ‘extremes’ in his latest collaboration with outerwear behemoth Moncler. Titled by the designer as ‘another Moncler + Rick Owens living project’, it follows a customised bus (designed for touring Land Art installations) and an isolation sleeping chamber (‘it ended up in my house,’ says Owens), which both came complete with matching wardrobes to wear in these ‘personal environments’. The latest edition is a ‘mountain refuge’, created alongside Hugh Broughton Architects, a London-based agency known for its extreme-condition structures (they include the Halley VI British Antarctic Research Station on the Brunt Ice Shelf and the redevelopment of the Scott Base in Antarctica).

The idea for the project came from a home in the French Alps owned by the family of Owens’ wife, Michèle Lamy, ‘the Hun’ (‘I call her “the Hun” because she is a beautiful marauder, taking what she wants and leaving wreckage behind her,’ says Owens). Designed by French architect Charlotte Perriand, the Lamy family lodging is here transformed into a surreal demountable refuge in stainless steel, which looks to have emerged from the set of a science-fiction movie (or, indeed, from the landscapes of outer space). Balanced atop legs which can be adjusted for uneven terrain, the sharp, brutalist design features a series of dramatic treadplate steps (angled upwards at each side), while the door doubles as a protective airlock.

Indeed, the refuge is not simply for show: fully functional, it features a monocoque shell with 20 thermally insulated panels, photovoltaic roof panels, ground-based solar arrays and a roof panel, allowing for what Owens calls ‘complete energy autonomy’ (meanwhile on-board battery arrays allow power to be stored for ‘long-term use in remote locations’). A sustainable water system filters snow, while also reclaiming waste ‘greywater’. Heating comes from both a log-burning stove and electric heaters. In short, it offers everything you need for shelter in even the most extreme of surroundings.

It is an approach no doubt inspired by Moncler’s 70-year history, which began in Monestier-de-Clermont, a commune in the French Alps. There, founders André Vincent and René Ramillon sought to create a quilted sleeping bag to protect mountaineers against the elements while climbing up the area’s snowy peaks. Owens’ mountain refuge is the latest evolution of this project, which despite its high-tech specifications remains rooted in the idea of personal protection and warmth. As such, the interior features Moncler duvet nylon and felted wool blankets ‘a nod to Joseph Beuys, who was my first art hero 50 years ago’.

The accompanying clothing collection follows a similar vein, comprising dramatic quilted jackets and trousers, alongside cotton underlayers which sit flush to the body. ‘It’s based on soft cotton longjohns layered under duvet bodysuits that zip into sleeping cocoons for hibernating in a felt and duvet-lined cave,’ says Owens.

Moncler + Rick Owens clothing collection launches today (31 October 2024) in stores and online.

moncler.com

September, so said legendary American Vogue editor Candy Pratts, is the January of fashion. Following a brief summer break after the conclusions of menswear and haute couture – which took place over June and July – Women’s Fashion Week S/S 2025 arrives in New York next week on September 6 2024, with subsequent stops in London, Milan and Paris. Think of it as a new fashion term.

The schedule is now set, with a few surprises along the way. Among them, the news that Pieter Mulier will show his next Alaïa collection in the city on September 6, heralding the start of fashion month. It is over four decades since the house’s eponymous founder, Azzedine Alaïa, first showed in the American city, when he presented a collection in September 1982 to an audience which included Andy Warhol and Paloma Picasso. No doubt Mulier – who has garnered plenty of high-profile devotees of his own – will draw a similarly starry crowd. Meanwhile, Ralph Lauren will show the day prior with a special show in the Hamptons on September 5. London-based label Cos has also announced a return to New York, having shown last season in Rome.

Elsewhere, it will no doubt be the season of debuts: chief among them is the much-anticipated arrival of Alessandro Michele at Valentino, who will show as part of Paris Fashion Week. Eyes will also be on Givenchy, Chanel and Dries Van Noten which – at the time of writing – are each without creative directors.

Here, everything Wallpaper* knows about Women’s Fashion Week S/S 2025.

Women’s Fashion Week S/S 2025: what to expect

New York Fashion Week S/S 2025 (6 – 11 September 2024)

New York Fashion Week S/S 2025 will begin – unofficially – on September 5, as American fashion behemoth (and member of the Wallpaper* USA 400) Ralph Lauren presents his latest collection in an exclusive show in the Hamptons, the beachside Long Island locale which has long played host to the rich and famous. ’The Hamptons is more than a place,’ said Lauren in a statement. ’It’s a natural world of endless blue skies, the ocean, green fields, and white fences, rusticity and elegance with a quality of light that drew artists here decades ago. It has been home, my refuge and always an inspiration.’

The day afterwards, Pieter Mulier will show his latest Alaïa collection in New York, four decades after Azzedine Alaïa first showed in the city in 1982. It will be his second time showing outside of Paris – an intimate show at the designer’s brutalist home in Antwerp, Belgium took place in 2023 – and will no doubt be one of the highlights of the schedule. ’A city close to Pieter Mulier’s heart and the maison’s,’ said Alaïa on Instagram. It will be accompanied by ‘a series of exclusive moments’ which will take place in the city from 6–8 September. Meanwhile Cos – which last season showed at Corsie Sistine in Rome – will return to New York with a show on September 10 in Brooklyn. ‘New York is a dynamic city with so much character – it’s a place of inspiration, full of interesting and creative people,’ says the brand’s design director Karin Gustafson. Another new arrival is Off-White, who under creative director Ib Kamara will swap Paris for New York, showing on the afternoon of Sunday 16 (the title of the show is ‘Duty Free' and will take place at Brooklyn Bridge Park). Nanushka will also debut at the week, showing on the afternoon of September 7.

Elsewhere, expect a continuation of the Tory Burch renaissance as the designer presents her S/S 2025 collection on the evening of Monday 17, while New York stalwarts Coach, Michael Kors and Carolina Herrera will all show during the week. Wallpaper* USA 400 members Willy Chavarria and Peter Do, the latter showing his third collection for Helmut Lang, will round out the schedule, alongside rising names Zankov and Diotima. Tommy Hilfiger has also confirmed a spot on the week’s schedule, having initially been absent. He will show his latest collection at 6.30pm on Sunday 16.

London Fashion Week S/S 2025 (12 – 17 September 2024)

Beginning slightly earlier this season to avoid a clash with Milan Fashion Week (which starts this season on September 17), London Fashion Week will continue its 40th birthday celebrations with a packed schedule comprising the usual slew of energetic, emerging labels amid a smattering of more well-established names. Of the latter, Burberry will remain the chief draw for international editors visiting the city – Daniel Lee will show his fourth runway collection for the British label – while JW Anderson will present another agenda-setting collection on Sunday morning, his usual slot.

Other names showing this season are Simone Rocha, Roksanda, Erdem, Ahluwalia and Aaron Esh, alongside a new edition of London-based incubator Fashion East (participants are yet to be announced). Watch out for Derrick – Luke Derrick’s burgeoning London-based label had plenty of buzz last season for its sleek, contemporary riff on men’s tailoring – and Nensi Dojaka, who returns to the schedule after a hiatus. Feben will also return to London, having shown last season with the support of Dolce & Gabbana in Milan. Look out too for the rebirth of Kent & Curwen, with the British label having been purchased by Chinese golf brand Biem.L.Fdlkk Garment in 2023.

London Fashion Week will also have a new home this season, the central Newgen space moving from Old Selfridges Hotel back to 180 Strand.

Milan Fashion Week S/S 2025 (17 – 23 September 2024)

Milan Fashion Week will run a day longer this season, part of a re-jigging of the fashion month schedule led by Camera della Moda, the week’s organising body. ’I’m very satisfied with this synergetic effort by the four main players on the fashion circuit,’ said the organisation’s president Carlo Capasa. ’[We] had for some time been asking for an extension of the Milan Fashion Week, given its calendar of over 200 appointments.’

As such, the week will begin with Fendi on September 17, the Roman house presenting its S/S 2025 collection at 3pm (this time, the show will take place on a Tuesday, as opposed to its usual Wednesday). Elsewhere, expect a continuation of Prada’s ‘fairytale ravescape’ set which it revealed as its menswear show in June (the house’s womenswear sets usually riff on their menswear predecessors ), alongside similarly blockbuster shows from Gucci, Versace, Ferragamo, Dolce & Gabbana and Bottega Veneta.

Absent from this season’s schedule is Tom Ford – after the departure of creative director Peter Hawkings earlier this month – and Giorgio Armani, the latter showing in New York off-schedule in October. Also currently absent are MSGM and Blumarine (David Koma will show his debut as creative director next season), while Central Saint Martins graduate Susan Fang will show with the support of Dolce & Gabbana on Sunday morning.

Paris Fashion Week S/S 2025 (23 September – October 1 2024)

No doubt the biggest moment of Paris Fashion Week will be the arrival of Alessandro Michele at Valentino, who will present his first runway show this September (the ex-Gucci creative director’s first collection for the house, titled ’Avant les Débuts’ was revealed in a surprise lookbook drop this past June). ‘It’s an incredible honour for me to be welcomed at Maison Valentino. I feel the immense joy and the huge responsibility to join a maison de couture that has the word “beauty” carved on a collective story, made of distinctive elegance, refinement and extreme grace,’ said Michele in a statement issued after his appointment in March 2024. He will show on the afternoon of Sunday 29.

A number of other houses – among them Givenchy, Dries Van Noten and Chanel – are currently without creative directors. Givenchy is absent from the schedule (the new creative director will likely debut in February 2025), Dries Van Noten is slated to show on the afternoon of Wednesday 25 (it will be the first show since the eponymous creative director exited in June), and Chanel will retain its usual spot on the morning of Tuesday 1 October. An otherwise busy schedule – as has become the norm for the city – will include shows from Loewe, Louis Vuitton, Rick Owens, Dior, Saint Laurent, Hermès and more. Balenciaga, meanwhile, will show on the evening of Monday 30, shifting from Sunday morning.

In other news, Paris label Coperni will host its S/S 2025 show on October 1, 2024 at the so-called happiest place on earth – Disneyland Paris. Founders Arnaud Vaillant and Sébastien Meyer have said the collection will blend ‘magic with reality, paying tribute to the beloved Walt Disney Animation Studios movies of our childhood’. Meanwhile Ganni, the stalwart of Copenhagen Fashion Week, will shift to Paris this season, following the appointment of Laura du Rusquec, previously of Balenciaga, as CEO this past April.

Stay tuned for more from Women’s Fashion Month S/S 2025.

A freewheeling mood took over this season‘s menswear shows, seeing designers embrace the ‘irrational’ and the eccentric with colourful, experimental collections which in the heat of Florence, Milan and Paris captured summer’s uplifting energy. Indeed, designers from Rick Owens to Rei Kawakubo, Sabato De Sarno to Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons, spoke of a shift towards hope and optimism, albeit tentative. ’I want to hope for some light, even if very small,’ said Kawakubo, while Owens called his hundreds-strong runway cast his ’white satin army of love’. Meanwhile, the looming Paris Olympics – and its message of global unity and personal tenacity – was unavoidable, seeing preparations transform the city as a backdrop to both the menswear and haute couture shows which followed.

After the shift in recent seasons towards quiet, understated luxury – and the undeniably safe collections this often yielded – it felt like a refreshing re-emergence of men’s fashion month, which thanks to blockbuster shows from the likes of Pharrell Williams at Louis Vuitton is shaking off any suggestion of its demise. Here, we unpack the S/S 2025 menswear shows – from ’irrational’ clothing to couture-level craft and eclectic new takes on tailoring.

Nothing was what it seemed

‘Truth and pretence, the real and the unreal.’ So began a Prada collection which saw Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons urge the viewer to look closer, ‘to question the actuality of what we perceive, to reconsider, to look at things closer’. Staged amid a ‘fairytale ravescape’ – whereby models emerged from a vertiginous white cabin, which before the show had been blaring techno music – this was a collection of illusions, from belts that were in-set into trousers to trompe l’oeil Breton striped T-shirts, or trousers which appeared to be made from tailoring wool but were actually printed cotton. Elsewhere, shirts under sweaters or cardigans were constructed as a singular garment. ‘Viewed from afar, pieces can pretend to be other,’ said the designers. ‘Details may seem simplistic, naïve, but up-close, physically, perceptions transform.’ It was disorientating fashion, for disorientating times, where even the appearance of reality is no guarantee (just prior to men’s fashion month, Meta introduced a label for Instagram and Facebook which tagged images that had been ‘made with AI’). And trompe l’oeil would appear throughout the season: at Acne Studios, denim was adorned with plastic chains, stacks of belts or printed rips and tears, while at Loewe, what looked like a cable-knit sweater was actually hand-painted fabric. ‘Things are not what they seem,’ said creative director Jonathan Anderson.

Designers embraced the ‘irrational’

Indeed, earlier in the month in Milan, the Northern Irish designer presented an equally illusory collection for his eponymous label JW Anderson. ‘Irrational clothing’, he described, noting that he was inspired by the free association of hypnotherapy (‘Inhale. Exhale. Are you feeling dreamy? Maybe a little delirious?’ read the accompanying notes). It made for a typically idiosyncratic outing – from enormous knitted house coats to Guinness-adorned knits and protrusions of coloured fabrics – which in part drew its liberated mood from viewing young people at Barcelona’s Primavera Sound festival. ‘The experimentation with clothing among younger generations is incredible,’ he said. ‘The eye has changed within menswear and within womenswear. People want something that is really challenging.’

This desire was echoed across the season, as menswear designers eschewed any notion of ’quiet luxury’. Martine Rose, who showed for the first time in Milan this season, adorned her stomping cast with prosthetic noses and tangled wigs, while at Rick Owens – undoubtedly a highlight of the season – the designer staged a Hollywood epic on the forecourt of Palais de Tokyo. There, his hundreds-strong ‘white satin army of love’ marched out in an arresting array of looks, from monastic hooded gowns and laddered jersey bodysuits to sculptural capes made from tarnished gold Japanese denim (‘megacrust’ is how Owens playfully described the technique). The showstopping spectacle was a celebration of fashion’s liberatory spirit, one which Owens likened to escaping his hometown of Porterville, California and running away to Hollywood. ‘[It was] the boulevard of vice I gleefully ran to to find my people, [the] weirdos and freaks.’

Craft was couture level

At a preview for his latest Dior Men collection – which was inspired by the South African ceramicist Hylton Nel – Kim Jones noted a growing desire from his consumers to have something entirely one-of-a-kind. ’People want something that nobody else has got,’ he said. It was part of the reason he introduced his first dedicated couture collection for men last season and, while his S/S 2025 show in Paris did not have any official couture pieces – he has said he will create a couture collection only once each year – one particular jacket took over 600 hours of hand-embroidery to complete. A similar veneration of craft came at Loewe, where intricate tabard-style tops were crafted from woven metal or delicate shards of shell, an echo of the extraordinary 'caviar' beaded pieces from his A/W 2024 womenswear collection where each of the thousands of tiny beads were embroidered by hand. Equally seductive was the simplicity of Norbert Stumpfl’s latest Brioni collection, shown in the serene gardens of Milan’s 18th-century Palazzo Borromeo d'Adda. There, his ongoing quest for lightness – a signature of his tenure at the Italian house – was formulated in the collection’s fabrications, which spanned featherweight wools, supple perforated leather and airy vicuña knits. Most spectacular, though, was the eveningwear, where one double-breasted dinner jacket was embroidered with 10,000 baguette beads, each one hand-knotted in silk thread.

But there was still a slice of reality, too

If the enthusiasm for ‘quiet luxury’ has tempered in recent months, there nonetheless remained an appetite for the particular pleasure of real clothes – perhaps best epitomised in Paris by Auralee, Ryota Iwai’s Tokyo-based label which celebrates ten years in business this year. In its relative normality – there were no tricks here, just sweaters, jeans, and the like – it was impossibly desirable, the type of collection which makes you want to throw out your entire wardrobe and start again. It is down to Iwai’s exacting but uncomplicated approach, where tactile, meticulously sourced fabrics (Peruvian Alpaca, Mongolian cashmere, New Zealand wool, Indian cotton) meet a sensitive, considered palette (this season: pale green, red, buttercup yellow) which makes it anything but boring. ‘People put a lot of pressure onto their clothing, perhaps hoping to make a huge statement but I’m more interested in how smaller changes can highlight something about the wearer,’ Iwai told Wallpaper* prior to the show.

There is nothing normal about Hermès – and yet, despite Veronique Nichanian’s dedication to painstaking craft and truly luxurious fabrications, her collections end up feeling entirely effortless, and even thrown on. This season, she said she wanted to evoke ’a sweet summer’, and as ever there were plenty of real-world clothes here: breezy Oxford shirts, blouson jackets and bowling-style knits – in a palette of blues and pale pink – would fit into any man’s wardrobe. The same goes for Dries Van Noten, who has made a career of instilling the quotidian with a louche romance. His final show – earlier this year Van Noten announced he would be leaving his namesake label after 38 years – was a celebration of this, presenting a final collection which captured the designer’s distinct eye for colour and tactility. For this, he will be missed. ’This is my 129th show; like the previous ones, it looks ahead. Tonight is many things, but it is not a grand finale,’ he said. ‘Creating is about leaving something that lives on.’

The suit is still ripe for reinvention

Each season, it feels like there is a diktat on the suit: it is double- or single-breasted, narrow or full, cropped at the ankle or pinched at the waist (as such, it often deemed emblematic of the season’s mood). For S/S 2025, though, there was little consensus, except that the suit remains ripe for reinvention, as designers across the board riffed on the garment in differing and distinctive ways. At Loewe, the show opened with razor-sharp black tailoring, evocative of the uniforms of security guards or gallery attendants. ‘This is my own interpretation of precision,’ said the designer, who noted inspiration from the ‘singular’ creative vision of figures like Paul Thek, Peter Hujar and Susan Sontag, whose work populated the show space. But there was illusion at play here, too: the fabric, a woven silk mohair, was designed to hold its shape with an almost-spongey finish. ‘These are things [that] are incredibly difficult to do but that which when you see them it feels effortless,’ he said.

There was experimentation of a different kind at Junya Watanabe, where the Japanese designer’s paean to denim included classic wool tailoring spliced with the fabric for an intriguing hybrid. Meanwhile at fellow Japanese label Comme des Garçons, Rei Kawakubo’s Homme Plus collection contained plenty of tailoring cut in the designer’s cerebral manner, whether sliced-apart tailored jackets adorned with ruffle-like collars, or those out of which flashes of vividly coloured lining emerged. Colours were equally vivid at Issey Miyake Homme Plissé, where double-breasted blazers, waistcoats and ties were crafted from the brand’s signature lightweight knife pleats in crisp shades of green, orange and blue. Entirely crease-resistant, and undeniably easy in their roomy, stretchy silhouettes, they will prove a useful companion next summer. And, for the brave, so too will Gucci’s super-abbreviated tailored short shorts, part of a youthful S/S 2025 collection which creative director Sabato De Sarno said was inspired by the ’freedom, energy [and] community’ of surfing.

Sportswear was given an Olympics boost

Even for the most sports-averse, it was near-impossible to avoid the looming summer of sporting events ahead on menswear’s European tour – whether the Euros (which Emporio Armani hosted screenings of in both Milan and Paris), or the Olympics. The latter, taking place in Paris later this month, felt particularly prescient, not least because Parisian luxury goods conglomerate LVMH is one of the event’s principal sponsors. Unsurprisingly, then, Pharrell Williams evoked the Olympic spirit at his third menswear show at Louis Vuitton, which was held at Maison l’Unesco and made a plea for global unity and community (in fact, if you squinted, you could see the Olympic rings adorning the Eiffel Tower in the distance). ‘[It is] the celebration of human athletic prowess,’ said the designer, who featured several football kits adorned with ‘LVFC’. Meanwhile, at Wales Bonner, the British designer continued her successful collaboration with Adidas Originals, which here featured a shimmering sequinned version of the brand’s Samba sneaker, alongside slouchy basketball shorts and hoodies, striped polos and – most memorably – a pair of three-stripe swim trunks. And at Gucci, Sabato De Sarno’s surfing inspirations made for a collection of sleek, graphic menswear in sporty, luminous tones – including one of the season’s most covetable accessories: sunglasses on fluoro straps, worn like chokers around the neck.

After stops in London, Florence and Milan, Paris Fashion Week Men’s S/S 2025 marked the final destination of this season’s menswear tour, with notable moments including the last collection from Dries Van Noten as creative director of his eponymous label. Presented on Saturday evening (22 June 2024) on Paris’ outskirts, the Belgian designer closed the curtain on 38 years with a runway show which drafted models past and present to celebrate an acclaimed career.

Elsewhere, Rick Owens returned to Palais de Tokyo having shown in his own Paris home last season (on the gallery’s forecourt, he staged his version of a Hollywood epic), while at Loewe, Jonathan Anderson populated the runway with works from Paul Thek, Carlo Scarpa, Peter Hujar, Susan Sontag and Charles Rennie Mackintosh. After the show, Anderson said he was inspired by the singularity of each artist’s vision. Hermès’ Véronique Nichanian, Dior Men’s Kim Jones and Louis Vuitton’s Pharrell Williams also showed their latest collections at the week, the latter making a plea for global unity with a blockbuster show at Maison de l’UNESCO.

Here, Wallpaper* picks the highlights from Paris Men’s Fashion Week S/S 2025.

The best of Paris Fashion Week Men’s S/S 2025

Wooyoungmi

Last season, Madame Woo imagined what Seoul might look like through an outsider’s eye; this season, she was inspired by the concept of the ’ABK’ (‘American Born Korean’), the children of immigrants from South Korea who straddle two cultures. Here, the designer said she was looking at the ABK as a particular archetype, one which ‘[embodies] the wardrobes of American lifestyle… the laid-back cool of California and Hawaii, the sporty prep of the Ivy League, the casual country energy of the Western heartland.’ All these elements were in evidence in the collection – varsity jackets, baseball-style trousers and Wooyoungmi-emblazoned sports tops all appeared – filtered through the brand’s playful, eclectic lens, which is inspired by Seoul street style (looks were layered or clashed elements, from collegiate uniforms and the business suit to surfwear). Elsewhere, homespun elements, like hand-painted calligraphy and ‘bojagi’ shirts – the latter constructed using traditional South Korean knot-tying techniques – made it what Madame Woo described ‘as most artisanal to date… a conversation between the past and the future; the hand-spun and the technological.’

Dries Van Noten

Earlier this year, Belgian designer Dries Van Noten announced that he would be leaving his eponymous label after a nearly four-decade-long career. His final show, held yesterday evening (23 June 2024), saw wellwishers travel to the Parisian suburb of St Denis, where a vast industrial warehouse had been transformed for the show. In the first room, guests – including designers Stephen Jones, Glenn Martens, Ann Demeulemeester and Pierpaolo Piccioli – mingled around a cube-like screen showing highlights from Van Noten’s career, while in the second, a silver-foil runway ran the length of the space. It was there that the designer staged his final outing, drafting models past and present to walk the show, ‘some who have been with us since the earliest shows, like family; their presence marking the passage of time’. These included Hannelore Knuts, Kirsten Owens, Malgosia Bela, Debra Shaw, Malick Bodian and Jonas Gloer, among others.

Indeed, this was a collection, said Van Noten, about time and its effects. The Belgian artist Edith Dekyndt was one of the season‘s inspirations; in her work, everyday objects are transformed by being exposed to water, chemicals or air, a process she often documents on film. Here, Van Noten’s fabrics were purposely lived-in – like softly worn English herringbone, cotton drill and Irish linen – while other pieces were inspired by suminagashi, a Japanese marbling process which dates back a millennia (here, it became flower and leaf motifs across garments). Of the silhouette, he talked about a ‘contemporary elegance’, instilling traditional tailoring with his unique brand of louche romance (the show’s final look was a perfectly cut tuxedo jacket, elongated to the model’s ankles). A series of pieces in candy-wrapper sheer fabrics – in shades of pink, lime green and turquoise – showed his mastery of colour and texture. It ended with a roaring standing ovation as the designer took his bow, before a curtain fell and an enormous disco ball appeared.

‘This is my 129th show; like the previous ones, it looks ahead. Tonight is many things, but it is not a grand finale,’ he said. ‘I love my job, I love doing fashion shows, and sharing fashion with people. Creating is about leaving something that lives on. My sense of this moment is how it is not only mine, but ours, always.’

‘It is not a grand finale’: read our full report of Dries Van Noten’s final show.

Hermès

As Paris’ longest-running creative director – she has been in the role for over three decades and counting – a large part of Véronique Nichanian’s success is her ability to make even the most painstaking feats of craft look entirely effortless. Such was the case with her S/S 2025 collection, shown at Paris’ Palais d'Iéna yesterday afternoon and backdropped by floor-to-ceiling screens depicting gently rippling blue waters. They suggested a transporting mood: via the collection notes, Nichanian spoke of a desire to evoke a ‘a sweet summer… [where] clothing casts reflections into the transparency of water.’ As such, in a largely blue colour palette – enlivened with shots of pink and foiled metallics – Nichanian conjured pieces which were seductively lightweight, from breezy Oxford shirts and patterned blousons, to tank tops, near-sheer tailored jackets and short-sleeved bowling-style knits. Meanwhile, versions of the house‘s L'Instruction du Roy print – taken from one of the house‘s signature carré silk scarves – extended from garments to the models’ skin, via a series of transferable tattoos. Ever-appealing accessories included criss-crossing calfskin sandals, glimmering palladium-finish jewellery, and versions of the house’s roomy Haut à Courroies bag in denim canvas and Togo calfskin, making for perhaps the season’s most desirable travel bag.

Loewe

Jonathan Anderson’s latest outing at Loewe saw the Garde Républicaine showspace temporarily transformed into an art gallery of sorts: dotted around the stark white runway were works by Paul Thek, Carlo Scarpa, Peter Hujar (whose photograph of a high-heeled shoe was the collection’s invite), and Charles Rennie Mackintosh, while a copy of Susan Sontag’s ‘Against Interpretation’ lay open as if in the middle of being read. After the show, Anderson explained each was an artist he admired for their distinct point of view. ‘I like that these people are singular in terms of their vision,’ he said, noting that they led him towards a collection of ‘hypnotic’ precision, led by instinct. ‘It’s about knowing when to pull back, or when to push it,’ he continued. ‘This is my own interpretation of precision.’ Of the Hujar photograph, he said he was thinking about ‘what a collection would be if it was that.’

As such, the collection began with sharply defined black tailoring – evocative, perhaps, of the uniform of an art gallery attendant – though elongated feather headpieces, some gilded, shifted the looks somewhere else. Draped silk tops, which read ‘Loewe’, were meant to evoke the labels in clothing blown up in size, while other pieces looked like one thing but were actually another, like ‘cable knit’ tops and shorts made from hand-painted fabrics (‘things are not what they seem,’ said Anderson). Meanwhile a couture-level use of craft – an echo of the extraordinary beaded garments from his last womenswear collection – informed tabard-style tops, their shimmering surfaces made from pieces of shell or links of metal. Elongated dress shoes were another esoteric play on silhouette from the designer, which he said he extended ‘centimetre by centimetre’ to ‘work out what was enough to make it look believable’. Together, the effect was arresting, beautiful, and – much like Anderson’s winning streak of recent collections at both JW Anderson and Loewe – utterly singular.

Dior Men

The ‘homespun monumentalism’ of South African artist-potter Hylton Nel was the starting point of Kim Jones’ latest collection for Dior. ‘He’s an old friend of mine, I’ve known him maybe 12 years,’ Jones said before the show. ‘I love his work, and I wanted to take that idea of working with an artist and working it through the Dior archive.’ Backdropped by a series of blown-up versions of Nel’s distinctive cat sculptures which lined the runway, Nel’s expressive motifs – whether hand-drawn dogs, birds, flowers or trees – appeared as trinket-like buttons and badges across the collection, or as intarsia knits or embroidery. The colour palette, meanwhile, was inspired by trips to Nel’s art-filled homes in Calitzdorp, South Africa. ‘He’s lived in two houses in the same town for years and years,’ says Jones. ‘[There is] this huge sky. That was what really drew me to the colour palette, the blues and the pinks when you are there at different times of the day.’ Other pieces looked towards the Dior archive – long a source of inspiration for Jones – including an unrealised jacket sketched by Yves Saint Laurent during his tenure at the house; here, it became a white ceramic collar. ‘It a celebration of work and an expression of who somebody is and what they achieve through work,’ said Jones. ‘That legacy and continuity through time.’

Read our interview with Kim Jones on his collaboration with Hylton Nel.

Hed Mayner

Hed Mayner remains one of Paris’ most intriguing designers, creating collections in a distinct vocabulary which is often rooted in a play on proportion. This season, though, the designer spoke about going against ‘his instinct to intricately cut new patterns and cocoon the body in wide shoulders and spacious pants’, choosing instead to focus on the way that fabric – and the way it is treated, whether coated, bonded or layered – can create its own silhouettes when worn on the body. As such, there was a greater focus on texture this season, whether the shine of coated cotton (some forming abstract motifs across enormous T-shirts), fabrics that were purposely creased or distressed, or the sharpness of classic poplins and blue denim. Mayner likened the mix to a ‘Coke can shaken and waiting to burst’, and the grinding soundtrack – at one point diverting to soaring strings – lent the feeling that there was new energy this season. Also revealed was the latest part of an ongoing collaboration with Reebok, featuring a version of the sportswear brand’s Blacktop sneaker in a nostalgic, 1980s-inspired palette the designer said was ‘pitched somewhere between cross training and basketball’.

Junya Watanabe

‘I have used denim and patchwork a lot in my past collections, but this time I tried to go further in my exploration to find new discoveries,’ described Junya Watanabe of his S/S 2025 menswear collection in a typically brief statement issued by the Japanese designer. Titled ‘Dress Up Denim’ and presented on a sharp triangle of red carpet, Watanabe looked this season towards the tropes of eveningwear, beginning with a series of tuxedos constructed from a patchwork of checkered, pinstripe and tartan fabrics (accessorised, Junya-style, with earring-adorned sunglasses and slashes of coloured lipstick). Elsewhere, these same jackets were reimagined in varying shades of denim, worn with ripped and distressed jeans which pooled at the ankle, while the sartorial mood was matched in black-and-white brogues created in collaboration with Tricker’s. Completing the collection was a series of hybrid garments, from a sliced-up wool blazer-cum-denim jacket to band T-shirts – Black Sabbath, AC/DC and Scorpions all featured – inset with billowing baroque silk scarves.

Rick Owens

Rick Owens proved his mastery of spectacle by staging a Hollywood epic on the monolithic forecourt of Paris’ Palais de Tokyo. Amid plumes of smoke, out marched his hundreds-strong ‘white satin army of love’ which comprised old friends, students and underground icons like Allanah Starr. Descending the gallery’s famed staircase and looping around its central body of water, they emerged in groups of the same white outfit – whether featherweight monastic gowns or layers of jersey which appeared torn across its surface – some wielding enormous scaffold-like structures and flags. ‘This season is named “Hollywood” after the boulevard of vice I gleefully ran to,’ said Owens. ‘I always reference the lost Hollywood of pre-colour black-and-white biblical epics, mixing art deco, lurid sin and redeeming morality.’ It marked a departure from the relative intimacy of last season, whereby Owens opened up his Paris home to show the collection. ‘I felt bad about making attendance so restricted, so this time around I wanted to welcome everyone,’ he said. ‘Expressing our individuality is great but sometimes expressing our unity and reliance on each other is a good thing to remember too.’

Homme Plissé Issey Miyake

With a collection titled ‘Up, Up, and Away’, Homme Plissé Issey Miyake was inspired by the wind: ‘the phenomena caused by wind, crafts and designs that react to wind, and forms that embody wind’, the Japanese brand said in a statement. As such, the Vincent de Belleval-designed show set in the courtyard of Paris’ Mobilier National comprised a field of enormous mechanical dandelions, which swung gently from side to side as models wove their way across the space. The inspiration point lent the clothing a feeling of breezy lightness, with silhouettes drawn from kites, parachutes and waves for ‘garments that come to life as soon as the air is in motion’. A series of layered looks in scarf-like checks felt a continuation of the instinctual mood of last season, while satisfying shots of searing yellow, red and soft blue continued Homme Plissé’s near-unparalleled use of colour.

Wales Bonner

‘The idea of being by the water,’ said Grace Wales Bonner of her latest collection, which saw the London-based designer conjure the ‘nighttime vibrance of cities by the sea’ in her usual transporting style. As such, looks teetered between beachside attire – notably, pairs of swim trunks and short shorts, the former part of her ongoing collaboration with Adidas – and an insouciant glamour, here recalled in louche tuxedo tailoring (created alongside Savile Row tailor Anderson & Sheppard), glimmering footwear, and sinuous, body-skimming silhouettes, some adorned with firework-like splashes of beaded embroidery. Other pieces had a nautical air (striped jersey tops, netted detailing, a white blouson jacket and matching shorts), while a greater exploration of print this season – a welcome new layer of richness to the Wales Bonner universe – was inspired by Trinidadian textile artist Althea McNish. Moving to London in 1950, she would become a key member of the Caribbean Artist Movement and a force of midcentury print design, creating motifs for Christian Dior and Liberty. ‘The prints featured in the collection resound with McNish’s creative freedom,’ said Wales Bonner via the collection notes.

Lemaire

Lemaire’s latest show was held at the brand’s headquarters on Paris’ Place des Vosges, the inner sanctum of the label opened up to the world for the first time last season (inside, each collection is conceived and designed). It makes for the perfect vantage point to view Christophe Lemaire and working partner Sarah Linh-Tran’s collections, which are best seen up close. It also speaks to the mood of intimacy the pair capture in their men’s and womenswear collections (both lines featured in the show) which eschew ephemeral trends in favour of creating pieces to accompany the wearer through the coming years, or indeed decades, of their lives. To do so requires an innate understanding of how clothing feels on the body, and how the wrong choices – or even the most minuscule wrong cut or seam – can affect our mood, posture and day. Here, the thematic thread was the clash of the rugged and the delicate, where sinuous and layered looks – some recalling undergarments – met tough cotton drill and leather, or stricter workwear-inspired silhouettes.

Louis Vuitton

Pharrell Williams’ third collection as menswear creative director of Louis Vuitton saw the American multi-hyphenate make a plea for global unity and connection at Paris’ Maison de l'Unesco. On a grass-covered runway that stretched across the building’s rooftop, the show centred around the Erik Reitzel-conceived ‘Symbolic Globe’, which was designed in 1995 to represent the web of worldwide connections that Unesco represents. Here, Williams imagined Louis Vuitton as such a connective force with a collection designed to ‘illustrate the degrees of similarities which bind us across the globe’, defined by the slogan ‘le monde est à vous’ (‘the world is yours’), which appeared on the backs of shirts worn both on the runway and by the event’s staff. The look itself was one of ‘global dandy’, Williams described, taking inspiration from archetypal figures associated with crossing borders, from the pilot to the diplomat. Other pieces looked towards traditional workwear and sportswear, including a football kit emblazoned with ‘LVRS United’ (Williams noted that the game was another unifying force), while the palette was designed to represent a wide gamut of skin tones.

Read our full report of the Pharrell Williams’ S/S 2025 Louis Vuitton men’s show.

Auralee

Despite celebrating its tenth anniversary this year, Tuesday evening (18 June 2024) marked Auralee’s sophomore show in Paris, having debuted on the schedule last season. Founded and designed by Ryota Iwai, it is a sign of the way the Tokyo-based label has steadily amped up its European presence in recent months, introducing a whole new swathe of consumers to Iwai’s sensitive riffs on the quotidian wardrobe, defined by impeccably sourced fabrics, unexpected colour, and a pervasive sense of ease. This season, he imagined his cast of men and women wandering through a verdant park in ‘relaxed, loose’ combinations which spanned plays on officewear to summertime shorts and chinos (after the show the models lined up in the lush gardens of 51 rue de l'Université). Seductive shots of colour ran throughout – pale green, red, buttercup yellow – which met classic blue denim, beige and khaki. In the humid Paris evening, it made for a wardrobe you wanted to take and wear right off the runway.

Read our interview with Ryota Iwai on ten years of Auralee.

Common wisdom says that wearing black in summer is a sartorial no-go, the light-and-heat absorbing hue a recipe for torrid and uncomfortable afternoons in the sun. Though, as the many year-round aficionados of the colour will attest, such is black’s timelessness – it is arguably the shade most synonymous with style and taste – that even when it comes to the summer months, it’s never too hot to wear black.

Taken from the June 2024 The Travel Issue of Wallpaper*, photographer Valentin Hennequin and Wallpaper* fashion and creative director Jason Hughes take a trip to Amanjena – the Moroccan outpost of the Aman hotel group – with Estonian model Katlin Aas and a handful of the S/S 2024 season’s most dramatic looks to make a case for summer blacks.

A case for wearing black in summer

With it, rules for embracing black in the heat of summer: keep layers diaphanous and fluid, like the sinuous line of Rick Owen’s gently ruched asymmetric evening gown, or Givenchy’s floating, sheer organza layers. When it comes to covering up, less is more: look for cutaway silhouettes (like Louis Vuitton’s open-back blouse) and plunging necklines (à la Alexandre Vauthier), or opt for black swimwear, arguably the simplest way to wear black in summer (our choice: a classic black bikini from Chanel). As is a simple black sweater in the lightest of cashmere – like that from Italian knitwear producer Luca Faloni – made for the onset of coolness on a summer evening (or overly air-conditioned hotel rooms and airline cabins).

And, when it comes to the evening, black remains the choice for taking to the resort bar in dramatic style, whether in a richly adorned dress from Prada – its glimmering surface replete with metal eyelets for a chic take on ventilation – or a body-clinging body-suit from British designer Supriya Lele, whose S/S 2024 collection included dissolving mini dresses and swimwear cut in the designer’s gently subversive style. Or, indeed, the sculptural silhouette of a stomach-bearing set from Jacquemus – a French label well-versed in seductive summer style.

Complete the look with bold stacks of bangles, like those from New York designer Alexis Bittar – their oversized and dramatic forms the balm to break up otherwise consuming expanses of black – or Goossens’ choker-like golden chains. And, if all else fails, simply resort to the nearest shade, sunglasses on, and channel your inner femme fatale.

Model: Katlin Aas at Supreme Management. Casting: Ikki Casting at WSM. Hair: Noelia Corral at Blend Management using Kevin Murphy Spain. Make-up: Eny Whitehead at Wise & Talented using Chanel Beauty. Photography assistant: Pietro Lazzaris. Fashion assistant: Lucy Proctor.

A version of this article appears in the June 2024 Travel Issue of Wallpaper*, available in print, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today.

‘HunRod is bold… and versatile,’ says Michèle Lamy of her collaboration with jewellery designer Loree Rodkin. She has built on the striking forms of the first ‘HunRod’ collection to create ‘HunRod Gold’, currently being exhibited at Carpenters Workshop Gallery’s Ladbroke Hall, London.

The rings are intricately drawn pieces of wearable armour, crafted in 18ct yellow and white gold and inspired by the symbols of the zodiac. Drawn from thick and curving forms, they cut sensuous, oversized silhouettes. ‘Our rings had to be this size to accommodate the 12 easts of the Chinese Zodiac,’ Lamy adds. ‘In the Chinese Zodiac, I'm a Monkey, and I am very happy to be because it appeared in the Zhang Guo period more than 2,000 years ago. I'm turning 80 soon, and the Monkey sign is for the clever, creative, and mischievous.’

Zodiac jewellery by Michèle Lamy and Loree Rodkin

Playful and wearable, the jewellery is a tribute to the friendship between Lamy and Rodkin. ‘I’ve known Loree since my first days in LA, over 30 years ago, through her magistral star manager,’ Lamy says. ‘She was also a friend of my restaurants. I looked at her first jewellery pieces and bought them. Years ago in Paris, I developed the concept that became Hunrod and saw her looking at it. I immediately knew it was the time to jump on her and co-design with her, especially with her eye, talent, and fab atelier. I’ve always enjoyed our friendship.’

The resulting jewellery is presented alongside the furniture of Lamy’s partner in art and life Rick Owens, whose pieces makes for a sculptural foil, reflected in the clean lines of ‘The Plug Table Black Plywood’ (2011) and in the patinated bronze of ‘Hunstool Gold’ (2022), itself a tribute to Lamy, referencing her nickname, ‘Hun’.

Says Loïc Le Gaillard, co-founder of Carpenters Workshop Gallery: ‘By displaying the groundbreaking jewellery work of Michèle Lamy alongside Rick Owens’ furniture pieces, the pair’s common language and shared artistic perspective is brought to the fore. This allows their work to be seen in conversation, adding a distinctive layer of artistic synergy to the presentation. This collaboration not only accentuates the avant-garde nature of Lamy’s jewellery and Owens’ furniture, but also creates an immersive experience that brings the viewer into dialogue with the artists.’ 

Carpenters Workshop Jewellery presents ‘HunRod Gold’, in London until 26 April 2024

carpentersworkshopgallery.com

The invitation for Rick Owens’ latest menswear show – at Paris Fashion Week Men’s A/W 2024 – was a loop of jersey fabric, stitched with ‘Porterville’, the collection’s title. It is also the name of the town in which a young Owens grew up, located at the base of California’s Sierra Nevada mountain range. He has credited its vast landscapes for his love of the monumental – as well as being a site of teenage angst and yearning – all elements that continue to pulsate through the designer’s work. ‘I remember the small brutalities of a sensitive childhood in a judgemental country,’ he wrote in a letter released just before the show’s start.

Homecoming: Rick Owens A/W 2024 show

The show’s location – with guests sworn to secrecy in the run-up – was Owens’ current home on Paris’ Place du Palais Bourbon, which he purchased alongside his wife, Michèle Lamy in 2014. Formerly the headquarters of the French Socialist party, he calls it his ‘concrete palace’ and ‘working compound’, where he began selling his collections over two decades ago. Inside, the largely concrete space is populated by sparse, brutalist furnishings reminiscent of the designer’s oeuvre. Other rooms contain the building's historic cornices and mouldings (albeit stripped back to their essence). This morning, guests filtered through these various rooms, taking places on furniture erected around their edges, winter sunlight streaming through the windows and skylights.

It made for a stark departure from Owens’ usual presentations, which take place each season at the vast Palais de Tokyo in Paris, and often on its monumental deco forecourt (last season, the models walked under enormous puffs of coloured smoke). The designer said that the shift came in part as a response to the ‘barbaric times through which we are living’ (recent seasons have seen Owens struggling with creating collections against the backdrop of war), describing the move from spectacle to intimacy as a kind of ‘respectful restraint’.

Indeed, the collection itself had a feeling of intimacy. Vast, shaggy forms wrapped around the body – a warped vision of comfort – while Owens’ architectural puffer jackets were raised high on the neckline as if to suggest protection. Elsewhere, a feeling of softness was echoed in all-in-one ‘space suits’ knitted from soft recycled cashmere, alpaca and merino. Some were worn pulled down to the waist with shimmering tangles of sequins in beautiful branch-like structures, both strange and delicate. Other looks took a darker form, with garments dwarfing the body or crafted from recycled motorcycle tyres by Matisse Di Maggio, a rubber-wear specialist from Paris. 

‘Collection proportions are grotesque and inhuman in a howling reaction to some of the most disappointing human behaviour we will witness in our lifetime,’ said Owens in his description of the collection. ‘There is the eternal utopian hope of someplace better.’

To populate this utopia, Owens established a cast of collaborators which he sees as embodying a new way of living – ‘creatives who live their aesthetic defiantly and completely’. These included Steven from Fecal Matter and Gena Marvin, both known for their dramatic, otherworldly looks (a ‘cheerful depravity’ describes Owens). Both walked the runway, while London-based designer Straytukay worked with the designer on the distinctive inflatable boots that appeared throughout the show. Owens also recreated a DIY version of his signature ‘Kiss’ boot by designer Leo Prothman, which he had discovered while scrolling social media. 

It made for a show about connection and community, about finding solace amid the churn of the world. Because what better feeling of protection is there than coming home? 

rickowens.eu

Paris Fashion Week Men’s A/W 2024 – the closing leg of men’s fashion month, concluded in the French capital this week. Having started with Pharrell Williams’ anticipated sophomore ready-to-wear show for Louis Vuitton – an ode to the American West and its distinctive dress codes – the week continued with Givenchy’s first show since the departure of Matthew M Williams (the collection will be designed by the in-house team), another Paris outing for British designer Grace Wales Bonner, and an intimate show from Rick Owens held at his Paris home. 

Here, the very best of Paris Fashion Week Men’s A/W 2024, as it happened. 

The best of Paris Fashion Week Men’s A/W 2024

Wooyoungmi

The mythic allure of Seoul – as viewed through an outsider’s eye – was the starting point of Wooyoungmi’s latest collection. Youngmi Woo (better known by her moniker, Madame Woo) began the collection with a book by Scottish missionary Alexander Williams from 1870, somewhat surreally titled ‘Knowing About Korea Without Ever Going There’. The designer noted that even now – as Seoul becomes one of the foremost producers of pop culture, particularly music – the city remains ‘an idea: a faraway metropole like no other; a place many know about without ever going there’.

Here, she set about to create her own ’portrait’ of the city’s style, one informed by both reality and perception. Indeed, it was a collection infused with the easy, eclectic mood of the street – she said she wanted it to feel like observing a stream of particularly well-dressed passers-by – from wide-legged washed jeans worn with roomy baseball jackets to colourful rugby and football shirts, and playful riffs on corporate suiting (denim jackets and jeans were worn with shirts and ties for her dressed-up version of the Canadian tuxedo). Strongest, though, was a beautiful array of outerwear – a category that Madame Woo has long been astute at creating – from abbreviated pea coats to elongated styles in heritage fabrics, or blown-up versions of the classic women’s tweed jacket. 

Valentino

Pierpaolo Piccioli has long used colour to conjure a particular mood (memorably, he presented an entire women’s collection in a single shade of pink, dubbed ‘Pink PP’ and granted its own Pantone colour). Here, it was breezy sky blue, which adorned both benches and doors in the ornate salons of Paris’ Monnaie de Paris for the designer’s latest menswear-only show (last season, Valentino returned to the menswear calendar having previously been shown co-ed during womenswear fashion month). The choice hinged on an exploration of contemporary manhood, the colour with which blue is now associated, particularly after the birth of a child. But Piccioli said he was thinking about how colour can be resignified – traditionally, he said, blue was associated with femininity, the shift only happening in this century – hoping to present it here as something fluid, a mood which extended to the clothing itself, seeing archetypal menswear garments, like the traditional Italian suit, cut with a softer line or embellished with moments of decoration recalling the house’s haute couture collections.

Hermès 

Véronique Nichanian’s approach to Hermès menswear is to capture a feeling of pleasure through clothing: an endless search to create garments which please both visually and physically, a balance she has struck in her over-three-decade-long tenure so far. Yesterday’s menswear show provided a gamut of options for the Hermès man come next winter, particularly in the way of outerwear, from a beautiful shearling-lined leather parka to shorter leather peacoats adorned with a collage of utility pockets (in Hermès’ playful parlance, these were pockets that ‘slip and slide’). Elsewhere, a melange of knitwear – some adorned with painterly prints and presented in layers – met riffs on heritage checks, like Prince of Wales plaid, which ran throughout. Typically seductive adornments came in the way of accessories: versions of the house’s roomy Haut à Courroies carry all came in textures of smooth barénia and sombrero calfskin, while a smaller, book-size bag came with utility pockets and was grasped in the hand. A final flourish came in an array of eveningwear, including a tailored jacket and coat in calf hair leather, cut with a narrow, elegant line. 

Loewe 

Los Angeles-based artist Richard Hawkins provided the starting point for Jonathan Anderson’s audacious fall outing for Loewe, set amid a strange cathedral to masculinity where ‘stained-glass window’ screens buzzed with images of the designer’s phalanx of celebrity devotees – from Jamie Dornan and Josh O’Connor to Omar Apollo and Manu Rios. They had filmed themselves on their iPhones, preening their reflection, while around them Hawkins’ dizzying collages flickered, capturing the artist’s fixations, which span Roman statuary, French decadence and contemporary celebrity culture, as well as depictions of masculinity and the male body, which is the through line of his work. At the end of the runway were a series of Hawkins paintings; after the show, Anderson called it the ‘altar’. 

The idea of collage – of ‘collaged realness,’ as Anderson described – ran throughout the collection, which had a mood of irreverence and youth. Enormous leather cargo pants were worn with baseball sneakers and skewiff checkered shirts; sweatpants, elongated sweaters and handbags were adorned with Hawkins’ saturated works; while stacked up layered garments appeared in colourful glimpses from beneath a long overcoat, as if the model was concealing a pile of laundry. An elegant riff on the trench – with a dropped tie waistline – came in leather, while riffs on the pussybow emerged in a melange of textures, alongside fairisle knits. A visual trick, meanwhile, came in a pair of trousers attached to a pair of socks, which were in turn attached to a pair of shoes. ’You're kind of telling someone: this is what you're wearing. You can’t get away from it, it’s like the media,' Anderson described. 

It emerged from the designer’s observation about the way modern life has ‘become a collage’; a never-ending stream of algorithmic images combining like Hawkins’ works, which in some ways predicted the way we consume visual culture today (he has been working on these pieces for over 30 years). ‘I’m looking at this idea of iconography,’ said Anderson. ‘It’s all about different types of validation… how we perceive ourselves to the outside world. It’s a new psychology. What that means in the future, I don’t know – but I think it can be exciting.’

Comme des Garçons Homme Plus

There was a striking simplicity to Rei Kawakubo’s latest menswear outing, which largely eschewed the more unconventional silhouettes of the Japanese brand’s womenswear collections towards what was at its essence a studying in tailoring (albeit in the designer’s idiosyncratic, imporvisational style). Largely in shades of white, cream and ecru – ‘white is symbolic of prayer,’ was all Kawakubo offered in her typically enigmatic press notes – tailored jackets were nipped tightly across the chest (some with double lapels, or sliced away in sections), while trousers had a generous volume, ballooning just above the ankles (other jackets were worn with wide, elongated shorts or pleated kilts). Embellishment came in the form of rows of stitched-on white buttons or glimpses of sequins revealed beneath blazers and knits, while the final flourish came from playful headpieces by Gary Card, made from wrapped up garments from Comme Des Garçons ubiquitous ‘Play’ line. 

Dior Men

The invitation for Kim Jones’ latest Dior show featured a photograph of Soviet-born ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev, who in a much-mythologised grasp for freedom defected to the West on a 1961 trip to Paris. It was taken by Jones’ uncle, a photographer and former ballet dancer who had struck a friendship with Nureyev and documented his life in the West in a series of images which for the show had been collated by his nephew in a book left on attendees’ seats. ‘Nureyev is entwined with my personal history because of my uncle,’ explained Jones. ‘I had been thinking about the relationship between the ballet dancer Margot Fonteyn and Monsieur Dior. The masculine interpretation of this involved thinking about her most famous dance partner, Nureyev.’

The heady liberation which Nureyev has come to epitomise (the famous Daily Express headline the day after his defection ran ‘Dance to Freedom’) inspired one of Jones’s strongest outings for the house yet. Divided into ready-to-wear and couture – the latter twenty looks were a demonstration of the extraordinary abilities of the Dior atelier – the collection moved from rehearsal room to stage (fittingly, the show was presented in the round to the booming sounds of ‘Dance of the Knights’ from Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet ballet score, as reinterpreted by Max Richter). ‘The collection – or rather collections, are about contrast: the contrasts in the house of Dior in terms of ready-to-wear and haute couture,’ explained Jones. ‘It’s the difference between onstage and backstage; the life of Nureyev theatrically and in reality. Here it is a meeting of the dancer’s style with that of the Dior archive.’

So there were twisting turbans by Stephen Jones evoking those worn by Nureyev in the dance studio (other models had their hair scraped back with thick black bands), wide tailored shorts worn with white socks and a masculine riff on the ballet pump, or a series of lightweight zip-up ribbed knits which plunged low on the neckline like ballet cardigans. Tailoring, meanwhile, had a feeling of lightness and fluidity, gently flared and based on archival pieces from Yves Saint Laurent’s tenure at the house. The final flourish of couture looks – which at the end were heralded by being raised high on a rotating platform as if models were dancers in a music box– were perhaps Jones’ most theatrical expressions yet, from an extraordinary beaded white tabard with a thick collar of pearls (worn here with white tights and ballet pumps decorated with the house’s cannage motif) to a kimono-style cape, based on a style Nureyev wore throughout his life, which took three people a staggering ten months to complete.

Paul Smith

Paul Smith noted that this latest collection was a demonstration of the motto that you have to know the rules in order to break them. His career has been defined by the dictum, whereby a deep-rooted knowledge and respect for British tailoring has been enlivened and reinterpreted through the designer’s witty, eclectic use of colour and print. This dichotomy was on full display in this latest collection, which combined hallmarks of British style – WW2 rider jackets, classic overcoats, padded gilets – with modernist-inspired colours, prints and motifs, including a ‘Photogram’ print inspired by Man Ray’s hazy ‘Rayograph’ images, ‘a trailblazing technique which stood as its own rebellion against the restrictive norms of the day,’ as Smith described. Colours, meanwhile, spanned deep purples, navies and browns, with flashes of lime green and ochre, while Smith’s vividly hued ‘Signature Stripe’ motif appeared across layered cardigans and knit sweaters.

Junya Watanabe MAN

A multi-generational cast appeared in Junya Watanabe’s latest collection, which was titled ‘Reconstructed Suiting’. ‘I wish for men of different generations to wear these suits,’ was all that Watanabe offered in way of description, though there was certainly a mood of the quotidien to the outing, which largely played on hallmarks of men’s style – from tailoring to denim jeans, striped shirts and hoodies. A sense of hybridity ran throughout the individual garments: a tailored jacket, for example, was extended into a coat with the addition of a panel evocative of a classic trench, while others were overlaid with panels of chinos or jeans. Coats, which were held onto the body with a panel across the chest, and worn with classic pinstripe pants, heralded a shift towards simplicity, though Watanabe’s more distinct hallmarks – namely patchwork – continued to appear throughout. And, despite the mood of reduction, Watanabe’s desire for collaboration does not seem to abate; here, versions of (among others) Brooks Brothers, Palace and Carharrt’s own signature styles were reassessed with the Japanese designer’s distinct, disruptive eye. 

Homme Plissé Issey Miyake

Homme Plissé Issey Miyake’s latest collection was born from a collaboration with the polymathic French artist and designer Ronan Bouroullec. Here, the design team looked towards his drawings – colourful abstract forms which he draws each morning using a Japanese felt tip brush – which in the collection were used as adornment across the brand’s pleated separates, or informing its freewheeling mood, which this season had an improvisational air (a series of colourful scarves, for example, were draped around the model's bodies to recall Bouroullec’s work). 

As such, the collection was titled ‘Immersed in the Wilds of Creativity’ and was an attempt to explore the translation of creative materials (here, Bouroullec’s oeuvre) into clothing. It made for a liberated mood, seeing beautifully layered silhouettes – many of which had the feeling of having been wrapped or loosely twisted around the body – meet moments of artistic flourish, such as a trio of models who carried cushions decorated with motifs reminiscent of Bouroullec’s work in their hands. 

Amiri

A suitably dramatic set – enormous velvet curtains, an expanse of monogrammed carpet – provided the backdrop for Mike Amiri’s latest collection, which the American designer described as an ode to the Hollywood epic. Inspired by the nostalgic glamour of his home town of Los Angeles, louche tailoring was a focus – whether elongated satin blazers, jacquard evening jackets, or suiting with a loose, pyjama cut – which was inspired at once by Old Hollywood dress codes and the undone glamour of the 1990s. Befitting the inspiration, the shimmer of crystals ran throughout the expansive collection, whether as stacked-up brooches adorning the lapels of jackets or twinkling across undone shirts and beanie hats.

Rick Owens

Rick Owens opened the door to his Parisian home on Paris’ Place du Palais Bourbon to host his latest menswear show, titled ’Porterville’ (a reference to the Californian city where the designer was born and grew up). Held amid the vast concrete rooms, sparsely decorated with Owens’ monolithic furniture, he chose the intimate location – a stark opposition to his usual shows held on the forecourt of the Palais de Tokyo – as a sign of ‘respectful restraint’ in response to world turbulence (recent seasons have seen him grappling with creation during times of war and crisis). 

Here, the balm was community; Owens invited Steven from Fecal Matter and Gena Marvin – both known for their strange, otherworldly looks – to walk the runway, while collaborating with London-based designer Straytukay on inflatable footwear, and rubber-wear specialist Matisse Di Maggio on pieces crafted from recycled tyres. A mood of envelopment and solace ran throughout; enormous shaggy forms wrapped around the body in a suggestion of protection, while knitted all-in-ones were crafted in soft alpaca, cashmere and merino.

Wales Bonner

British designer Grace Wales Bonner has long riffed on the hallmarks of American collegiate style in her oeuvre. She returned to them this season, with a typically poetic show held in Paris’ Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers. Howard University, a storied Black institution in Washington DC (alumni include Zora Neale Hurston and Toni Morrison), was at the collection’s centre: ‘a celebration of [its] shining lineage’, ‘where depictions of homecoming resound: hip-hop performances, readings from the poets, international gatherings on the green’. In this spirit, a live performance came from musician Yasiin Bey.

The collection itself clashed the college uniform – from Howard Crew-adorned sweaters to monogrammed varsity and baseball jackets – with moments of elegance and craft, from crocheted mirrors across tailoring (created by hand in India) to beads, pearls and amethysts adorning jewellery and brooches, which suggested a ceremonial flourish. Ceremonial too was a beautiful black tuxedo – perhaps recalling the moment of graduation – which the designer created alongside Savile Row tailors Anderson and Sheppard. The mood of refinement continued to her latest Adidas Originals collaboration, which comprised miniature handbags and versions of the Superstar sneaker in crocodile-embossed leather.

Givenchy

The house’s historic haute couture salon in Hôtel de Caraman on Paris’ Avenue Georges provided the setting for Givenchy’s first runway show since the departure of American designer Matthew M Williams late last year. Befitting the location – in which Hubert de Givenchy worked for 36 years – the show transpired like a traditional salon presentation, with guests sitting around tables in the space’s various white-walled rooms (madeleines, truffle sandwiches and champagne completed the mood of refinement). Designed this season by an in-house team (the new creative director is yet to be announced), the press notes said the collection began with a consideration of ‘gentlemanliness’ inspired by Mr Givenchy and his dress codes: ‘the duality of his public and personal wardrobes: a sartorial formality energised by an inimitable off-duty sense for nonchalance, flamboyance and seduction’.

It made for an eclectic offering. There were cat-adorned vest tops and fronds of synthetic hair, which crept out from under tailored jackets or adorned dramatic overcoats, ladylike silk headscarves (based on a style from the archive), louche, unbuttoned silk scarves, layers of knitwear, and sculptural hats. Tailoring, of course, ran throughout, in various iterations – some sliced away along the sleeves, others playing on classic eveningwear – though it was largely double-breasted and narrow in silhouette. At the end of the show, no one came out to take the final bow. Who will do so come next season remains to be seen.

Lemaire

Lemaire’s latest show was staged in the brand’s airy, white-walled headquarters in Paris’ Place des Vosges. Warm herbal cocktails were served in the covered courtyard before the show – a balm to the day’s cold, drizzly weather – adding to the intimate feel of the presentation, which suggested an invitation into the brand’s serene inner sanctum. As such, the clothing itself, which largely evolves season on season rather than any more dramatic shifts, continued to hone the brand’s signature look, one of discreet, uncomplicated elegance (one already underscored by the staff at the show, chicly dressed in varying tones of Lemaire ecru and off-white). 

Christophe Lemaire, who runs the eponymous label with Sarah-Linh Tran, noted that he felt like now was the right time to invite people into this space, which comprises the brand’s entire operation, including the atelier and workshop. As such, they talked about the collection as capturing the solace of home: enveloping, layered looks which took their cue from dance attire in the way pieces caressed the body like ‘a second skin’. Others subverted the domestic for wear out of doors, like elegant ‘in-and-out pyjamas’ or outerwear which recalled the proportions of a bathrobe. 

Louis Vuitton

It was out to Paris’ Bois de Boulogne for Pharrell Williams’ sophomore ready-to-wear show for Louis Vuitton. This follows his debut last summer in Paris, and a subsequent pre-fall collection, where the designer had erected an enormous box in the shadow of Frank Gehry’s sweeping Fondation Louis Vuitton. Inside the A/W 2024 show venue, vast projections lined the walls depicting the rocky plains of the United States, providing a hint of what was to come (the invitation, an LV-branded cowboy hat and an engraved harmonica, provided another). Here was Williams’ ode to that most American of archetypes: the cowboy, albeit filtered through the Parisian sensibilities of Louis Vuitton (‘Paris to VA’, in reference to his home state, is a continuing motif in his tenure so far). So, there were denim chaps and cowboy hats, Western-style shirts with frilled yolks and pearl-and-sequin adornment, and riffs on workwear, from a tailored take on the traditional double-kneed carpenter’s pant to a footwear collaboration with Timberland. Requisite cowboy hats completed the look, while enormous gilded Louis Vuitton trunks were wheeled along the runway on wooden frontier carriages.

Before the show, Williams noted that part of the reason for this collection was to provide a more expansive vision of the cowboy trope (Black and Native American cowboys were among some of the first cowboys in the United States, though they have been largely excluded from contemporary depictions of the era). As such, the collection contained a ’creative exchange’ with artists from the Dakota and Lakota nations, who assisted with Williams’ vision for the collection, including a version of the house’s ’Speedy’ bag, which was embroidered with a Dakota Flower motif, or ’Keepalls’ which featured designs reminiscent to those found on ‘parfleche’, stretched buffalo hides which were historically decorated by Native American communities. To close the show, powwow group Native Voices of Resistance – clad in designs conceived by Dee Jay Two Bears of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe – performed as a gentle flurry of snow fell from the ceiling, the projected desert on the walls now dusted white. It made for a show that spoke of Williams’ vast, energetic vision for Louis Vuitton – all that was left to wonder is where the designer will take his odyssey next.

Stay tuned for more from Paris Fashion Week Men’s A/W 2024

Join us as we take a flick through the fashion books currently taking pride of place on the Wallpaper* style desk – from visually enticing monographs and photographic tomes to limited-edition titles, they will act as elegant accompaniments to the coffee table or bookshelf of any style savant.

Here, selected by the Wallpaper* style team, a comprehensive guide to the best fashion books – including a lush new tome on the work of Irish designer Simone Rocha, an exploration of how directors dress from indie film producers A24 and a rare monograph from seminal designer Jil Sander.

The best fashion books for style savants

‘Jil Sander by Jil Sander’ (Prestel, 2024)

Seminal German designer Jil Sander’s new monograph, ‘Jil Sander by Jil Sander’, sees her consider an influential career with a kaleidoscopic visual journey through her collections. Hoping to evoke the energy of a runway show, the colourful images are curated alongside designer Irma Boom. ‘The mood of the book is true to the frenzy which overtook us every time we prepared a show,’ she told Wallpaper* in a rare conversation. ‘I knew that I didn’t want to achieve a classic coffee table book, so it was trial and error until we got there. The book packages all the shows into one.’ Read more.

‘Jil Sander by Jil Sander’, published by Prestel, is available from waterstones.com and barnesandnoble.com.

‘Loro Piana: Master of Fibres’ (Assouline, 2024)

Celebrating 100 years in business, Loro Piana’s luxurious new tome, ‘Loro Piana: Master of Fibres’, is a ‘story of excellence, savoir-faire, and passion for the extraordinary, passed down for six generations,’ according to author Nick Foulkes. Recounting the history of the Italian house, which is best known for its work in the so-called ‘noble fibres’ of cashmere, alpaca and vicuña, it takes readers on a journey through the family’s early years as wool traders, all the way to its status as the luxury mega-brand it is today. Part of Assouline’s ‘ultimate’ collection, it is housed in a case covered in Loro Piana Tela Sergio fabric and is entirely hand-bound.

‘Loro Piana: Master of Fibres’, published by Prestel, is available from assouline.com.

‘Simone Rocha’ (Rizzoli, 2024)

A new Rizzoli-published book explores the work of Irish designer Simone Rocha, who since graduating from Central Saint Martins in 2010 has become one of London fashion’s most celebrated designers for her romantic, folklore-infused collections which straddle the sweet and the subversive. The lush tome – which draws on Rocha’s publishing expertise, having released numerous zines over the last decade – features an expansive catalogue of imagery, alongside contributions from figures including artist Cindy Sherman, photographer Petra Collins and the critic Tim Blanks. It also pays ode to two eternal influences to Rocha: the artist Louise Bourgeois, and Japanese designer Rei Kawakubo.

‘Simone Rocha’, published by Rizzoli, is available from waterstones.com and barnesandnoble.com.

‘O lovely one, girl that fell from a star’ (Dover Street Market)

Róisín Pierce calls her art book ‘O lovely one, girl that fell from a star’ a ‘love note to femininity, creativity, craft, and motherhood in its myriad forms’ – much like the Irish designer’s collections, which weave ancient Irish craft with a romantic vision of womanhood. Comprising a series of images photographed for the project by Jody Rogac of figures like Serena Motola, Frances von Hofmannsthal, Sinead O’Brien and the designer’s mother, Angie Pierce, the all-white ‘pocket book’ (‘a keepsake, a token’) also features interviews and poetry. ‘Imparting their wisdom throughout, their thoughts and views are allowed to flourish, unfiltered,’ says Pierce of the subjects. ‘Among the pages, they invoke the romantic nostalgia of the Gardenia, the sweetness of living in harmony with an uninvited mouse, the joy of being a voice in a choir, and the hope in resistance and revolt. There is no formula to femininity, and this book welcomes its abundance.’

‘O lovely one, girl that fell from a star’ is available exclusively at Dover Street Market Paris (doverstreetmarketparis.com).

‘How Directors Dress’ (A24, 2024)

Indie film production agency A24 adds to its burgeoning imprint with ‘How Directors Dress’, an exploration of the working uniforms of film’s best-known auteurs, from Sofia Coppola to Spike Lee. Comprising a series of essays – contributors include Hagop Kourounian (aka @directorfits), Rachel Tashjian, Lynn Yaeger and more – alongside archival imagery, A24 promise to use clothing ‘to tell exciting new stories about directors, their lives, their movies, and the times in which they were made’. The 256-page book also features a foreword from director Joanna Hogg, and an afterword from legendary Japanese designer Yohji Yamamoto.

‘How Director’s Dress’, published by A24, is available from shop.a24films.com.

‘Norbert Schoerner Prada Archive: 1998-2002’ (IDEA Books, 2024)

A new book published by IDEA, ‘Prada Archive 1998-2002’, documents the campaigns photographed for the Italian fashion house by German image-maker Norbert Schoerner. ‘I hear all the time, from art director friends, that [these are] the campaigns they see most frequently on moodboards,’ Schoerner told Wallpaper*, speaking on the legacy of his work with Prada. ‘It's a great compliment, to have had that sort of impact on photography, but by no means could we have anticipated that 20 years later [the campaigns] would have such a ubiquitous presence in visual culture.’ Art directed by Jonny Lu, Schoerner’s clean, hyper-real imagery is collated in the book, featuring era-defining models Angela Lindvall, Freddy Drabble, Mateo Renoir and David Annand. Read more.

Norbert Schoerner: Prada 1998–2002’s first run of 750 copies have sold out, though the book will be distributed to global retailers in the coming weeks. You can sign up at the IDEA Books website to be notified when new copies are available.

ideanow.online

Born in Oasi Zegna: The Book (Rizzoli, 2024)

‘Born in Oasi Zegna’ celebrates the history of the Italian house, tracing its roots back to the Biella Alps in Piedmont, northern Italy where Ermenegildo Zegna opened his first wool mill in 1910. Now designated a natural territory, the locale marks not only the birthplace of Zegna, but also a symbol of its ongoing dedication to the natural world: since the mill’s opening, Ermenegildo would begin planting conifer trees to foster the area’s ecosystem, which now number over 500,000. Combining archival imagery and contemporary illustrations, the book combines dramatic images of the Oasi Zegna landscapes with archival imagery from the house, alongside illustrations by Paolo Bacilieri, Cecilia Carlstedt and Giuseppe Ragazzini. Accompanying texts, meanwhile, are contributed by Italian journalist Chidozie Obasi. Read more.

’Born in Oasi Zegna: The Book’, with texts by Chidozie Obasi, is available now from zegna.com.

Dior Scarves: Fashion Stories (Thames & Hudson, 2024)

’Dior Scarves: Fashion Stories’ grants a closer look at one of the French house’s defining accessories, the silk scarf. A fascination of Christian Dior which has been adopted by the various designers who have helmed the house in the decades since – most recently, current womenswear creative director Maria Grazia Chiuri – the Maria Luisa Frisa-edited tome provides an ’atlas’ of memorable Dior scarves, organised thematically. These include ‘Paris’, ’Optical Effects’ and ’Cosmogonies’, among others, with accompanying photographs by Brigitte Niedermair. The result, says Dior, is ’an enchanting portfolio... a pluralistic odyssey’.

’Dior Scarves: Fashion Stories’, edited by Maria Luisa Frisa, is available now from Waterstones and Barnes & Noble.

Grace Wales Bonner: Dream in the Rhythm (MoMA, 2024)

Last November (2023), British fashion designer Grace Wales Bonner was the latest participant in MoMA’s ‘Artist’s Choice’ series, which drafts an eclectic raft of creatives to curate an exhibition of their choice at the New York museum. Wales Bonner’s was titled ’Spirit Movers’, and comprised works which centre on sound, movement, performance and style ’in the African diaspora and beyond’. An accompanying book, published by MoMA, is titled ’Dream in the Rhythm’ and is deemed by Wales Bonner ’an archive of soulful expression’.

‘In this exhibition, ”Spirit Movers”, I was thinking a lot about what becomes embedded into artworks and materials,’ Wales Bonner told Wallpaper* when the exhibition opened. ‘I was thinking a lot about materials that have some kind of past life or the passing of time being evident in artworks. One of the things that has always been fascinating to me is how sound can be captured through different forms.’

‘Grace Wales Bonner: Dream in the Rhythm’, published by MoMA, is available from Waterstones and MoMA Design Store.

Fila: Timelapse (Rizzoli, 2024)

Fila: Timelapse, published by Rizzoli, provides an unorthodox, genre- and era-traversing history of the Italian sportswear brand and its enduring influence. Dreamt up by Italian journalist and fashion critic Angelo Flaccavento, the aim of the intriguing tome is to ’tunnel both past and present into a single, forward-looking vision’ including archival imagery of figures like Björn Borg – the tennis player would put Fila on the map – alongside essays, fiction and poetry from contributors including Charlie Fox, Silvia Calderoni, Jeph Burton, Rahim Attarzadeh and artists Karl Holmqvist and HB Hoyo. A foreword, meanwhile, comes courtesy of Fendi menswear and accessories creative director Silvia Venturini Fendi. Read more.

’Fila: Timelapse’, conceived by Angelo Flaccavento, is available to pre-order from Waterstones and Barnes & Noble (out 30 April, 2024).

Issey Miyake: 1960 to 2022 (Taschen, 2024)

Conceived by Midori Kitamura, one of Issey Miyake’s longtime associates, a new Taschen-published book provides a comprehensive guide to the Japanese designer’s innovative and imaginative collections. Visually rich, the book collates the most important moments from across the late designer’s expansive career. including the development of his signature polyester micro-pleats (which would later become Pleats Please Issey Miyake) alongside collaborations with photographers from Yuriko Takagi to Irving Penn. ‘Miyake liked to convey his ideas visually, so we used that framework as our starting point,’ Kitamura told Wallpaper*. ‘Miyake left us with a clear roadmap to follow, going forward. We have and will always carry this map in our pockets as we move forward, always carrying his dreams and his vision into the future.’ Read more.

‘Issey Miyake: 1960 to 2022’, initiated and conceived by Midori Kitamura, is available now Waterstones and Barnes & Noble.

Karl Lagerfeld: A Life in Houses (Thames & Hudson, 2024)

A new book, Karl Lagerfeld: A Life in Houses (Thames & Hudson), offers an unprecedented glimpse into the dramatic residences of the iconoclastic German fashion designer, best known for his tenures are Chloé, Fendi, and, of course, Chanel. The glossy coffee-table tome features a photographic portfolio of the various homes, from a gleaming Memphis-filled apartment in Monaco to 51 rue de l’Université in Paris, an opulent 18th-century hôtel particular he called home for several decades. Among it all, an extraordinary array of objets and art, a reflection of the eclectic inspirations behind his prolific career in fashion. Read more.

‘Karl Lagerfeld: A Life in Houses’, with text by Patrick Mauriès and Marie Kalt, is available now from Waterstones and Barnes & Noble.

Gabrielle Chanel (V&A Publishing, 2024)

Gabrielle ’Coco’ Chanel is the subject of an expansive new book published by the V&A to coincide with its blockbuster exhibition on the influential French couturier, Gabrielle Chanel. Fashion Manifesto, which opened last September (until 26 February 2024). Titled, simply, ’Gabrielle Chanel’, the book spans her six-decade long career and pays particular focus to the garments themselves, which would mark a liberated new era for women’s fashion.

‘It’s about chic, simple clothing, looking at movement and the body,’ Oriole Cullen, who co-edited the book alongside curating the exhibition, told Wallpaper*. ’These elements she creates – the jersey, the little black dress, the suit – these are the things she comes back to time and again and refines them.’

‘Gabrielle Chanel’, edited by Oriole Cullen and Connie Karol Burks, is available now from Waterstones and Barnes & Noble.

Givenchy Catwalk: The Complete Collections (Thames & Hudson, 2023)

Thames & Hudson’s ‘Catwalk’ series was made for the style enthusiast: each edition turns its lens on a fashion house or designer and documents their entire runway oeuvre, from Prada to Versace. The latest addition is Givenchy, which explores not only house founder Hubert de Givenchy’s tenure – defined by a demure Parisian elegance encapsulated by his seminal gowns for Audrey Hepburn – but those who followed at the house, including John Galliano, Alexander McQueen, Riccardo Tisci and Clare Waight Keller, alongside Matthew M Williams, who exited Givenchy in 2023. ‘In all its purity, I think Hubert created one of the most complex legacies in fashion, because it reaches far beyond dressmaking,’ explained Anders Christian Madsen, who co-authored the book, to Wallpaper*. ‘It’s synonymous with sophistication and good taste, and those ideas are hard to mess with.’ Read more.

Givenchy Catwalk: The Complete Collections, featuring texts by Alexandre Samson and Anders Christian Madsen, is available at Waterstonesand Barnes & Noble.

Yves Saint Laurent: Gold (Abrams, 2023)

The couturier Yves Saint Laurent was well-known for his bold, expressive use of colour, which included gold, a hue he called ’magical’. ’When reflecting a woman, it’s the colour of the sun,’ he once said. This magpie-like fascination is explored in Yves Saint Laurent: Gold, which provides the accompaniment to the exhibition ‘Gold, les ors d’Yves Saint Laurent’, which took place at Musée Yves Saint Laurent Paris in late 2022. It holds up as a standalone book, though, featuring suitably glamourous imagery starring a phalanx of Saint Laurent muses, from Catherine Deneuve to Zizi Jeanmaire.

Yves Saint Laurent: Gold, featuring texts by Yvane Jacob and Elsa Janssen, is available at Waterstones and Barnes & Noble.

Shoes A-Z, the Manolo Blahnik Edition (Taschen, 2023)

Shoes A-Z, which explores the enormous archive of footwear at The Museum at FIT in New York City, has long been one of been of fashion’s most comprehensive tomes on the history of the accessory. A new edition of the landmark book – which features designs from Ferragamo, Saint Laurent, Vivienne Westwood and many more – comes complete with three prints by perhaps fashion’s best-known shoemaker, Manolo Blahnik. The limited-edition version – no doubt a collector’s item in the years to come – is completed with a ribbon-fastened portfolio to store the Fabriano prints, providing the perfect gift for any shoe aficionado.

Shoes A-Z. The Collection of The Museum at FIT. Manolo Blahník Edition, an edition of 1000, is available from Taschen.

Christian Dior, Christian Bérard. Joyful Melancholy (Gallimard, 2023)

‘Christian Dior, Christian Bérard. Joyful Melancholy,’ is a Gallimard-published book – created in association with Dior – which charts the couturier and painter’s lives in a unique joint biography. First meeting in the 1920s, the ‘designer of dreams’ Christian Dior and ‘painter of despair’ Christian Bérard became close friends and collaborators despite their contrasting personalities and approaches, with Bérard going on to decorate Dior’s first boutique, Colifichets, on Avenue Montaigne (the design included toile de Jouy motifs, now a house emblem). Alongside images by Richard Avedon, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Doisneau, Lee Miller, and Irving Penn, as well as pictures of archival documents and objects, the book is a richly crafted narrative about the pair’s unique relationship. ‘All of Dior is in Bérard, all of Bérard is in Dior,’ says author Laurence Benaïm. ‘This book is not a two-headed biography – it is a meandering in the heart of a history haunted by dreams, affinities, and secrets sewn in the lining of vanishing time.’

Christian Dior, Christian Bérard. Joyful Melancholy, by Laurence Bénaïm, is available now from Waterstone’sand Barnes and Noble.

Thom Browne (Phaidon, 2023)

Thom Browne’s first monograph is released to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the American designer’s eponymous label, featuring both original imagery of archival looks as well as explorations of Browne’s theatrical runway shows. Photographer Johnny Dufort has collaborated on the project, while Andrew Bolton – head curator of the Anna Wintour Costume Center at the Metropolitan Museum of Art – curates the various looks and provides the book’s introduction. The book is a design object in itself: enclosed in a clamshell box, the Irma Boom-designed tome features Browne’s grosgrain striped ribbon as a bookmark. ‘This is a must-have for any Thom Browne fan,’ says Phaidon. Read more.

Thom Browne: The 20th Anniversary Book, by Andrew Bolton and Thom Browne, is available from Waterstones and Barnes & Noble.

Chopova Lowena: Conversations with Angels (2023) 

Emma Chopova and Laura Lowena – the designers behind London-based fashion label Chopova Lowena – release their third book this July, titled ‘Conversations with Angels’ and starring actress Chloë Sevigny. In it, Sevigny stars as a version of the Snow Queen from the Danish fairytale (here reimagined by poet Precious Okoyomo), one of Lowena’s favourite stories as a child, while the pair’s A/W 2023 collection, inspired by 70s skiwear, appears throughout the Charlotte Wales-shot book. ‘We love creating books because it gives us a chance to completely express our vision in such a meaningful way,’ say Chopova and Lowena. ‘This one was such a special one, working with our long-time collaborator Charlotte Wales and the incredible Chloë Sevigny. It was so exciting to work with Chloë on Conversations with Angels, we are huge fans of her work and it was a dream to work with her.’

Limited edition.

Dior by Raf Simons (Assouline, 2023)

Published by Assouline, a new tome celebrates Raf Simons’ acclaimed tenure at Dior, where he was creative director from 2012 to 2015. Part of a six-part series exploring the Parisian house’s various artistic directors, the book documents Simons’ ‘infinitely contemporary purity’ which married the house’s heritage with a subversive modernity which has defined the Belgian designer’s work since the founding of his eponymous label in 1995. It also explores the passions that Simons shares with Christian Dior – architecture, art and gardens among them – and features ‘dress portraits’ by Laziz Hamani and texts from fashion journalist Tim Blanks.

Dior by Raf Simons, by Tim Blanks, is available from dior.com

Burberry (Assouline, 2023)

Burberry entered a new chapter last month when Yorkshire-born designer Daniel Lee began his tenure at the brand with a debut collection that drew inspiration from eclectic British dress codes (‘you walk down the street and you’re surrounded by people from so many walks of life, all living together,’ he said after the show at London Fashion Week). He also looked towards the British institution’s roots in functionality – Burberry was founded in 1856 to create clothing which would protect its wearer from the country’s unpredictable weather – a heritage which is celebrated with the publication of new book ‘Burberry’ (Assouline). Across five chapters, fashion critic Alexander Fury charts Burberry’s 165-year history for an exploration of ‘innovation, adventure and Britishness’ alongside 200 illustrations. Says Carly Eck, Burberry brand curator, archive: ‘This book, the only one to be endorsed by the brand in recent times, presents a panorama of the company’s extraordinary heritage, which deserves to be widely celebrated. It’s the stuff of legends.’

Burberry, by Alexander Fury, is available from burberry.com.

Macro (Jil Sander, 2023)

The latest in a series of books created by Lucie and Luke Meier in collaboration with international artists and photographers, ‘Macro’ sees the designers unite with Chris Rhodes who captures the brand’s A/W 2022 collection in a number of still-life images. A long-time collaborator, Rhodes reveals the unseen details of the Meiers’ collections – the aluminium heel of a black pump, lapis lazuli stones in a silver necklace, a heart-shaped ornament on a handbag – in the intimate images. ‘Macro is the testimony of a journey, of an idea that adds a different dimension to the purpose of Lucie and Luke Meier’s work,’ say the brand, ‘a suggestion on how design can be unconventionally perceived and displayed’.

Limited edition.

Chloé Catwalk (Thames and Hudson, 2022)

Coinciding with the house’s 70th anniversary, a new Thames & Hudson-published book provides a comprehensive history of Chloé and those who have shaped it – from founder Gaby Aghion to a young Karl Lagerfeld, and the slew of influential female designers who have helmed the house in the years since, among them Martine Sitbon, Phoebe Philo, Stella McCartney and current creative director Gabriela Hearst. Collating over 130 collections and 1,100 looks, ‘Chloé Catwalk’ provides a vivid portrait of the pioneering house that has sought ‘modernity, ease, vibrancy, optimism, freedom’ from its beginnings. ‘All I ever wanted was for Chloé to have a happy spirit and to make people happy,’ Aghion is quoted as saying in the book. It is the latest addition to Thames & Hudson‘s blockbuster ‘Catwalk’ series, this time authored by Lou Stoppard and featuring a preface by fashion critic Suzy Menkes.

Come Stai? (Bottega Veneta, 2022)

Earlier this year, Italian designer Gaetano Pesce created the set – including 400 entirely unique chairs – for Matthieu Blazy’s sophomore outing at Bottega Veneta. A new limited-edition book from the house, launched as part of Design Miami, documents the process. Alongside images of the set’s creation by Stephen Shore and Sander Muylaert, Hans Ulrich Obrist interviews Pesce about the project’s ‘ideation, approach and process’ as well as contributions from Blazy and Wallpaper* Milan editor Maria Cristina Didero. Like the chairs, each cover of the book is entirely one-of-a-kind.

Acne Paper Issue 17 (Acne Studios, 2022)

After a seven-year hiatus, Acne Paper – Stockholm-based fashion label Acne Studios’ cult print magazine – was relaunched last November as a ‘hybrid between a book and a magazine’ across 500 pages. This year, for its 17th issue, the brand says it is taking this idea of a hybrid ‘one step further’ – ‘[it is] part biography, part novel, part cultural art journal, part fashion magazine,’ describe the brand of the latest issue, which centres around a character named Atticus, ‘a fictional personality in the art world who [is celebrating] his 100-year birthday’. Across five chapters, his ‘memoir’ narrates a ‘cultured life’ which sees him journey from a dancer under choreographer Merce Cunningham to a luminary of the contemporary art scene. The biography also centres on Atticus’ relationship with partner Desmond, ‘[reminding] of a time when men who loved men, and women who loved women, were considered delinquents… [and recalling] the dramatic Aids epidemic and the many loved and talented people who perished with it.’ As such, a portfolio in the issue pays tribute to the work of real-life artists Darrel Ellis, Arch Connelly, Jimmy Wright, and Larry Stanton – the latter who will be celebrated in a special capsule collection by the brand – while contributions from contemporary photographers Luis Alberto Rodriguez, Paul Kooiker and an intimate self-portrait series by Ibrahim Kamara are intersected throughout.

Hand in Hand (Fendi, 2022)

Coinciding with the 25th anniversary of the Fendi Baguette, a new book from the Italian house sees the iconic handbag style reinterpreted by 30 artisans across Italy in a celebration of centuries-old craft – from brocade, embroidery and crochet to works in wood and marble. In the book – titled ‘Hand in Hand’ after the 2020 initiative of the same name which originally tasked the artisans with reinterpreting the accessory – these works are captured by Italian photographer Lorenzo Vitturi and accompanied by texts by art critic and curator Eugenio Viola, artist Aldo Bakker and ‘upcyclist’ Orsola de Castro. ‘It pleases me to work on certain techniques that, to me, seem unchanged – and then to observe how, when working by hand, an error can become a virtue. Indeed, an error can become the idea for innovation,’ says the bag’s original designer Silvia Venturini Fendi in an interview about the project in the book. ‘[It] is a couture initiative, because it presents Baguette bags that will not be replicated.’

Akris: A Century in Fashion Selbstverständlich (Rizzoli, 2022)

To coincide with Akris’ 100th-anniversary celebrations – the house was founded a century ago in St Gallen, Switzerland – a new book, ‘A Century in Fashion Selbstverständlich’, presents a history of the house through the lens of current creative director Albert Kriemler (grandson of Akris founder Alice Kriemler-Schoch). The large-format photobook features a portfolio of vintage Akris styles photographed by Iwan Baan at the 1960s brutalist extension of the university of St Gallen, alongside an essay by Swiss author Daniel Binswanger, comments by Kriemler himself, and archival imagery. ‘Selbstverständlich is the one single German expression [that] best encapsulates the Akris spirit for me,’ says Kriemler of the book’s title, which loosely translates to English as ‘natural’ or ‘self-evident’. ‘It perfectly conveys our aesthetic ideal of clothing, embodying an effortless modernity.’

Dior by Sarah Moon (Delpire & Co, 2022)

A new book from Dior celebrates the Parisian house’s relationship with French photographer Sarah Moon – ‘a delicate ode to multifaceted femininity, sublime in its complexity,’ as the accompanying blurb describes. Across three consecutive volumes, Moon captures pieces from the Dior archives – mostly at Fondation Le Corbusier or inside the archival spaces themselves – creating evocative images which ‘communicate the strength which emanates from the architectural silhouettes designed by Christian Dior and his successors’. Current creative director of the women’s collections Maria Grazia Chiuri, who has continually commissioned women artists during her tenure for collaborations or show-set design, is a particular focus of the tome, with a 38-image portfolio of Chiuri’s work making up the book’s final volume.

The Colors of Sies Marjan (Rizzoli, 2022)

‘The Colors of Sies Marjan’ explores the brief but colourful history of Sander Lak’s cult New York label Sies Marjan, which shuttered in June 2020 after four years in business. The ‘highly personal’ book, as Lak describes, features archival imagery of Sies Marjan with a particular focus placed on the designer’s vivid and unexpected use of colour which was the bedrock of his work (‘Cookie Monster blue’, ‘Baskin Robbins pink’, ‘Lakers purple’ and ‘Post-it yellow’ are all described in the book). ‘The intention of a lot of books about fashion houses is usually within a marketing or PR-filled context, like an anniversary or store opening, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but this was something very different,’ Lak says of the book, which features contributions from artist Elizabeth Peyton, author Donna Tartt, and architect Rem Koolhaas, among others. ‘It was a chance for myself to give this chapter some closure.’

Annie Leibovitz (Taschen, 2022)

Originally published as part of Taschen's Sumo series – in which seminal cultural figures, including Helmut Newton, David Hockney and the Rolling Stones, are celebrated with limited-edition supersized monographs – Annie Leibovitz is rereleased in a new unlimited version. The comprehensive tome draws on 40 years of the American photographer’s work, from photojournalism for publications like Rolling Stone to her best-known celebrity portraiture in Vanity Fair and Vogue, as well as a number of photographs never before seen. ‘This is not a retrospective. It is a kind of potpourri. A roller coaster,’ Leibovitz says. ‘As you go through it, you forget what you saw in the beginning. You’re in another place toward the end.’

The Fendi Set: From Bloomsbury to Borghese (Rizzoli, 2022)

British designer Kim Jones became head of Fendi couture and womenswear in September 2020; his first collection for the house, the following January, melded Fendi’s famed Italian craftsmanship with his own British roots, looking towards the Bloomsbury Set for inspiration (particularly – Virginia Woolf, and her novel Orlando). The link, he said, was the way they were drawn to Rome – to its ancient monuments and Renaissance treasures – a journey he explores in a new Rizzoli-published book The Fendi Set (first released in January in the UK, it will arrive in the US at the beginning of April). Exploring Jones’ relationship with the culture-shaping group of artists, intellectuals and writers, it sees collaborator Nikolai von Bismarck photograph their famed gathering spots – Charleston House, Knole House, and Sissinghurst Castle – before heading to the set of the haute couture show in Paris, and then to Rome’s Villa Medici and Villa Borghese, where the histories of Fendi and the Bloomsbury Set meet. The photographs capture Jones’ own contemporary ‘set’ – Christy Turlington, Kate Moss and Naomi Campbell among them – alongside original letters, diary entries and excerpts from Bloomsbury members.

GANNI: Gimme More (Rizzoli, 2021)

Ganni girls embody a celebratory, spontaneous, community and eco-aware spirit – one that has been captured within the pages of the Copenhagen-based brand's debut monograph GANNI: Gimme More. The vivid volume, published by Rizzoli, dives into the world of the sustainability-focused, pattern- and print-celebrating label. Look out for a photo essay documenting Ganni's home city, shot by longtime collaborator Ana Kraš; an insightful conversation with the label's creative director Ditte Reffstrup and a vivid visual collage piecing together the brand's raising-the-roof house parties. Laura Hawkins

Versace Catwalk: The Complete Collections (2021)

In recent years, Versace catwalk shows have well and truly broken the internet. For the label’s Milan Fashion Week S/S 2022 offering in September, its campaign star Dua Lipa opened and closed a scintillating runway show, which featured a profusion of its signature motifs: tropical foulard silks, oodles of neon, safety-pin embellishments and a steamy hit of bare skin.

With the release of Versace Catwalk: The Complete Collections, fashion fans can ogle their favourite catwalk collections from the brand – be it the animal-print and power-shouldered silhouettes of the S/S 1983 offering, or the cyber glamour of the S/S 2012 couture show. The volume, authored by esteemed fashion critic Tim Blanks, is paged chronologically and brings together more than 40 years of fashion shows, kicking off with Gianni Versace’s 1978 debut, in a carefully curated edit of some 1,200 images. LH

OBJECT-FORM.FORM!, by Samuel Ross (2021)

Samuel Ross' interdisciplinary mindset – that sees him bridge not only his fashion label A-Cold-Wall* but also his art and design practice SR_A – culminates in Object – Form. Form!, Ross' first major book celebrating the range and extent of his projects and collaborators. Leaf through this visual history of Ross' projects to date, which also features a gallery of short texts by friends, mentors and peers, including Virgil Abloh, Takashi Murakami, Daniel Arsham, Hans Ulrich Obrist and David Adjaye. LH

Vivienne Westwood Catwalk (2021)

Vivienne Westwood vanguards, unite! A veritable treasure trove of images and inspiration, Thames & Hudson-published Vivienne Westwood Catwalk celebrates 40 years of the legendary British designer’s runway collections. Take a coveted seat at the catwalk of over 70 collections and delight in 1,300 looks, that celebrate the historicism-rooted, renegade, punk and environmentalist aesthetic of Westwood. The volume, released in celebration of Westwood's 80th birthday, features an introduction and collection texts by fashion critic Alexander Fury, with contributions by Westwood herself and her partner in life and work Andreas Kronthaler. The book is bound with the brand's iconic tartan, first produced in 1993 and officially recognised by the Scottish register of Tartans. LH

Familiarity (Jil Sander, 2021)

Creative director and husband-and wife-duo Lucie and Luke Meier have collaborated with a cohort of legendary image makers, teaming up with Joel Meyerowitz on Sander's recent A/W 2021 campaign. Now the label has released Familiarity, a limited photographic volume, which sees five image makers, Anders Edström, Olivier Kervern, Chris Rhodes, Lina Scheynius and Mario Sorrenti, personally interpret the the Meiers’ designs. These images offer five distinct visual takes on the Sander aesthetic, which are united by Sander's clothing. The images have been captured inside photographers’ homes and gardens, bringing a sense of intimacy to the photographic series, and a notion of familiarity to elevated fashion. LH

Peter Lindbergh. Azzedine Alaïa (Taschen, 2021)

‘We met in 1979, I believe. Ever since, Azzedine and I are hand in glove. I photographed his collections and I have countless portraits of him,' said renowned German photographer Peter Lindbergh of his longtime friendship with Azzedine Alaïa, before he passed away in 2019. Alaïa and Lindbergh were united on many creative passions: a love for black and the celebration of the female form.

Now, a grayscale Taschen volume – launched in conjunction with the exhibition Azzedine Alaïa, Peter Lindbergh at the Fondation Azzedine Alaïa in Paris – celebrates the creative output of the two artist's, spanning atmospheric settings including the lamp lit streets of Paris and the windswept beach of Le Touquet, and featuring models and musicians including Naomi Campbell, Kristen McMenamy, Madonna and Tina Turner. The book – a must for Alaïa or Lindbergh-obsessed bibliophiles, also features contributions from Fabrice Hergott, director of the Musée d’Art Moderne de la, photographer Paolo Roversi and Olivier Saillard, fashion historian and director of the Fondation Azzedine Alaïa. LH

Silicon Valley. No_Code_Life (Rizzoli, 2021)

When Italian label Tod's launched its No_Code trainer project – a line of silhouettes that adheres to technological and fabric innovation, and invites design visionaries to apply cutting-edge ideas to its designs – it demonstrated a synergy with the forward-thinking mindset of Silicon Valley, and its ascendancy of unicorn companies. Now, in celebration of the famed San Francisco location, and the site of spectacular start-ups, the label has launched a Rizzoli-published book which lenses Silicon Valley, in an alternative light, breaks through the venerated veneer of its streets.

For Silicon Valley. No_Code_Life, Tod's enlisted Iranian-American photographer Ramek Fazel to document the daily goings on in Silicon Valley. For 10 days he roamed its roads, armed with a Rolleiflex, shooting diverse portraits and panoramic views, from aerial shots of lengthy highways to employees armed with colourful Google-branded tote bags. The result is a colourful and multifarious presentation of Silicon Valley existence, rooted in reality, instead of millennial-infused myth. LH

Craig Green x Jack Davison (Limited edition at Dover Street Market, 2021)

In March 2021, London menswear designer Craig Green teamed up with photographer Jack Davison, on a poetic S/S 2021 visual set of images that captured Green’s sculptural, utilitarian and headpiece-accented designs. Now, in celebration of the project, Green and Davison have launched a print media extension of the collaboration, encompassed as a limited set of four riso-printed and saddle-stitched self-cover books, accompanied by Tyvek sheet posters, printed in a spectrum of colour variations. From midday tomorrow, 13 May 2021, a mere 30 sets of the books will be available, for free, for the public to collect from Craig Green’s space at Dover Street London. LH

Pucci (Taschen, 2021)

One designer who had the ability to imbue escapism into every garment was Emilio Pucci. The Italian designer was a doyen of dramatic, pattern-splashed clothing, which also had a boundary-pushing comfortable appeal, and was sported on the ski slopes and in the chicest summer resorts. Now, a Taschen released tome celebrates the history of the print-swathed Pucci dynasty, in a volume brimming with archival images, sketches and eye-catching ephemera. Pucci, features accompanying text by fashion critic Vanessa Friedman and is wrapped in a tactile fabric cover, with a selection of archive prints abounding in abstract swirls and tropical blooms. LH

Her Dior: Maria Grazia’s New Voice (Rizzoli, 2021)

During her creative tenure at Dior, Maria Grazia Chiuri has made feminism an integral part of her aesthetic expression, collaborating with revolutionary female artists including Judy Chicago and Tomasina Binga and creating silhouettes that explore the multi dimensional facets of womanhood. Now, a new publication by Rizzoli New York, brings together a host of female photographers, including Wallpaper* contributor Brigitte Niedermair, Nan Goldin, Sarah Moon and Laura Coulson, in a visual exchange exploring female identity.

‘Seeking a dialogue from the outset with these women artists, writers and activists, they themselves at times distant from me and from fashion, was party and parcel of my focus on the reasons and the situations that I believed we urgent, and that I wanted to put at the heart of my creative process,’ Chiuri explains in the volume’s Introduction. LH

Stazione Termini, Lookbook 2009-2021 (Drago, 2021)

Niccolò Berretta has been drawn to the anthropological bravura of August Sander and Diane Arbus since he first started taking pictures. ‘I see their work as a sort of catalogue of human beings yet with the search for the mysterious,’ he says. In 2009 he began taking photographs of some of the one hundred and fifty million passengers that pass each year through Rome’s Stazione Termini. Now 490 of them have been brought together in a chunky book published by Drago.

The first edition includes a glossy wraparound featuring models striding the streets of Esquilino in the 15th rione wearing REDValentino’s Spring/Summer 21 collection. Between the covers, we see couples dressed in matching shiny puffa jackets, a cigar smoking man in a finely tailored navy suit, stickered suitcases, knitted leg warmers, and sunglasses pushed up onto people’s heads. ‘I do not go beyond the mirror they see themselves in every day,’ Berretta says in the introduction. This is more than just a record of quotidian style, it is an archive of a city and its people in flux. ‘An integral part of this visual process is the environment: the advertisements, the construction sites, the cars, the street signs, the scenography that speak to their time. The subtitle Lookbook 2009-2021 is an ironic reference to the world of fashion in which everything is fleeting, fast and almost does not exist.’ Dal Chodha

MSGM 10! The (in)complete Brand Anthology (Rizzoli, 2020)

The vibrancy, pattern and eclectic flavour of Massimo Giorgetti’s MSGM is synonymous with modern Milanese design, and in celebration of the label’s tenth birthday, the brand has released a Rizzoli-published monogram, majestic in colour and warmth. The volume, which is visually inspired by a fanzine and was art directed by Giorgetti himself, features a mix of fashion-focused and personal memories, from his dogs Pane and Coda to effusive editorial images. With contributing texts from friends and collaborators including Maurizio Cattelan, super stylist Katie Grand and journalist Charlie Porter, this is a must read for any MSGM enthusiast. LH

Images (Jacquemus, 2020)

Simone Porte Jacquemus understands the transportive power of Instagram. The designer has long used the medium to convey the sun-drenched seduction his brand reflects, associated with the sand-lined shored of Southern France. During lockdown the designer even shot S/S 2020 digital campaign images with Bella Hadid, Barbie Ferreira and Steve Lacy, showcasing the uplifting results on the social media channel. Now, in his second publication to date, Jacquemus has released ‘Images’, a book of his favourite 321 Instagram images, edited down from the 85,041 pictures he has stored on his phone. The publication is a soothing snapshot of summer, boasting beachside shots, architectural and food close-ups and Jacquemus-clad portraits. They capture the energetic, warm and downtime-focused essence of the brand, whether you’re browsing the book from a sun bed in its founder’s beloved hometown Marseille, or city-bound on the sofa. LH

Sicily (Jil Sander, 2020)

We’re all in need of a touch of escapism right now, and lucky for us, Jil Sander’s Lucie and Luke Meier have just released a sun-kissed pictorial road trip around Sicily, lensed by photographer Olivier Kervern. The analogue amalgamation was first presented back in February at Milan Fashion Week at the brand’s Via Sant’Andrea exhibition space, and the sleek volume also serves up a series of portraits depicting the brand’s A/W 2020 offering. While road-tripping may feel out of reach, Sicily will feel out of the way enough when this book is held in the palm of your hands. LH

Sportmax (Assouline, 2020)

This Assouline-published volume by Luke Leitch and Olivier Saillard offers a pleasingly pictorial stroll through the five-decade history of the sports and casual wear-focused label Sportmax, founded in 1969 by Achille Maramotti. Sketches and advertising campaign images abound, highlighting the boldy saturated shades that define Sportmax’s aesthetic and capture the style signatures of the creatives who anonymously worked on the brand’s collections, including Nanni Strada, Jean- Charles de Castelbajac, Odile Lançon and Guy Paulin. LH

Prada Catwalk (Thames & Hudson, 2019)

When it comes to a Prada catwalk show, fans of the Milanese label delight in decoding the various archive Prada-isms which appear in each collection, be it S/S 1996’s icky ‘Formica’ prints, S/S 2000’s tessellated lipstick pattern, a heavy brown shoe or a pleated knee length skirt. Now, a new tome houses all of the brand’s catwalk collections in one place, from Miuccia Prada’s debut A/W 1988 runway offering, with its schoolgirl simplicity and utilitarian tailoring, to her S/S 2019 collection, boasting bourgeois takes on its signature nylon fabric, chubby Alice bands and swathes of grunge green satin. The Thames & Hudson published volume, written by fashion critic Susannah Frankel offers commentary on each collection featured, and boasts over 1,300 illustrations, making it the perfect printed tool for Prada fans everywhere, vying to decode the designer’s famed aesthetic, her obsessions and eccentricities and the brand’s boundary-breaking sensibility. LH

Chanel: The Impossible Collection (Assouline, 2019)

It’s fitting that this clamshell-cased tome, measuring nearly fifty centimetres in length, is purchased with a complimentary pair of white gloves. For ‘Chanel: The Impossible Collection' is a bookshelf treasure equal to the house’s signature bouclé tweed suit or its 2.55 handbag. This enormous edition is a tribute to the famed Parisian maison; its glossy pages are packed with fashion show shots, magazine editorials, newspaper cuttings, illustrations and portraits. As part of the volume, author and fashion critic Alexander Fury has also selected 100 iconic looks that represent the house, from the Little Black Dress to the day suit. ‘Let them copy, my ideas belong to everyone, I refuse no one,’ Gabrielle Chanel told The New York Times in January 1971. It’s hard to refuse this book too. LH

Fashion Central Saint Martins (Thames & Hudson, 2019)

Alexander McQueen, Phoebe Philo, Wallpaper* October issue guest editor Hussein Chalayan: some of the most lauded, experimental and innovative designers in the world began their fashion lives in the hallowed halls of Central Saint Martins in London. Fashion Central Saint Martins – published by Thames & Hudson and edited by the school’s programme director of fashion, Hywel Davies, and Cally Blackman, lecturer in fashion history and theory – takes a bold, collaged and archival amble through the art school’s fashion history, which began in 1938, when six years after its fashion school was founded by Muriel Pemberton, it began teaching fashion design and drawing.

Its colourful, cut-and-paste pages are divided into decades, allowing the reader to party alongside the school’s Blitz Kids Eighties alumni, like journalist Hamish Bowles and John Galliano before touring into the 2010s, the era of Craig Green, Charles Jeffrey and Molly Goddard. Expect pages packed with unseen student work, essays from guest writers including Sarah Mower and Judith Watt, and intimate insight into the student lives of some of fashion’s most important figures today. LH

Legaspi: Larry Legaspi, the 70s, and the Future of Fashion (Rizzoli, 2019)

‘It’s me fetishizing him through a fanboy filter’ says Rick Owens of the subject of his latest Rizzoli New York release, dedicated to the work and aesthetic of 70s unsung design hero Larry Legaspi, who created pioneering looks for musical behemoths including KISS, LaBelle and George Clinton. Owens’ men’s and women’s Glam Rock-ready A/W 2019 collection was also dedicated to the designer and featured sinched streamlined tailoring, platform boots and plenty of stage-ready make-up.

For the first ever book documenting LeGaspi’s work, Owens had unprecedented access to his partner’s archives – Legaspi died of Aids in 2001 – and the book is an amalgam of archive backstage imagery, tour posters and sketches, interspersed with newly Owens-lensed images of LeGaspi’s designs, alongside commentary from Patti LaBelle, André Leon Talley and Pat Cleveland. ‘Larry introduced a camp ferocity to the mainstream and helped set a lot of kids like me free,’ Owens adds. We urge you to get introduced too. LH

California-born fashion designer Rick Owens was named earlier this month as one of the Wallpaper* USA 300, a celebration of creative America which appeared in the August 2023 ‘Made in the USA’ issue of Wallpaper* (on sale now). Owens was selected as part of the ‘no introduction needed’ category – a testament to the agenda-setting designer’s distinct creative spirit. Here, we revisit our 2022 conversation with Owens, where he talks working process, inspiration, and the ‘concrete palace’ he calls home.

Rick Owens is one of fashion’s true renegades; since 1994, when the American designer launched his first store on Hollywood Boulevard, he has carved a singular path with collections that defy categorisation. In fact, when it comes to describing his clothing – which people have, variously, as moody, gothic, brutal – the defining feature seems only to be a sense of the otherworldly and unexpected, pieces straight from a dream (or, indeed, nightmare). His models might have another body strapped, upside down, on their front; faces transformed with prosthesis into horn-sprouting aliens; be wrapped in towering cocoons of fabric, raised up on sky-high perspex heels. His collections are shown each season at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, where he has erected vast scaffold structures on the exterior – sometimes on fire, other times disappearing into clouds of fog. In short, he likes extremes. 

At home with Rick Owens

Owens spends much of his time in his Paris residence, the converted French Socialist Party headquarters on the Place du Palais Bourbon which he purchased in 2004 with his wife, the polymathic creative Michèle Lamy. He calls it his ‘concrete palace’, ‘insulated, isolated, removed, and remote’. Speaking from its terrace in the run-up to his S/S 2023 men’s collection – which will be shown today in Paris – Owens invites Wallpaper* home.

Wallpaper*: Where are you at the moment as we speak? What can you see?

Rick Owens: I am on my terrace in Paris overlooking the gardens of the Ministry of Defence – the roses are just starting to bloom and the wisteria that always seems to struggle a bit looks lush and confident this season. There are a few concrete prongs from our furniture collection lying around like brutalist boulders and they encircle a concrete Huma Bhabha sculpture that looks like a concrete portal to another world. 

W*: Where do you call home? Describe your neighbourhood/area. 

RO: I have lived in a concrete palace in the 7th arrondissement of Paris for 15 years – it feels insulated, isolated, removed, and remote. There is a reserve and aloofness on this side of town that feels slightly chilly and austere. I’m into it. On my way in from the airport, driving through the Place de la Concorde, I love the grandeur of the setting and its contrast to the square I live on just beyond it. I always feel a soft rush of emotion driving past the gates of the Tuileries, past the fountains and the obélisque, enjoying the delicious curliness of Parisian confection before sliding into the concrete cave I live in. 

W*: Where and when do you find you are most productive?

RO: There is one weekend before every collection when I am in Italy with the factory to myself and gather all my notes and fabrics and flowers and candles and cookies and movies and music and shuffle it all together and print it out and cut and tape and staple and end up with the seed of a hint of a mood of a collection. This is what I present to the team the following Monday and the collection evolves from there. I have an apartment on the top floor of the building across the street from the factory and follow a strict regimen of working out, having high protein meals delivered from our canteen downstairs, and reviewing the progress of the collection every morning on the terrace smothered in jasmine harbouring at least two active birds nests at a time.

W*: What are you working on at the moment? How is it going? 

RO: I am trying to figure out how to stage my next runway show a month away. I had originally reached out to an artist on Instagram who transformed himself into a distorted creature covered in patchy fur teetering on extended legs and arms like a starving gorilla painted by Salvador Dalí. I first saw a video post of him staggering down a suburban street with long greasy hair covering a haunting mask-like face and was smitten. He exuded the same grotesque alien glamour I had first encountered on Bowie's Diamond Dogs album cover in the sales bin in the basement of the Kmart in the small town I grew up in. I reached out to this artist and asked him if he could be reproduced so I could have ten creatures walking the runway in the collection I envisioned... I would create oversized bombers and shirts to fit the animalistic bodies and produce these as distorted oversized garments that had been redesigned to fit his aliens. He was into it but said he had already been approached by a prominent singer to appear as back-up during a music festival. I asked him: wasn’t the prospect of having ten of his creatures as models on a Parisian runway more prestigious than two of his creatures being drowned in the chaos of a music festival? Apparently not – at the last minute he dropped me and looked like he had a wonderful time at the festival. 

Afterwards, I wondered if it was all for the best since using these creatures might have felt too gimmicky. I am certainly not above a gimmick but I hope I am using my bombast to promote values I believe in – would using these creatures illustrate my constant underlying message of considering options of beauty outside the strictly narrow parameters of the general fashion world and popular culture?  If I can blur the lines of what's considered acceptable beauty and celebrate the misfit, might that support attitudes of tolerance and inclusivity?  

W*: What is your favourite place, anywhere in the world? And why? 

RO: My current favourite place is a rustic hotel in Luxor, Egypt, within view of the Valley of Kings. The landscape feels remote and untended and the roads getting to it are raw and unpaved. The hotel itself feels like a dusty 1930s movie set with vast high-ceilinged rooms and shaggy dry gardens and a huge pool. It always feels abandoned and empty with just the birds in the palms around the pool and ancient tombs visible off in the distance. I love feeling the insignificance of myself and my concerns in that scale of space and time. 

W*: If Wallpaper* came for dinner, what would you cook us?

RO: I have absolutely no place in a kitchen, but we have a fantastic chef that always comes up with the most delicious farmers market fish and exquisite seasonal vegetable dishes. After that come slabs of slutty cheesecake.  

W* What are you reading, and what do you think of it?

RO: I'm reading a Gavin Lambert biography on Lindsay Anderson, one of the leaders of the 1960s British New Wave cinema – I enjoyed Lambert’s biography of Alla Nazimova, the silent screen star who produced one of my all-time favourite movies, the 1923 version of Salome. Lambert’s bios are always titillating and queer-centric and I enjoy studying the creative arcs of eccentric creators having maintained a comparatively consistent output of creative expression despite life’s distractions. I suppose in a way I like to see how it was done to keep myself on course in my own little way. 

W*: What’s your favourite indulgence and why? When did you last indulge?

RO: When I’m at the Italian factory there are so many places to visit nearby for a little aesthetic boost – last month I stayed at the Villa Feltrinelli in Lago di Garda, which had been Mussolini's last residence when he was confined during the Second World War, where I bathed in his bathtub. Just down the lake is Il Vittoriale, where Gabriele D’Annunzio lived, a fantastic compound which is one of my favourite personal Disneylands.

W*: What’s inspiring you right now? 

RO: I am studying the work of Austrian artist Walter Pichler – his bleak brutalist utopian efforts and 1960s concrete forms and earthworks are really speaking to me right now. Maybe it’s the melancholy of idealistic dreams having fallen short that I always see in retrofuturism...

W*: What’s top of your to-do list? 

RO: Top of my list is making my next runway show relevant and of enough cultural and historical value to offset the hyperbole and consumerism and carbon footprint it will be promoting. Hopefully, there is enough moral value, entertainment, and economic contribution that will make the whole mess worthwhile. 

W*: How do you switch off? Do you switch off?

RO: I have taken a one-and-a-half hour nap every day for at least 15 years – it started out as a way of withdrawing from all the new energy directed my way when I started producing my collections in Italy, but I also realise it's a form of meditation allowing myself to empty out clutter in my head and hit a refresh button that serves me much better than plain endurance. 

W*: Ten years from now you’ll be…

RO: I see myself tottering around in gold python platform clogs and a black silk charmeuse kaftan and turban in a walled garden designed after Violet Venable's garden in Suddenly Last Summer, petting and whispering to the Onagadori roosters I plan on devoting the rest of my life to breeding.

Rick Owens is applying his signature aesthetic to skincare and fragrance in a new collaboration with Aesop. The collection includes a candle and a travel kit comprised of Owens' favourite Aesop body and hair care products—Coriander Seed Body Cleanser, Resolute Hydrating Body Balm, Classic Shampoo and Classic Conditioner. Owens has also worked alongside perfumer Barnabe Fillion to create a signature perfume entitled ’Stoic’ that comes with a chain of ceramic beads that can be perfumed and worn to diffuse the scent throughout the day. 

Fillion has made a name for himself in the world of perfumery with his idiosyncratic approach to fragrances. In addition to working with Aesop on almost all of their fragrances, Fillion has collaborated with artist Anicka Yi on ‘Biography,’three fragrances designed to challenge historical definitions of femininity, and has developed his own fragrance line, Arpa, which enlists the talents of musicians, glassblowers, sculptures and more to simulate the experience of synesthesia. Fillion’s cerebral, multi-disciplinary approach to fragrance makes him an ideal collaborator for Owens, who has long drawn on movements in art, music, architecture to create his iconic, avant-garde aesthetic.

Like Owens’ fashion designs, ’Stoic’ is a strange and singular fragrance that blends the sharp, spicy flavours of black pepper and coriander seed with earthy frankincense and patchouli. It is an unusual scent, but not so eccentric that it is off-putting. Rather, Owens wanted the fragrance to be something soothing and fit for everyday use. 

‘I am not sure if it was my body responding positively to the alchemy of the unguents they produce or my head responding to the quiet and gentle aesthetics of their ethos as a company,’ says Owens, ‘but Aesop’s balms represented a soothing mood that I wanted to continue seamlessly throughout my home life and my travel life.’

INFORMATION

aesop.com; rickowens.eu

Expedition-worthy, chunky and bold: take a hike with the most wondrous women’s winter boots. When it comes to protective shoes for styling out colder snaps, we recommend something thick soled, rebellious, and ready to wear anywhere. Intrepid inspiration was a focal point of the A/W 2021 catwalks; just look to brands such as Valentino Garavani, The Row, and Khaite which all propose styles that riff on the golden age of alpinism, the statuesque spirit of tractor soles, and bring a modernity to the mountaineering silhouette.

Women’s winter boots: Khaite

The 50mm of these Khaite Chelsea boots gives the silhouette an elevated elegance. Sumptuous suede and contrasting white stitching are also two covetable details that will dial up your winter dressing.

net-a-porter.com

Valentino Garavani

Valentino Garavani celebrated the beauty of the rose for A/W 201. Here, the bloom’s petals make for a gloriously tactile finish, festooned across the upper of these thick-soled ankle boots.

matchesfashion.com

Rick Owens

These tractor-soled Rick Owens boots convey a don't-mess-with-me confidence. Their caramel hue emulates autumnal tones, but will carry you right through into spring.

brownsfashion.com

Hereu

Spanish brand Hereu’s chunky Chelsea boots have an artisanal appeal: just look to the woven vamp of this ‘Alda’ style, which is wondrously tactile to touch. 

matchesfashion.com

The Row

A style that is perhaps best saved for journeys that involve shorter walks, should you wish to retain the boots’ pristine hue. These chunky-soled beige boots are bold in their light shade – we recommend pairing with white denim for monochromatic magic.

net-a-porter.com

Bottega Veneta

Italian label Bottega Veneta’s modern interpretation of hiking boots brings together nylon and leather. These chunky boots fasten with laces imagined in the brand’s signature parakeet green.

net-a-porter.com

Grenson

There are 200 stages to the process of crafting Grenson’s Northamptonshire-made designs. Take a walk in the brand’s ‘Nanette’ hiking boots, which emulate heritage styles worn for alpine adventuring.

brownsfashion.com

Michèle Lamy is a mesmeric force of intention. As a co-founding partner of Owenscorp and the executive manager of the Rick Owens furniture collection, her life is a tactile one. The jewelled mouth, the smudged blackened fingertips, the clank of bangles and the dulcet French drawl are Lamy’s talismanic armour and invitation. She creates opulently monastic home furnishings and sculptures in metal, bone, wood, cement and stone – and cocoons herself in silk, wool, leather, nylon and languid plumes of cigarette smoke.

When we speak via Zoom in mid-August, Lamy is fresh from an appointment with the butcher. ‘We have been doing some furniture pieces in ox bone, which looks just like ivory, and we needed some more,’ she says. ‘The artisans at the atelier like it so much because they always get a serving of filet mignon too.’ In a few days, Lamy will travel to Venice for the second edition of the Floating Cinema – Unknown Waters festival, for which she asked filmmaker Matt Lambert to curate a series of short films. Next up, she is unveiling a large-scale monochromatic sculptural work at Design Miami Basel. Lamy is always on the move.

‘I like to think that I don’t know when something is work or holiday, some places open your eyes to something else. I have this base with Rick and the furniture, so that maintains a certain direction. It helps me to travel and do other things I want to do.’

What Lamy wants to do is use the formidable circle of artists, musicians, designers, philosophers, chefs, and even boxers around her to piece together an idea of where our lives are headed. Recently, she has been posing the question ‘What Are We Fighting For?’, taking inspiration from the slogan used by her friends at the Overthrow Boxing Club, a Manhattan gym with a philanthropic mission. It is, she admits, a big question that needs an even bigger answer.

In Milan last year she hosted a day of multidisciplinary discussions to unpick the provocation, while travelling around on a Moncler + Rick Owens tour bus upholstered in French army surplus blankets, fitted with a stainless-steel bathroom and a Bang & Olufsen flat-screen TV. It was typical Lamy – both flamboyant and alert.

The act of curious intervention is her kickback to a chaotic world. ‘For some reason, people come and talk to me, and when you’ve been around for a while, it’s more like dancing out ideas. That’s how things come about,’ she says. Under Lamyland – the moniker used to describe her broad output – she creates settings for people to engage with an eclectic mix of allies, from the Bronx-based culinary collective Ghetto Gastro to the boxers at the Overthrow, and her own band, Lavascar. Lamy is a conduit for co-creation: ‘I like leading, but sometimes I’m just getting seduced by who I meet – if I was in front of a blank page, I could write things all over it. But it’s always about collaboration,’ she says.

In the early 1960s, Lamy was a philosophy student under Gilles Deleuze, who believed that the standards we use to assign value are internal and intrinsic rather than speculative. ‘Everything came together for me when I met him. I was 17,’ she says. She learned the value of lived experiences from Deleuze: ‘You have to digest things and see stuff that you can analyse for yourself. My bêtes noires are all the books today with titles like How to Live Your Life – you have to read the artists, the writers, and figure it out for yourself! These stupid recipes – which people make fortunes from – are like diet books. They never work.’

Lamy suggests we look to the Afghan-born coder Tameem Antoniades – a co-founder of Ninja Theory, the company that created the action-adventure video game Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice, developed using research from neuroscientists at Cambridge University. ‘Tam is somebody who directly answers the question about where we are going and what is the future.’ His work exemplifies the power that tech has to help us understand humanity and ‘how to understand harm’, Lamy says.

Similarly, she is drawn to the computerised violence in LA-based artist Jordan Wolfson’s work and the viscerality of artist Anne Imhof’s output: ‘Jordan is so gentle. He believes in fairies. He has something with the mind that is beyond conventional thinking – he sees things other people don’t. He presents a future where robots seem to have more feeling than us. There is this tenderness even when there is violence and, because this technology is being used by an artist, you can perhaps imagine that robots are going to save our world.’ Lamy seems drawn to deeply psychologically affecting works by artists who are unflinchingly sensual; Imhof’s seductive and melancholy endurance art is as primordial and spiritual as Lamy’s own.

She finds the ecological radicalism of Argentine artist Tomás Saraceno, which draws on the social sciences, compelling. ‘He’s pushing us to get strength from the sun. And he also wants us to fly! His is a very direct answer to the question of what is pushing us into the future and the direction we want to go,’ she says.

In 2018, Lamy discovered the poet, essayist and painter Etel Adnan at Musée Yves Saint Laurent Marrakech, and was moved by the wholeness of her practice: ‘When I saw her work, I could not believe that I did not know her all my life. She is fantastic – she’s 96. You really have to read her writing to understand her painting, but most importantly, all the people I have chosen [as creative leaders of the future] are not trying to explain anything. They are just saying how they feel. I like when there is the beginning of something, and you are left to figure the rest out for yourself.’

Figuring it out is Lamy’s full-time occupation. The protests in France in May 1968, she says, helped her to develop a freer way of thinking; to forge a life amid music, poetry, art. ‘You talk about collaboration, but it’s more like participation. Participation with the world.’ Such an intuitive approach feels pertinent in a world struggling to reconcile its global and political troubles. The commercialised creative disciplines like fashion, architecture and furniture design have operated within the same formal structures for decades and feel at odds with the fluidity demanded of any creative process.

All of those formal structures are falling apart. Perhaps now is as good a time as any to adopt a Lamy-approved MO: to just go with the flow. Lavascar – the band Lamy fronts with her daughter Scarlett Rouge and the artist Nico Vascellari – testifies to this approach. In 2017, Lamy was approached to record an album by Red Bull Studios and around the same time was introduced to Vascellari, who was about to have a show at Palais de Tokyo, Paris. ‘He wanted me to be in it somehow, so I said yes.’ Together they presented a découpage of Langston Hughes’ poetry; today, Lavascar exists as a bridge between spoken word and gothic electronic music. ‘I am very One Thousand and One Nights – I have this deep fear that I have to tell these stories. People sometimes complain about my chaos, but it’s not chaos. It is spontaneity.’

Many of her projects have a moral imperative. Later this year, she will work with Brussels-based social enterprise The Skateroom to fund the building of a skate park in Morocco. ‘It’s a way to go to people – or reach something that shows you where you stand, to do something that isn’t polluting the world. To work with artisans and create things that are disappearing is very important,’ she says.

‘The five creative leaders of the future that I have chosen are all artists. We call them artists because they are the ones that push us towards the future. I like to be connected to something and “What Are We Fighting For?” is an event that makes us come up with answers. They are not textbook answers, but they are mine.’

Meet Michèle Lamy’s five creative leaders of the future:

• Anne Imhof
• Etel Adnan
• Tameem Antoniades
• Tomás Saraceno
• Jordan Wolfson

INFORMATION

@lalamichmich

A version of this article appears in the October 2021, 25th Anniversary Issue of Wallpaper* (W*270), on newsstands now and available to subscribers – 12 digital issues for $12,£12,€12.

Seventeen months after it was originally slated to take place – in April 2020, when it was postponed because of the pandemic – Salone del Mobile once again graced the streets of Milano. While many of the usual suspects – Prada, Fendi, Marni, Louis Vuitton – opted to sit this Supersalone out, there was no less innovation to be found. Gucci’s creative director Alessandro Michele made a cartoleria pop-up complete with a mouse hole; Dior gathered 17 of the most esteemed artists in the world to interpret its iconic ‘Medallion’ chair; Giorgio Armani gave us spaghetti measurers and rolling pins; while Hermès crafted a world of fine fabric canopies. Here is the Wallpaper* edit of the best fashion brands at Salone del Mobile 2021.

Fashion brands at Salone del Mobile 2021

Dior

Dior took over the newly refurbished Palazzo Citterio to unveil its ‘Medallion’ chair project. As guests mingled in the Dior-ified gardens, in the concrete depths of the basement, 17 artists – including India Mahdavi, Joy de Rohan Chabot, Sam Baron and Khaled El Mays – presented their interpretation of the Louis XVI-style seat that Monsieur Dior chose as one of the interior emblems of his fashion house on Avenue Montaigne in Paris back in the mid-1940s. The collective result was a reminder of the contemporaneous spirit of the fashion house and its enduring codes. Speaking about the project as well as her own approach, Mahdavi told Wallpaper*: ‘Beauty comes from the strength of the lot; they’re separate but connected and it’s that togetherness that I like.'

Hermès

Staged at La Pelota, Hermès enlisted Hervé Sauvage on set design to create five hand-painted structures in which to house the Paris-based brand’s collection. Designed to celebrate the tension between different textures, guests were invited to crunch around the softly lit space with sand underfoot, a detail which emphasised the raw nature of each room’s curated contents. Inside the imposing constructions sat pieces ‘designed to be touched': its ‘Sillage’ armchair made from recycled paper fibres; its elm and calfskin jewellery boxes; the enamelled copper ceramics from its ‘Sialk’ collection; and cashmere blankets hoisted on wooden poles. With Manuel Rocha Iturbide, Antonio Fernandez Ros and Rogelio Sosa behind the sound design, it became a sensory homage to the physicality of craftsmanship.

Tod’s

Tod’s enlisted New Jersey-based artist Willie Cole for its installation at its Montenapoleone flagship. The contemporary artist, who has carved out a reputation for using discarded domestic items such as hairdryers and irons during his five-decade career, was given free rein in the Tod’s factory to make three sculptures using leftover materials from the production line. The result was a chair, a sofa and a sculpture using the uppers of the brand’s signature driving shoes. ‘The thing that interests me is recycling beyond sanitation,' Cole told Wallpaper*. ‘My work is all about “play”.’ To complement his creations, the brand launched its limited-edition ‘Mosaic’ collection, which uses a traditional patchwork technique, and the offcuts from its mainline collections.

Valextra

Valextra teamed with its neighbour Tom Dixon on a project that saw the brand stage Dixon’s ten-piece ‘Black Light’ exhibition in its Via Manzoni flagship. For his installation of ten huge light sculptures, Dixon took his cues from Milanese masters including Gio Ponti, Achilles Castiglioni and Ettore Sottsass. For its part, Valextra looked to the traditional Italian art technique of chiaroscuro – meaning to contrast light and shade – to create a collection of the same name that juxtaposed its multidimensional leathers in four of its iconic handbags: the ‘Iside’, the ‘Tric Trac’, the ‘Bucket’ and the ‘Brera’. The result saw two disciplines come together, said Valextra CEO Xavier Rougeaux, to ‘pay homage to Milan, its masters and celebrate the symbiosis between design and urban craft’.

Gucci

Alessandro Michele created every stationery aficionado’s nirvana with his Gucci Cartoleria pop-up on Via Manzoni, which celebrated the lauch of the Florentine brand's Lifestyle collection. A bona fide treasure trove of pencils, pens, notebooks, pencil cases, paperweights and board games (catnip for early-bird Christmas shoppers when they launch online this week), the space was an ode to the small Italian shops of Michele’s childhood. ‘I imagined a small cabinet of curiosities, a Wunderkammer, like the cave of Ali Baba, that could accommodate these everyday objects and return them to a fairy-tale dimension,' he explained. In his signature whimsical style, Michele incorporated an overhead upside-down train track, a sensor-activated chess set, and a mouse hole complete with a miniature living room at foot level. It was conceived, he said, to restore a sense of wonder to everyday life – and it did.

Armani Casa

Things you now need that you didn’t know you needed ten seconds ago: an Armani rolling pin, spaghetti measurer and chopping board. For his Armani/Casa 2021 collection, Giorgio Armani wanted to ‘express all the dimensions of the concept of “living at home”’, hence the handy additions to a collection that caters to spending lots of time in it. The brand’s first desk chair and a huge new eight-seater square table are joined by an internally lit room divider and a new limited-edition cylindrical bar cabinet, all making the home user-friendly in the most luxurious – aka the most Armani – of ways. He’s considered the garden, too. The ‘Robespierre’ barbeque set, the ‘Rovo’ gardening bag (complete with wooden-handled tools) and the ‘Regni’ cashmere and wool rug that doubles as a chess board with supersized leather pawns take outside living to another level.

Issey Miyake

Issey Miyake staged ‘In The Making’ in its Tokujin Yoshioka-designed Via Bagutta store. Presenting the construction process behind two of the brands under its umbrella, Im Men and A-Poc Able Issey Miyake, it affirmed its longstanding textile-innovation credentials. First up, the ‘Flat’ (whose construction is inspired by 132 5 Issey Miyake) and the ‘Convertible’, which condense into briefcase and crossbody bags and are crafted from the husk of sugar cane. Next up, its ‘Type-I’ project, which involves a process that uses Triporous, a material made from rice husks (100 million tonnes of which are discarded globally every year, the brand pointed out), and achieves a unique shade of black that cannot be done through conventional dyeing techniques. These projects were joined by a presentation of collaborations with Tadanori Yokoo and Fabio Bellotti, both of whom have been working with the brand since the 1970s.

Rick Owens

Rick Owens and Michele Lamy collaborated with Galerie Philia founder Ygaël Attali to engage ten emerging Italian designers to create pieces inspired by Owens’ furniture. ‘My furniture is my couture,’ declared the designer about his one-of-a-kind projects, which here sat alongside the pieces designed in his honour. A marble chair by Pietro Franceschini and a floating glass and brass vase by Agustina Bottini stood opposite a bronze bollard lamp by Owens. Atop Owens’ alabaster and moose-antler ‘Stag T’ side table sat a sculpted brass candleholder by Samuel Costantini, both illuminated by a brass and silicone ‘Howl’ light installation by Morghen. ‘Rick’s work is brutalist, dark and rough and some things here are very soft,’ said Attali. ‘To mix them creates a discussion [between materials] and a dialogue between Rick and the Italian designers.’

Stone Island

Salone’s delay has rendered the fifth installation of Stone Island’s Prototype Research Series, its experimental numbered-garment project, all the more beautiful. The brand experimented by applying a nanometric copper layer through a vapour deposition technique onto a fabric bonded with its signature raso cotton, and made 100 trench coats. The plan was to investigate the natural oxidation characteristics of copper in a fashion context using industrial processes (the first time a fashion brand has used this particular type of technology); the result was a fabric that has a stunning iridescent camouflage-like surface texture but became completely unbonded in the time since the coats were made, the bonding ‘eaten by the same oxidisation', explained creative director Carlo Rivetti; it means the pieces can’t – like previous collections – be sold. ‘This is the unfiltered story of an unfinished research process,’ he added. ‘Each step has taught us important things which will be important for the future, regardless of the goal achieved.’

Kassl Editions x Zara Home

High-street juggernaut Zara Home and indie Amsterdam label Kassl Editions presented their limited-edition homewares collection at the former’s flagship on Corso Venezia. With the first floor devoted entirely to an exhibition to present the tie-up, it made for a bold statement of design democratisation and one for which Kassl Edition’s ‘Pillow’ sofa (originally conceived for Wallpaper’s Re-Made initiative in collaboration with Muller Van Severen) was reinvented. Joined by art prints, flat-weave rugs, reversible mirrors and lacquered wood furniture that can triple as tables, shelves or plinths, the modular collection caters to design enthusiasts on a budget.

La DoubleJ

Supersalone saw La DoubleJ founder JJ Martin ‘activate a hunch and bring back the bat’. Stemming from the themes of spirituality for which the womenswear brand is becoming increasingly known, Martin commissioned the artist JoAnn Tan to help turn the basement of the brand’s new Via San Andrea store into a bat cave-cum-craft installation to celebrate the spirit animal. Martin’s vision came to life through Tan’s suspended bat lamps, made from turned walnut, Italian silk, and Hermès leather on the wings, and which each took one week to complete. The event provided a first opportunity for many to see inside the space, which opened this April, as well as see the brand’s new Miniscalchi homewares collection. Highlights include a set of porcelain plates featuring patterns that first appeared on tableware made for Napoleon Bonaparte’s visit to Verona, here rendered in bubblegum pink (‘because this is La DoubleJ!' laughed Martin), and an extension of the brand’s collaboration with Venetian glassmaker Salviati on smoky sets of liquor glasses.

Versace

Donatella Versace called on Milanese architects Roberto Palomba and Ludovica Serafini to translate Versace’s fashion-house codes for Versace Home in a bid to have a more ‘3D vision of [the] Versace environment’, explained Palomba. Staged in Versace’s Via Durini space, which opened in April, everything hinged on the Greca pattern, which debuted in the A/W 2021 ready-to-wear collection. It manifested here in cushions, bed linen and wallpaper in green, blue, pink and brown. Deliberately less extravagant than Versace Home of old, this collection marks a move towards a clean-lined aesthetic and a focus on details over drama. Symbols synonymous with the house – including the gold safety-pin and Medusa head – arrived as subtle details such as zips and buttons on the new leather ‘Venus’ armchair and buttons on the made-to-share ‘Signature’ sofa. ‘Donatella is the icon for a new generation of women, and we made a house for her to represent her: she wants to hunt, rather than be hunted,’ said Palomba. 

Off-White

Salone may see few brands designing with dorm rooms in mind, but then most brands aren’t Off-White. Creative director Virgil Abloh collaborated with the ceramicist Ginori 1735 on its new homewares collection, which comprises a tea set, serving platters and dinner plates in the Florentine company’s classic white porcelain, all graffitied with Off-White’s tag. ‘This is a collection for the modern dining room – whether formal in a home, a millennial apartment, or simply a dorm room,’ said Abloh of the first instalment of the collaboration (the next will land in 2022). ‘The imposition of the modernity of a logo and graffiti art with the respected house of Ginori 1735 is proof that good design can live on forever.' Studying just got a whole lot more civilised.

Loro Piana

Famed for its deliciously luxurious textiles, Loro Piana looked to the past, the present and the future to create three stories that celebrate fabric for its Salone presentation at its Montenapoleone store. First up it commissioned Gabetti & Isola to create an exclusive version of its iconic ‘Bul-bo’ lamp (originally created in the late 1960s); as the new ‘Bul-bo Soft’, its base is covered in cashmere and contrasting Altai wool fabric. Next up, an interpretation of the classic director’s chair by Exteta and Paola Navone-Studio Otto, which has resulted in the ‘Delight’ chairs, covered in an outdoor fabric conceived by Loro Piana that is light, salt-, chlorine- and fungus-resistant. And finally, there’s the ‘Palm Duet’ chaise longue, a creation by Raphael Navot made exclusively for Loro Piana and upholstered in Cashfur, a novel fabric made from combining cashmere and silk on circular knitting looms.

Etro

After the best part of 18 months spent at home, it’s little surprise that bar cabinets have made a celebrated return. Etro’s new offering, the ‘Rajan’, is equipped with bronze glass and lined in a champagne paisley print (naturally). It forms one of the elements of the brand’s ‘Intimate Dining' collection on display at its Via Pontaccio store, where it is joined by its new ‘Klee’ round dining table, complete with a dinner-party friendly lazy Susan; the suitably sumptuous ‘Kush’ armchair, which is studded in gold; and the ‘McKenzie’ glass lamps, which drop like jewels from the ceiling.

Missoni

Missoni had a three-fold presence across the city. Its Via Sant’Andrea boutique hosted its Virgila Soft loungers and circular Art Glass tables. On display at its Brera HQ was its new collection of Miss Wood chairs - rounded wooden sculptures which have been polished and painted in degrade pastel hues so to appear almost plastic in their structure - and its new Grandma armchair suite featuring curved Walnut arms and upholstered in five variants of its famed zigzag textile. But it was at the Universita Statale di Milano where the world of Missoni Home came to life: modular outdoor sofas and square poufs covered in its water-repellent Andalusia stripe stood in the shadow of a huge Missoni vase covered in an intricate mosaic by the famed Venetian furnace Orsoni Venezia 1888. Creative Director Rosita Missoni, who turns 90 in November, told Wallpaper* that it was a joy to be designing items that allow people to enjoy being outdoors, something she has personally relished since the start of the pandemic.

Sunnei

Milan-based Sunnei partnered with its fellow Milanese brand and long-term collaborators NM3 on an installation outside its Via Vela flagship to celebrate the Super Salone. The cuboid metallic seating structure features a maple tree in the centre and was designed to bring the inside out, creating a tranquil oasis in the heart of Milan’s urban centre – in signature low-key-chic Sunnei style. The design duo behind the brand, Loris Messina and Simone Rizzo, used the occasion as an opportunity to spruce up their collection space too, where they presented their autumn/winter 2021 collection, AKA the uniform of Milan’s design-centric cool crowd.

Roberto Cavalli

Taking its leave from its new designer Fausto Puglisi’s first menswear collection for the house in June, the Roberto Cavalli Home collection on display at its Via Montenapoleone flagship was all about optimum glam (before arriving at the house, Puglisi was famed for dressing Beyonce, Lady Gaga and Jennifer Lopez, so no surprise there). The result was two threads: the new Wild Dining and the Wild Suite. Brushed bronze tables, brass chandeliers and a bookshelf panelled in Wild Tiger fabric were met with animal-print bed linen, silk pillow cases and black leather bed frames, while the home office gets a suitably decadent update with a jewel-handled gold desk. 

Berluti

Berluti enlisted the talents of Spanish furniture designer Jorge Penadés to repurpose leather offcuts from its ready-to-wear collections to create three pieces of furniture that were unveiled in its new Montenapoleone flagship. After gathering a mound of multicoloured pieces, Penadés created what he has coined “Structural Skin”; it’s a wood-like structure that saw him compress the leather with natural glue in a bespoke mould and leave them to dry for weeks before cutting and sanding them down. Taking on a rock-like appearance similar to that of agate, his creation has formed the legs for a glass and steel table, the base of a table lamp, and keyring cords. Plans are to produce them in a numbered and limited-edition series, with only five of each available.

Founded and curated by Alexander May, the brains behind creative enterprise Offsite.Studio which focuses on artist collaborations, the inaugural Los Angeles exhibition ‘Sized’ will feature works by over 40 artists and designers; all individuals and friends that May has known or admired for some time.

With all items available to purchase, the ‘collision of art and design’ will address our desire for collecting, says May. The eclectic mix of objects on display includes a pair of vintage stools on loan from Neutra’s VDL House on the same stage as a Sterling Ruby contemporary piece and a pre-Columbian urn.

Other highlights include a stickered chair by Jordan Wolfson; a sculpture by Sterling Ruby / S.R. Studio. LA. CA; glassware and candleholders by Permanent Collection; a Gallic chair by Michèle Lamy for Rick Owens Furniture; a selection of Lykke Li’s musical instruments from her personal collection; unique hand-crafted garments by collective No Sesso; and a book, Dižà Nó Ole, by Cielo, the Indigenous-women-led nonprofit dedicated to Indigenous communities in Los Angeles.

Several key design launches are simultaneously happening on-site, including the debut of bi-coastal horticultural operation Cactus Store premiering its furniture and the unveiling of Studio Shamshiri's chair in collaboration with John Williams. Pamela Shamshiri extols the power of in-person events, saying, ‘Even before the pandemic, we were living more and more in virtual worlds, but a digital photo can never show the way that sunlight changes the shadows on a painting, or the way it feels to be in the presence of a Rodin, or how you can be blown away by the incredible craftsmanship in a piece of furniture just by spending time exploring its details in front of you. I think that feeling is very primal and human, and something we’ve been hungry for. Also, so many people have spent quarantine making amazing things, and it’s exciting to see what everyone has been up to.’

Tantalising all the senses, the physical experience will be enhanced by a pop-up installation space by Alex Tieghi-Walker of Tiwa Select that will operate as a tearoom by day, serving a custom blend by California-based Leaves and Flowers, and as a mezcal bar on special evenings, with pourings of Yola Mezcal. Guests can enjoy their drinks under the indigo-dyed canopy by artist Megumi Shauna Arai, around a 12-foot oak table created from salvaged Victorian floorboards while seated on Vince Skelly stools. ‘During a year in which we have been so isolated from each other, I want to create an experience that unites people in a way that feels personal, intimate, and tactile – albeit on a modest, friendly scale,' says Tieghi-Walker.

‘There’s no comparison', says May of the importance of physical experiences. May previously founded Fondazione Converso, the non-profit arts space housed inside the 16th-century Church of San Paolo Converso in Milan, committed to fostering the dialogue of art and architecture through performative exhibitions – so he knows a thing or two about the impact of in-person events. ‘Coming out of a year where we’ve all experienced so much through digital mediums, creating a physical environment that people can enjoy — and reconnect with one another — is exciting. There’s something that happens in a room when all the right elements come together; there’s a knowing that occurs.'

INFORMATION

All pieces on view at 'Sized' will be available for purchase during the show and online. sized.studio

'Sized' runs from 15 - 27 June 2021 (with VIP appointments from 10 June)

ADDRESS

619 N Western Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90004

VIEW GOOGLE MAPS

It’s no secret that a largely digital-only fashion week is a tricky event to master. Fashion shows function on suspense and anticipation, the expectation of an audience, the first foot on a runway, the inaugural beat of a show soundtrack, the force of the catwalk finale. It’s difficult to recreate this suspense through a computer screen. But for Paris Fashion Week A/W 2021, designers living in a city operating through a lockdown and strict curfew pushed on.

They even took advantage of the French capital’s deserted streets, presenting collections and trends for 2021, that celebrated the spirit of the City of Light and the spectacle of the fashion show, with both pared-back, reserved dressing and exuberant, out-out style.

Like many of us, Chanel's Virginie Viard was feeling the urge to hit the tiles and dance all night with abandon. For the Parisian maison's A/W 2021 offering, the brand's merry troupe of models strode through the deserted streets of Paris, before arriving at legendary Saint-Germain-des-Prés nightclub Castel, which opened in 1961, and was beloved by Pierre Bergé, Serge Gainsbourg and Salvador Dalí. Here, the models shed glittering bouclé coats and puffer jackets at the cloakroom and strutted through salons, sporting glittering mini dresses, transparent skirts and androgynous tweed suits. 

There was also an après-ski sensibility, seen in padded camelia-motif jumpsuits, Chanel ‘CC' logo dungarees and fluffy moonboots. Instagram users were strongly inclined towards the label's evening-meets-off-piste chic, and Chanel’s collection reached more than 246 million users, the widest audience of Paris Fashion Week, according to visual marketing software company Dash Hudson.

Miu Miu was also keen for a ski trip, holding its A/W 2021 show on the snow-topped mountains of Italy's Cortina d'Ampezzo, instead of its usual AMO-designed show space at Paris’ Palais d’Iena. Models braved the elements in colourful crochet knits and balaclavas, glossy padded jumpsuits, fluffy ski boots and bejewelled dresses. Ski, but with a side of subversive sleek. 

For her debut at Chloé, Uruguay-born New York-based designer Gabriela Hearst celebrated Paris, home city of the brand. Inspired by the location of Chloé founder Gabrielle Aghion's first salon shows, the brand's A/W 2021 film featured models softly striding from Brasserie Lipp (still a firm fashion week favourite) into softly lit cobbled streets. There was a 1960s fluidity to the collection, reflecting the easy elegance of Hearst's own label. Think striped knitted dresses, patchwork coats in scalloped leather, fluid outdoorsy ponchos and a new eco-aware take on the brand's signature ‘Edith’ bag. Hearst is committed to sustainability, and her debut featured recycled fabrics, from cashmere to silks, alongside 50 secondhand ‘Edith’ bags sourced on Ebay and customised with scraps of fabric. 

AMI's Alexandre Mattiussi wanted not only to celebrate the spirit of Paris, but also the joy of a physical fashion show. His A/W 2021 film, Le Défilé, shot by Spanish filmmaker Alvaro Colom, traced excited models travelling to appear on the catwalk, before strolling in a 1990s-inspired spectacle. 'I wanted to pay tribute to the shows I used to watch from that era on Fashion TV,' Mattiussi explained. ‘Shows with an amazing mood and energy, people screaming!' The brand's collection also paid tribute to 1990s minimalism, with its elevated offering of camel coats, shearling jackets, fringed dresses and and optic tailoring. ‘Pieces that are elegant, sexy and chic,' Mattiussi said. ‘Good clothes for real people.'

Coperni also deemed it essential for the show to go on, and the label's founders Sébastien Meyer and Arnaud Vaillant presented an IRL drive-thru event at the Great Hall of the Accord Arena in Bercy, reached by 70 guests in a fleet of electric cars. Here too was a sense of 1990s decadence, with a collection that featured nighttime looks including pastel-hued transparent dresses, slouchy suiting, knee-high boots and scuba leggings

The beauty of a digital-first fashion week is its democratic nature. People from all over the world can view a brand's show through a screen, at the same time as an industry insider. However, this apparent unity can mask isolation, with viewers tending to access the experience in solitude. For Hermès' A/W 2021 show, Nadège Vanhee-Cybulski stated: ‘Let us attempt to be creative together – albeit from a distance.' This translated into a film directed by Sébastien Lifshitz, encompassing a trio of shows across continents and time zones. It featured an opening performance in New York, choreographed by Madeline Hollander, a catwalk show in Paris, and wrapped up with a final dance performance in Shanghai, choreographed by Gu Jiani.

For Vanhee-Cybulski, movement was key, and her collection was focused on a joyful emergence into post-pandemic existence. ‘It is urgent now to live again, to venture forth into the unknown, to gain a new lease of life,' she said. Pieces acted as high-luxury hybrids, with smart denim suiting, suits cut like parkas, and ponchos with inbuilt scarves. ‘Classifications disappear into the play of fabrics and pleats,' she added.

For the New York element of Hermès' film, Vanhee-Cybulski was inspired by the physicality of women walking in New York. The notion of walking was integral to a number of designers for A/W 2021, who found solace, inspiration and vigour in exploring on foot. ‘I have the best ideas when I jog or walk,' said Akris' Albert Kriemler. The creative director is famous for collaborating with artists and architects, from Imi Knoebel to Geta Brătescu, but for A/W 2021 the brand's Swiss home town of St Gallen was his muse. In a film directed by Anton Corbijn, with whom Akris also teamed up last season, models strode the town’s snow-topped outer streets in grayscale, before gathering inside its medieval Abbey Library in Technicolour.

Reinterpreting the idea of the Akris logo, Kriemler devised topographical map prints that pinpointed the location of the brand's atelier. ‘My grandmother bought the space in 1944,' he said. He also celebrated the material heritage of the town, which was once responsible for 50 per cent of the world's embroidery. Delicate, punch-cut embroideries detailed comfort-focused, contemporary pieces, including neoprene dresses with laser-cut details, double-face cashmere coats and gauzy map-print tops created using stretch tulle.

During London’s several lockdowns, Laura and Deanna Fanning, the sister creative directors behind Kiko Kostadinov’s womenswear collection, took their daily walk around London’s Crouch End, Muswell Hill and Highgate. With the streets largely deserted, they felt a sense of reclaiming the city and its historic sites, but also noted the lack of inspiration felt when people aren’t around. ‘In big cities people become part of the landscape, it’s one of the reasons you live in them,’ they explained. Their strolls led them to Lauren Elkin’s book Flâneuse, which looks at the walking habits of women writers including Virginia Woolf and Jean Rhys, and covers Elkin’s own on-foot adventures, from Venice to Tokyo.

The Fannings were inspired by the idea of 'presenting yourself to other people', taking inspiration from the bright hues found in the street style photography of Japanese magazine Street, from the 1990s and 2000s. Bright colours sported by passers-by on Portabello Road in London inspired bold hues, while darker greys and blacks nodded to the weather of Paris. Draped, tailored and layered silhouettes featured chunky striped knitwear, trousers and jackets with panels of colourful faux fur, futuristic stud-detail trainers, and ruffled skirts. Fluid dresses and shirts with voluminous sleeves featured a retro-futuristic 'radius-dot' print inspired by the Polish Op artist Wojciech Fangor. ‘The print references an idea in Flâneuse, of a cartographer drawing a circle on a map and walking around the area within it,' they explained. ‘The clothes are about showing yourself off, not to please men, but for your own pleasure.'

Showing off is not something that's resonated in recent months, but it's clear that as normalcy beckons, so does our desire to dress up. ‘For me it's about having a positive, joyful approach to luxury,' said Schiaparelli creative director Daniel Rosenberry, who in just two years has brought a contemporary humour, playfulness and sense of luxury to the Parisian couture house. ‘It's about heightening the fantasy.' And what a fantasy A/W 2021 was: think classic silhouettes like poplin shirts, trench coats and denim jumpsuits peppered with hammered gold bijoux buttons evoking the 'eye' and 'lock' surrealist motifs of the house, alongside bags and tweed jackets with 3D 'booby' details and second-skin boots with huge flatform heels. ‘We're taking under-designed silhouettes and embellishing them in an intellectual way,' Rosenberry said. ‘I love the perversity of it all'.

Elsewhere, Paco Rabanne's Julien Dossena referred to his A/W 2021 offering as an ‘affirmation of decadence'. In an uplifting film, smiling women soared through the air to Bryan Ferry's Slave to Love, in souped-up 1970s and 1940s shapes, from frill-necked dresses to wide-legged suiting, embellished in swathes of chainmail, rhinestones and tulle. ‘Looks layered with ornamentation transmit resilience to ravishing effect,' read the brand's press release.

‘This collection is an ode to individuality, freedom and change,’ said Lucie and Luke Meier of Jil Sander’s A/W 2021 offering. The collection amped up ostentation, featuring silk dresses with retro interiors prints, slips with delicate lingerie details, shirts with bold floral embroidery, soft capes with fringed sleeves, and necklaces formed from oversized strings of pearls.

Acne Studios’ Jonny Johansson was also inspired by voluminous shapes and bold prints, creating pieces for emerging from isolation that are subtly different from the clothing worn before it. Black and white hues nodded to bridal and funeral ceremonies, missed out on in the last year. Fluid dresses had striking floral prints, coats cocooned the body like dressing gowns, and accessories felt protective, including chunky ponyskin boots, XL chain necklaces and warped handbags

Elsewhere, Issey Miyake's A/W 2021 offering was exuberantly innovative. The label looked to the tones of nature, from shadows to sea shells, debuting futuristic clothing in a film directed by Mikiya Takimoto. Its ‘Cliff' pieces featured garments that appeared to ripple across the body in a series of pleated and non-pleated yarns, including long skirts and unlined trenchcoats. ‘Silk Shade' designs featured abstract prints of flowers glowing in moonlight, created using a traditional hogushigasuri dyeing technique and swathed across fluid side-tie dresses. Concentric pleated ‘Monochrome Planet' designs had circular cut-out forms that bought new dimensions to the body.

A/W 2021 also allowed brands the opportunity to refine their output and drill down into their signatures. For Paul Smith, this meant revisting the subcultural silhouettes that have been synonymous with his five-decade creative tenure. As with the brand's menswear offering, shown in January, the designer looked to mod and grunge shapes, with Madness-inspired ankle-skimming suiting in two-tone fabrics, colourful striped knitwear and mackintoshes in blown-up floral prints from the label's archive. There was a relaxed elegance to the offering, which featured blazers paired with knitted trousers, fit-and-flare dresses in stretchy paisely print jersey and silk pyjamas layered with pea coats. ‘I think when winter comes, people will want to put a cool suit on, or a shearling jacket,' Smith explained. ‘After the start of the year in sweats and then flopping into summer, people will need de-flopping!'

Marine Serre also focused on the essence of her label, one synonymous with half-crescent motifs, upcycled fabrics and a fiercely apocalyptic vision of the future. She presented her 'Core' collection through a series of video vignettes online, featuring Serre fans carrying out mundane tasks from their homes in the city or the country, sporting spliced denim and leather, skirts formed from patches of picnic blanket and scarf swatches, and tattoo-print dresses.

Copenhagen-based Cecilie Bahnsen took time to hone her ethereal and intricately crafted pieces. Designs had a whole-wardrobe aspect, incorporating knitwear, cardigans and quilted trenchcoats, alongside her signature cloud-like dresses, imagined with bow details, voluminous sleeves and cut-outs and in overtly tactile fabrics. ‘The collection is so focused on touch,' Bahnsen explained. ‘Giving people a sense of tactility even when there is distance. The feeling you get putting clothing on is really luxury for us.'

Designers were also keen to reflect the reality of life, which in the past 12 months has called for an existence we never thought possible. For Dior's Maria Grazia Chiuri, this meant delving into the disturbing narratives of fairytales, and journeying to the Palace of Versailles, with a film of sinister and uncanny connotations (think nude bodysuit-clad dancers cavorting around spikes and writhing in the woods under moonlight). On the runway in the Hall of Mirrors, models took on changing feminine identities, in body-cinching hooded Bar jackets and mini skirts à la Red Riding Hood, laser-cut leather pinafore dresses and shirts, and pleated evening gowns. Leopard print and plaids allowed models to move between seductive and conservative, playing with their identities, with angular sunglasses and Oblique-print foulard headscarves.

Rick Owens riffed between rage and resplendence, his women's collection an evolution of January's ‘Gethsemane' menswear offering. The show, presented on Venice Lido, where Owens has spent much of the last year (his factory is a two-hour drive away, in Concordia), featured power-shouldered silhouettes that nodded to both sportswear and haute couture. Puffer jackets trailed like capes, body-hugging sequin gowns had voluminous asymmetric sleeves, trailing ribbed knitwear wrapped around the body, and thong swimsuits functioned as ‘self-contained and sealed body coverings'. Owens saw his powerful shapes as a response to fear and anxiety, and a parody of physical male aggression, transforming female forms into ‘architectural bulldozers'.

At Loewe and his own eponymous label, Jonathan Anderson has led the creative charge in terms of finding imaginative alternatives to the runway show. His ‘Show in the News' collection was an evolution of his ‘Show in a Box’ and ‘Show on the Wall’ concepts. The invitation featured a time capsule-inspired metal tin and, inside it, a newspaper emblazoned with the headline ‘The Loewe Show Has Been Cancelled’. ‘I thought it was nice to put a literary backdrop to the collection,' said Anderson in an accompanying video about the design of the show invitation, which also featured a letter opener and an excerpt of Danielle Steele's new novel The Affair. The collection was similarly layered, rifffing on tailoring and soft boyish shapes, voluminous draped dresses and intarsia knitwear, in bold tones and with sequin, tassel, buckle and fringe details. Think suede jackets with soft shoulders, heeled boots with XL debossed clasps, gowns with graphic paillettes and oversized blazers in painterly silks.

After a month-long series of shows – spanning New York to London, and showcasing narrative films and lookbooks, printed matter and the dense reach of digital – Louis Vuitton closed Paris Fashion Week with a celebration of the runway show in its purest form. The brand's A/W 2021 offering, presented in the Denon wing of The Louvre, was resplendent with voluminous and futuristic shapes, which drew on ancient garments and 1980s silhouettes. On a global live stream, models walked to Daft Punk track ‘Around the World’, sporting architectural capes and puffball ruffled skirts, statue-and-cameo-print jackets marking a collaboration with Fornasetti, and richly embroidered A-line dresses. Boots had chunky sculptural heels, and flats resemembled bow-detail gladiator sandals. Presented in a historic setting, the show spanned both the past and present, showcasing fashion for the future – one which viewers around the world are waiting on with wide-eyed anticipation. 

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.

Mood board: The threat of Coronavirus on the Paris catwalks has imbued the protective silhouettes they are presenting with powerful new meaning. Marine Serre’s signature facemasks and apocalypse-inspired silhouettes, the headgear and hybrid parkas Felipe Oliveira Baptista debuted at Kenzo, the chainmail Joan of Arc armour at Paco Rabanne. Owens clothing embodies protection, whether his garments allude to pagan robes or stage outfits sported by glam rock stars. Fresh from debuting his Moncler collaboration of exaggerated outerwear on a tour bus in Milan, the designer looked to the eighties for A/W 2020, with pilled knit or satin asymmetric dresses that clung to the body, with ‘monstrous’ dome shoulder jackets and padded coats and slick thigh high boots. Models sported protective, recycled plastic gloves (a fitting accompaniment to the hand sanitizer placed on guest’s seats) and sported padded capes around their shoulders – originally duvets created for Owens’ Moncler tour bus, part priestess part rock star.

Team work: Before Owens’ show, the designer wrote to English singer Gary Numan, whose eighties aesthetic inspired his collection. He asked him if models could walk to a stripped back version of Numan’s 1979, Down in the Park. ‘Gary said yes,’ Owens show notes read. Models entered his brands Palais de Tokyo show space to plumes of smoke which billowed across the floor for that added stage presence.

Best in show: The designer also looked to the avant-garde creations of Japanese designer Kansai Yamamoto, best known for designing inventive stage outfits for David Bowie. Graphic black and white patterns, which traced the outlines of Owens’ emphatically power shouldered jackets nodded to Yamamoto’s most famous bodysuit design for Bowie, a balloon trouser latex design swathed with a pattern of undulating lines.

Mood board: The show was entitled ‘Performa’ in homage to the performance art biennial created by Roselee Goldberg in 2004. Ever since, this has explored the role of live performance within contemporary art discourse and encouraged new directions. ’The romance of Joseph Beuys’ Aktions at Documenta in the Seventies always thrilled me and, in my head, Performa is the evolution of that,’ Owens said in the show notes. At the start, guttural smoke machines were fired up, spewing a cloud of greyish cashmere smoke along the floor, skimming the shoes of the guests. 

Best in show: The show opened with a series of cashmere all-in-ones that sinuously wrapped around the body. The look channelled a hard comfort. Draped tees; vinyl macs worn over puffas. Peaked shoulders mimicked Le Corbusier’s Modulor Man from the architect’s anthropometric scale of proportions devised in the late 1940s. Some knits were traced in graphic line and worn under double-faced cashmere robes. With his clothes, Owens has always embodied a performative kind of luxury. For A/W 20, the jackets and tabards were sculptural, unforgiving. Shoulders colossal. The collection was muted in grey yet lifted by painted snake, bright blue fish skin, leopard-printed satins and bleached seawolf patchwork. 

Sound bite: Owens had been thinking about the designer as performer. ‘I had always regarded personal behaviour, social and moral, as something to quietly but diligently work on improving. But at 58, I find myself, for better or worse, performing,’ he considered. ‘The difference between behaviour and performance implies falseness and rehearsal in the latter, but maybe concentration on behaviour can be a bit passively dry? And performance a joyous contribution? Our Instagram generation makes refining behaviour vs indulging in performance a weird new balancing act…’

By the time Vincenzo De Cotiis went to the Politecnico di Milano to study architecture in the late 1970s, Italy’s radical architecture movement was at the forefront of the country’s design culture. In that context, it may seem surprising that De Cotiis was more inclined to arte povera’s use of rudimentary materials. ‘I feel tangent to everything that is artistically expressed through materiality,' says the Italian architect and designer, who set up his studio in 1997. ‘Its recyclability has always been part of my artistic path, like fibreglass.'

For his new collection ‘Éternel,’ launched at Carpenters Workshop Gallery in Paris, De Cotiis has produced 18 pieces, including dining and coffee tables, chandeliers, stools and a lounge chair. Simultaneously playing with the vocabulary of furniture and sculpture, the collection combines solemn materials such as iridescent cast aluminium and brass with eastern influences, such as lanterns made of glass with silver foils and cabinet surfaces that emulate Japanese ceramics.

‘I have always been passionate about Japanese architecture,' says the Milan-based designer, whose first projects in the 1980s were already infused with eastern references. ‘Today, I find this influence in the attention towards the minimal and the intimate.'

While it may be the designer’s first solo presentation in France, it certainly isn’t his first collaboration with Carpenters Workshop Gallery. In 2018, the London headquarters presented ‘En Plein Air,’ a 20 piece-strong solo display inspired by late 19th century al-fresco painting.

Meanwhile in Venice, to coincide with this year’s Art Biennale, his 17-metre-long wall made of recycled fibreglass and silver plated brass can be seen at the group exhibition DYSFUNCTIONAL, at Galleria Giorgio Franchetti alla Ca’d’Oro, alongside the work of Rick Owens and Michel Lamy, Virgil Abloh, Studio Drift and Ingrid Donat, to name a few. 

‘I always seem to find myself somewhere between the functionality of the object and its abstract presence,‘ the designer and architect says of his long-standing artistic inclination. Of his new pieces — which also coincide with the launch of a book published by Rizzoli Electa — De Cotiis says that ‘their function is perhaps the last thing to be considered.’

INFORMATION

‘Éternel’ is on view until 21 December; carpentersworkshopgallery.com

ADDRESS

54 Rue De La Verrerie,
Paris, 75004

VIEW GOOGLE MAPS

Hiroshi Sugimoto, the renowned Japanese artist, has directed a dance production of At the Hawk’s Well for the Opéra National de Paris, adding to his already diverse repertoire. The 40-minute piece is a new interpretation of a one-act play, written by the Irish poet and playwright William Butler Yeats almost a century ago.

Yeats’ original, in which immortal water is the subject, blended Celtic esotericism with the six-century-old Japanese tradition of Noh theatre and its parallels to shamanic rituals. Although Sugimoto wasn’t particularly familiar with the world of dance, the idea of reinterpreting Yeats appealed immediately when he was approached by Aurélie Dupont, dance director of Opéra National de Paris.

Within the quintessentially European surrounds of the Ópera Garnier, the distinctively Japanese hair and make-up in Sugimoto’s production immediately stands out. ‘They are clearly a Noh reference. And it works! I myself am amazed,’ reflected Sugimoto right after the general rehearsal. The costume design, meanwhile was entrusted to Rick Owens, who Sugimoto was quick to praise. ‘Rick attended a Noh presentation and looked through original costume sketches for the first presentation of At the Hawk’s Well in 1916.

The great thing is that in spite of this research, his design was not literally influenced by Noh costume, but a reconsidered version.’ Owens has dressed the character of the old man in silver metallic briefs and a humongous origami-like coat. Cuchulain, a young hero from Celtic mythology, wears a version in gold. A third key figure, the Hawk-Woman (or ‘Guardian of the well’), appears in a red bodysuit with geometrically placed holes, paired with a metallic red bolero, exaggerated in form and proportion.

The performance is directed by the Japan-based Italian choreographer Alessio Silvestrin, a former collaborator of William Forsythe. It marries contemporary dance and Noh movement, characterised by nodding, posing and sometimes stomping. Throughout the show, what the audience hears is not necessarily ‘danceable’ music but instead, abstracted electronic sound composed by Japanese artist Ryoji Ikeda.

‘The awakening gong-like sound in the very last scene is actually a Tsuzumi (a traditional Japanese percussion instrument) tapped by a wooden fan, which Ikeda recorded and digitalised. This is more than a sound effect, but an expression of ma. It’s excellent,’ Sugimoto enthused. (Ma can be roughly translated as interval, referring to the Japanese aesthetic ideology of subtle timing that breaks silence.)

Conceived by Sugimoto himself, the stage design is all about lighting and offers the perfect showcase for acclaimed photographic work. In the backdrop, a slightly curved line symbolises the horizon, a view from the isolated island where the well is situated. Meanwhile, bright red or blue round shapes emerge to evoke the burning sun or the infinite sea.

The only prop is a wooden platform set in the middle of the stage, where Noh master Kisho Umewaka appears for the finale. ‘The show does include real Noh elements, but it’s not the narrative; it’s far too different from its authentic form. Noh might make you doze off. This show doesn’t!’ laughed Sugimoto.

INFORMATION

At The Hawk’s Well, until 15 October, Opéra national de Paris. operadeparis.fr

ADDRESS

Palais Garnier
Place de l’Opéra
75009 Paris

VIEW GOOGLE MAPS

Mood board: Grandmothers have been on designers’ mood boards for spring. In London, Richard Malone celebrated his family matriarch, a feisty working class seamstress who inspired his creative output, and in Milan, Arthur Arbesser looked to a discovered box of his grandmother’s fabric swatches, gathered over decades. After a men’s and women’s season in autumn, celebrating the work of 70s unsung design hero Larry LeGaspi, and an accompanying Rizzoli print release, Owens looked to the life of his Mexican grandmother for S/S 2020. His shows often coincide with poignant political moments; for example, S/S 2019 women’s Babel-inspired offering when Christine Blasey Ford was providing testimony against Brett Kavanaugh. ‘The debate over a border wall made me more conscious of who I would be separated from,’ Owens explained. This week, the Democrats announced a formal impeachment inquiry into the American President Donald Trump.

Finishing touches: There was something strong, regal and resplendent about the offering, which was imagined in Owens’ usual neutral tones, with pops of pink and gold – a nod to the colours employed by Mexican architect Luis Barragán. Models resembled futuristic goddesses, clad in sequin kaftans and sculptural mantles, sharp-shouldered jackets, slashed tube skirts and pixel-like metal headdresses, which evoked costumes in Fritz Lang’s 1927 science fiction drama Metropolis. Owens’ futuristic sense was also seen in Aztec graphics emblazoned geometrically on the back of capes, inspired by Josef and Anni Albers’ abstract Bauhaus interpretations of Aztec monuments.

Scene setting: Owens staged his show in his usual open-air location, next to the fountain of the Palais de Tokyo. His vision was ethereal and dreamlike, aimed at recalling ‘Fantasia-era Disney,’ and as the show began, men and women dressed in monastic robes lined the fountain, dipping nets into the water and swathing the setting in bubbles.

Mood board: Owens has cultivated a lyrical, rigorous bombast since founding his line in the mid-90s. There’s always immense poetry and graphic, conceptual silhouettes informed by a West Coast pragmatism. For S/S 2020 the designer looked back to his own heritage, naming the collection ‘TECUATL’ after his grandmother’s Mixtec maiden name. Owens was raised in southern California by an Anglo father and native Mexican mother. ‘I’ve been motivated to explore my personal Mexican-ness as a reaction to the US President’s fixation on a border wall,’ he said. Vocals to the show were in the traditional Nahuatl Aztec language, performed by Mexican musicians. The mood was heavy and deep – the clothes leaner, less cabalistic. Sharp shoulder tailoring came covered in white sequins. Straps on blazers could be shrugged easily off and kept on around the hips. There was jubilation and hope in the yellow pieces, as well as the iridescent leathers, clinched around the waist.

Team work: For S/S 2020, Owens partnered with the United Farm Workers Association – a union founded in the 1960s for farmworkers across the US. ‘My mother and I learned English together when she started taking me to nursery school. My father worked in the Porterville public court system as a translator for the Mexican migrant farm workers that were a major part of the San Joaquin agricultural industry,’ he said. The Association’s logo was applied onto T-shirts, with proceeds going back to support its work. A second collaboration is with American sporting company champion, now celebrating its centenary. ‘I remember my cousins wearing champion Tees and shorts when we used to go visit the family in Mexico in the seventies…’ Owens twists them into utilitarian loincloths and athletic togas.

Scene setting: The show was staged as usual in the terrace of the Palais de Tokyo. In the centre of the drained fountain stood a black wire bronze by British artist Thomas Houseago, whose practice is informed by architecture, sculpture, painting and performance. The invitation to the show – a layered lattice abstract – was taken from one of his colossal wall works. In his notes for the collection, Owens noted that Houseago had been thinking about border walls and the lines of Aztec hieroglyphics recently, as had he. A range of co-branded garments – jeans and shorts swathed in laces, towering sneaker boots – echoed the look and texture of the artist’s figurative pieces. The catwalk was framed by mounds of deep grey clay, transported from Houseago’s LA studio. After the show, it will be donated to students at The École des Beaux-Arts.

Mood board: Last month, Owens dedicated his A/W 2019 menswear show to the ‘space sleaze’ and ‘camp ferocity’ of fashion designer Larry LeGaspi, the brainchild behind the 1970s stage costumes of Kiss, Grace Jones and Divine. LeGaspi is a largely forgotten designer, but back in 2002 Owens told Plaza magazine about his newfound affection. In October this year, Owens releases a book celebrating the designer, and his A/W 2019 collection was an exploration of his black leather-dominated, gender fluid and flamboyant aesthetic. The look was strong and lean. Skinny leather trousers, razor sharp tailoring with exaggerated shoulders, second skin maillots worn unfastened over skinny vests, clingy cashmere knit skirts, and elongating platform boots. ‘This 1970s vibe reminds me of an era thrilled with potential liberation, as opposed to our current one, that sometimes feels sullenly entitled,’ Owens said.

Best in show: Owens’ mastery lies in his ability to create avant-garde, even apocalyptic runway shows, which when their looks are stripped back, offer incredibly shoppable pieces. A series of elongating bias-cut evening dresses at the end of the show were fantastically wearable. Owens has also just written the introduction to a book about master of structure Charles James. The couturier’s cut was also on show here.

Team work: Backstage, Owens conducted his interviews alongside the make-up artist Salvia, who he hired to work on the prosthetics used in the show. Models sported elongated foreheads and peculiar modified lumps and bumps on their skin. The make-up artist boasts nearly a quarter of a million followers on Instagram, and Owens was touchingly emphatic about introducing her to press and fans backstage. The championing of freedom of expression at its finest.

Mood board: A day before the show, Rick Owens Instagrammed a label that read ‘L. LeGaspi, inc.’. It was stitched inside a piece of clothing found in the archives of costume designer Larry Legaspi, the architect behind Kiss and girl-group Labelle’s iconic 70s looks. ‘He introduced a camp ferocity to the mainstream and helped set a lot of kids like me free, with his mix of art deco sexual ambiguity and raw, black leather bombast,’ Owens said. The lightning bolt graphic, snaking up the thighs of Kiss guitarist Ace Frehley’s original jumpsuit, was translated into quilting on nylon vests and used as linings for dramatic collared wool coats with lacquered canvas box pockets. A puffa bolero was curved around the arm, evoking a treble cleff. Trousers in cotton doeskin had suede knee patches - their volumes had a swooping couture consciousness. The mood was seductive and sexy. All in Owens’s esoteric style.

Team work: There is always a twisted kind of Americana to Owens’s clothes - recognisable basics are elongated or teased. Ribbed tanks are bleached, necks on T-shirts are worn out. Flannel tailoring had raw shearling and quilted nylon inserts. The models wore huge platform sandals and boots. Owens said: ‘Maybe in an era of squeamish conservatism and easy outrage we could use a bit of flamboyance.’ Shoulders were peaked, the silhouette elongated and pulled high up. The collection had all of the gall and glamour we deserve. A collaboration with French sneaker brand Veja resulted in their first performance runner, which happens to be Owens’s first 100% vegan shoe.

Scene setting: The show was lit by a single stream of white light; most of the guests sat in relative darkness. A 1940s searchlight, manufactured by General Electric in the US and then shipped to France to be used by the allies on the beaches of Normandy, was placed at the foot of the catwalk. The quintessential American in Paris. It lent a moody glimmer to the clothes, which were held together by the glitz of 1970s glam-rock. A remix of Swedish rock group Leather Nun’s cover of ABBA’s pop classic Gimme Gimme Gimme played loud.

Rick Owens is the sartorial pioneer that wins this year’s Wallpaper* Design Award for Best Women’s Fashion Collection (A/W18). Peruse the rest of the Judges' Awards winners here.

Rick Owens

Rick Owens was preoccupied with the physical trappings of human adornment, considering the physical impact of bustles, panniers and exaggerated garments of the past. This fascination translated into padded and bulbous silhouettes in neutral tones and yellow-and-brown check, including tunics in camel hair and linen felt, bum bag-like pillows, jackets with puffy extrusions, and oversized parkas with swaddling sleeves. Owens offset his avant-garde silhouettes against more wearable items, including deconstructed coats with frayed panels, cashmere running shorts, draped tops and sock boots with curving wedged heels.

Creative director: Rick Owens
Based: Paris
Key features: bulbous silhouettes, futuristic footwear, padding

BEST WOMEN'S FASHION COLLECTION A/W19 SHORTLIST

Balenciaga

Streetwear silhouettes and the haute-couture tradition synonymous with Cristóbal Balenciaga were brought together in Demna Gvasalia’s offering for the Parisian maison. He was inspired by the volume-focused and innovative codes of the house, using 3D-scanning technology to fit shell-like velvet and houndstooth jackets to models’ bodies. Elegant bourgeois silhouettes, including diaphanous oral dresses, silk headscarves and tweed pencil skirts, were off set by snowboarding-inspired staples, such as hoodies and bum bags. The brand’s signature cocoon silhouette was also reimagined, with waterproof outerwear and neon fleeces layered onto the body for voluminous effect.

Creative director: Demna Gvasalia
Based: Paris
Key features: 3D-scanned suiting, snowboarding staples and elegant evening wear

Chloé

For her second collection for the Parisian house, creative director Natacha Ramsay-Levi brought the graphic edge she honed while working under Nicolas Ghesquiére at Balenciaga to the brand’s more typically feminine and insouciant heritage. She offered marabou-trimmed Jodhpur trousers and horse-motif blazers, exquisite tailoring and trench coats, disco-centric jumpsuits and delicate lace-trim dresses. Cut-outs were a defining element of the collection, revealing unexpected erogenous zones, such as the top of the stomach, the hip and the shoulders. Bohemian élan was offset with accessories such as chunky boots with metal heels and sporty logo socks.

Creative director: Natacha Ramsay-Levi
Based: Paris
Key features: lace-trim dresses, equestrian silhouettes, unexpected cut-outs

Loewe

Creative director Jonathan Anderson has brought craft to the fore at the Spanish house. The distinct silhouettes in his collection were rich in detail and material palette: there were concertina-pleated and leather-trimmed shirt dresses, chevron-striped or ballooning puff-sleeved coats, snug shearling outerwear, cape-sleeve tweed suiting and sports-striped trousers. Anderson has imbued the house with calm and relaxed bohemianism, and a kind of shore-lapping serenity was evoked with long dresses with cut-outs, their edges wrapped with colourful lengths of thread; buttery-leather oversized backpacks; and hippyish hoodies with blanket-stitch detailing.

Creative director: Jonathan Anderson
Based: Madrid and Paris
Key features: tweed suits, artisanal details, concertina-pleat dresses

Louis Vuitton

An interstellar show set inspired by Star Wars’ Millennium Falcon was erected in the 19th-century Cour Lefuel of the Louvre. The location was a nod to the blend of past and present in Nicolas Ghesquiére’s collection, which offered up a mix of historical opposites, such as chic Parisian staples (silk shirts, bicolour tuxedo jackets and cashmere coats) and futuristic corsets, space-age miniskirts and spaceship uniform blouses. Ghesquiére has always had a penchant for historical costume and futuristic air, and Edwardian coats were offset against accessories with electronic-chip prints and capsule-like clutches.

Creative director: Nicolas Ghesquiére
Based: Paris
Key features: space-age style, hybrid silhouettes, edwardian outerwear.

Scene setting: In the Biblical story of the Tower of Babel, a united mankind attempts to build a vast structure tall enough to reach heaven. God, in response confounds their speech, splitting them across the world in settlements speaking many conflicting languages. Aspiration, and collapse, human desire and identity, fractured hope and belief: Rick Owens’ collections leave us questioning. Their architectural and avant-garde silhouettes act as an allegory for modern times. For Owens’ Tower of Babel-inspired open-air show set (one he also explored for his S/S 2019 men’s collection) he erected a pyre in the centre of his Palais de Tokyo location, which burst into flames in the middle of the show. A burning pyre, flames in the foreground of a modern art museum, its façade lined with classical sculptures. Food for socio-political thought on a Thursday evening.

Mood board: The torch-carrying women on Owen’s catwalk evoked unsettling fire goddesses, or worshippers of a flame-wielding deity. They wore spiky sculptural outerwear, kimonos with caped arms like wings, draped fringed dresses, and were swathed in dusty bleached denim and jersey. There were coats laser-cut from leather that looked like armour or ceremonial robes, and mini skirts with soft bumbag pockets. Owens’ silhouettes are always strong and striking. Just like the Tower of Babel, his protective and architectural silhouettes provide protection against a world in which we constantly seem to be falling.

Finishing touches: That architectural élan was translated into metal jewellery, which was part sculpture part accessory. Like the pyre that burst into flames mid show, models wore scaffolding-like cuffs, headdresses and bracelets, which encased their limbs inside graphic metal structures. The collection also showcased Owen's second collaboration with Birkenstock, which culminates in Rotterhiker metal buckle boots and Rotterdam velco strap sandals. The huge Space age sunglasses, which models wore on the catwalk, will protect them from whatever fire the future brings. 

Scene setting: The insta-age has carved two distinct fashion camps: those who want to be transported and those who want to follow. Our avant-garde, poetic saviour is Rick Owens. For summer his shows are hosted in the raw, open air at the Palais de Tokyo. They are epic, theatrical and intense with rigour, passion and sex. At his S/S 2018 show models walked on scaffolding set metres high above the space. Barely visible, they descended onto the industrial catwalk with demonic force. For S/S 2019 Owens’ boys circled potent eruptions of vivid coloured gas. First blue, then green, then red and yellow – the gas lingered like new thoughts in the brain.

Mood board: For this collection Owens explores the Tower of Babel – a biblical story which offers an explanation as to why the world’s people speak different languages. It is a myth about compassion and understanding and who doesn’t need a bit of that right now? The clothes are an allegory for our times. A scene from Fritz Lang’s Metropolis from 1927 interprets the Tower of Babel in a way that fits Owens’ mood. A flashback tells of how the lack of communication between the architects and the builders leads to the Tower’s ultimate destruction. No doubt this is why Owens’ clothes come with integrated scaffolding – triangular aluminium frames sit underneath jersey t-shirts, rearranging the silhouette of the body in the extreme. They contrast with relaxed washed denim skirts or denim cut-offs.

Team work: Owens encourages the eye to do more. The look is intense yet there are a lot of easy clothes: jean jackets cropped with sharp shoulder pads; sharp tailoring in summer wool or waxed linen with slim arms in sheer crisp silk gazar; hiking boots and sandals from the brand’s second season with Birkenstock. A series of hooded nylon ponchos closed the show. Shown assembled into constructivist shapes, they will be shipped flat to stores with a set of aluminium poles as, the show notes read, ‘a reminder of what could be.’

Last year Birkenstock debuted its Birkenstock Box, a mobile retail concept designed by Gonzalez Haase and featuring stacked freight containers, which act as blank boxes for the design whims of Birkenstock’s collaborators, ranging from Andreas Murkudis in Berlin to Barney’s New York. Now the Box is pitching up outside Rick Owens’ La Brea Avenue boutique in California.

‘Retail experiences must deliver the unexpected,’ says Birkenstock CEO Oliver Reichert. ‘The Box is about creating a holistic experience, a creative platform and meeting place where product and architecture interact.’

Rick Owens has raised the roof on Reichert’s immersive aim, overhauling the interior of the Birkenstock Box with organic elements inspired by ‘a Joseph Beuys temple’. The two-storey space features mirrored – and army felt blanket – lined walls, and is dotted with interior design objects, including ‘Prong Camel’ sculptures in foam, steel concrete and camel skin by Owens’ company Owenscorp. The Box also boasts Owens’ take on Birkenstock’s signature ‘Arizona’, ‘Madrid’ and ‘Boston’ styles in army felt, suede, leather and cow fur, complete with leather footbed lining.

‘I wanted to subtly corrupt their shape,’ Owens says. ‘I extended the sandals’ straps longer than is practical, and added more holes as a reverse embellishment.’ A range of his brand’s clothing has been specially created for the store, including idiosyncratic dropped-crotch shorts and draped jersey dresses. ‘My thoughts went to a sun-worshipping nudist colony,’ Owens says. ‘And robed figures in Cecil B DeMille epics. I’ll be wearing my Birkenstocks with cashmere jogging pants when I walk on the Adriatic Coast this summer.’ 

As originally featured in the May 2018 issue of Wallpaper* (W*230)

INFORMATION

The Birkenstock Box is on view from 17 to 21 April.For more information, visit the Birkenstock Box website

ADDRESS

17-21
819 La Brea Avenue 
Los Angeles
CA 90038

VIEW GOOGLE MAPS

Mood board: A Jeff Judd remix of Marlene Dietrich’s Baubles, Bangles and Beads – a reflective song focused on human adornment and the physical trappings of seduction – served as the soundtrack to Rick Owens’ A/W 2018 show, which was held inside the confines of the Palais de Tokyo. Owens was thinking about the ‘voluptuousness’ and ‘sumptuousness’ of panniers and bustles, and the hyperbolic clothing of the past. These volumes he translated into padded and bulbous forms, like tunics in camel hair and linen felt, bumbags like pillows, and oversized parkas with swaddling sleeves. Owens played with voluminous and spongy forms in his S/S 2018 women’s collection, likening his squidgy silhouettes to meringues. His autumnal silhouettes were both protective and provocative, comforting and crude, an amplified version of the female form.

Best in show: Owens is a master of balancing avant-garde catwalk pieces with commercial hits, and amongst the extreme shapes and padded silhouettes, there were deconstructed coats with frayed panels inspired by Bauhaus, parkas with trailing iridescent threads, cashmere running shorts and draped tops.

Finishing touches: There was a clean athleticism to the looks, which were paired with futuristic trainers with exaggerated soles. Slouchy sock boots with curving inverted heels had the same distorting silhouettes as Owens’ ready-to-wear, a wearable and futuristic take on the classic wedge heel.

Scene setting: Owens held his show in a different part of the Palais du Tokyo from the usual concrete foxhole. The great curved space was flooded with severe bright white light; guests squinted and blinked as they sat on metal benches. The models paced to a remix of ‘Energize’ by DJ Speedlap – a 90s terror techno track which heightened the prophesying mood.

Mood board: Owens is a deep thinker. His clothes are poetic omens. For A/W 2016 he showed a collection of cocooning primordial lavishness inspired by the Mastodon; the forest-dwelling elephant-like animal that became extinct more than 10,000 years ago, likely due to interventions by man. Owens always has an urgency. A/W 2018 was created with the cyclical nature of life at the forefront of his mind. The collection was named after Sisyphus, the crafty king of Greek mythology who was punished for his deceitful ways, forced to push a boulder up a hill — only for it to roll away again and again and again.

Sound bite: the designer is in a reflective mood. ‘It’s draining to watch unhealthy cycles repeat themselves, behaviourally and historically, and every once in a while, it’s hard to suppress a howl of rage,’ his notes for the show read. ‘If we haven’t learned better by now, after all this time, does this mean unhealthy cycles and base urges are an integral part of the human condition? And if they are integral, does that mean they have some kind of horrible value?’ Cargo chaps in camel hair flannel; raw-denim jeans lopped into jagged skirts; thick cashmere and cotton tunics slashed and left to hang around the body — don’t be fooled by the extremity of Owen’s clothes. They have a flawless majesty. Flags were sewn into the back of long coats. Floating as the models walked, their drape argued with the numbness of wool felt and nylon duchesse. The moment between rage and ecstasy.

Poster art: Loewe loves a poster-themed invitation, so for its S/S 2018 men’s presentation, the Madrid-based label opted for a fold-out of a model lounging by a pool at Salvador Dalí’s house in Cadaqués, Catalonia. The poster, part of the brand’s spring lookbook, was created in collaboration with graphic design studio and regular collaborators M/M Paris. Just like the windows of a home, it featured sleek rectangular cutouts. 

Home comforts: Designers were keeping house for S/S 2018, with a series of invitations revelling in domestic bliss. Anya Hindmarch’s came complete with a branded bar of soap, while Miu Miu’s was lined with a layer of sponge – what chicer tools for kitchen chores? More study-focused, Chalayan’s women’s invitation came complete with a pink Post-it note and JuunJ’s with a white collar. Dries Van Noten’s menswear invitation was printed with a retro office interior, boasting an old IBM computer.

True romance: In London, a host of show invitations nodded to nostalgia. Burberry’s featured an image by Dafydd Jones, of two students at the Magdalen Commemoration Ball at Oxford University in 1988, lying in formal clothing on the grass. Simone Rocha’s fold-out included two machine stitched-red figures with gothic trailing threads. Also otherworldly, the invitation to Thom Browne’s women’s show in Paris featured a card with a hand written poem speculating on the possibilities of dreams.

Feeling blue: The hue du jour during Paris men’s, blue accents were seen across the city’s invitations. At Louis Vuitton, an inky stripe completed the brand’s luggage-tag-inspired offering. At Yohji Yamamoto, a transparent black envelope encased a paper concertina printed with various global typescripts, which folded from a piece of sky blue card.

Box of tricks: Gucci presented its show attendees with a metal tin inspired by old pharmacy boxes. Its lid featured a mythical illustration taken from a German alchemical manuscript from the early 1700s, and opened to reveal a sheet of branded, chemist-inspired wrapping paper. Concealed inside? A thread holder, aromatic paper, five candles and a packet of matches. Talk about a hot ticket!

Bookworms: During the Paris womens’ shows, designers encouraged front rowers to engage in a spot of light reading or doodling. At Yohji Yamamoto, a yellow paged notepad was bound in plastic; at Hermès, guests were treated to a booklet listing the components of the brand’s 46 catwalk looks and a poem penned by Jarvis Cocker called ‘Hermès Colours’.

Orient express: Designers looked to Japan for their menswear show invitation inspirations. Take Paul Smith, which mailed guests a scaly plastic fish inscribed with Japanese typography. Or Emporio Armani, who printed an inky Oriental floral pattern onto its fabric-covered invitation. At Lanvin, guests kept themselves cool with a polka dot fan.

Band aid: Brands bought the entrance cues of music venues to the catwalk. From lanyards at Fendi and Versus, and barcoded tickets at Vetements, to sticky yellow wristbands at Marques’Almeida, we’d never felt more like we were with the band.

Hole in one: Designers brought cutouts to their catwalk invitations. Take the circular punches in Craig Green’s offering, evoking the hole motifs in his menswear designs, or the undulating curves in the Akris invitation, which nodded to a plywood sculpture by Alexander Girard (an inspiration behind the brand’s women’s collection). Or the circle cutout of a surreal horizon at Dirk Bikkembergs, and a viewfinder-like chink in the invitation for Natacha Ramsay-Levi’s debut for Chloé. Talk about making the cut!

Material world: Folds of fabrics acted as keepsake invitations. For Dries Van Noten’s women’s show and Luke and Lucie Meier’s debut at Jil Sander, the designers opted for subtle cream shades of fabric, printed with bold black typography. Marni’s women’s invitation featured a fold-out handkerchief finished with messy loops of thread, while Carven’s came with a pouting beaded fish. At Rick Owens’ women’s show, a scarf was printed with an illustration of a futurist sculpture by Thayaht, while at Tsatsas, the German accessories brand created a fabric invitation printed with an image of a rusty shipping liner.

Touch points: Textures were of top importance for S/S 2018, with Saint Laurent and Giorgio Armani opting for invitations in sumptuous leather – a white calfskin envelope for the former’s women’s show, and a tan leather invitation for the latter’s men’s offering. At Marni’s menswear show, creative director Francesco Risso favoured a tactile invitation printed on corrugated cardboard.

Clear view: Brands both emerging and established opted for invitations encased in cellophane. Kiko Kostadinov used a press stud to fasten a white strip of paper inside a glossy sheer plastic envelope. For Prada’s men’s show, the brand enclosed a white cardboard sleeve for a ‘Draft Novel’ inside a clear tearable pouch.

Scene setting: Few people are as good as Rick Owens at creating breathtaking scenography with the most minimal infrastructures. Last summer, the designer made a discovery: the façade at the Palais de Tokyo, with its 1930's sculptures, stairs and the square fountain in the middle, could make for a perfect showspace. He simply built a scaffolding and had his models walk through it. The effect was impressive. This time though, no scaffolding in sight, but guests started suspecting something when they saw black nylon raincoats carefully folded in each seat. Were we about to get soaked? Yes, but only towards the end of the show. Before that, as the music started thumping – an intriguing soundtrack of loud bass and the sounds of a woman's laughter – the pond filled with an eerie white fog, which suddely disappeared to give way to gigantic jets of water, creating an impressive liquid sculpture. No wonder passersby were as mesmerised by the whole show as guests were-the setup was a sight to behold. For those who had never before seen a fashion show, a more perfect first time would scarcely be imaginable.

Mood Board: It looked like bondage, but it was not. Backstage, Owens explained that his eerie clothes, twisted and stretched and layered, were not inspired by shibari but by... Confectionery! 'I saw them as cupcakes, as meringues', he said. A bit of an unsettlig statement considering the title of the collection was 'dirt'. But there were other murky elements. Like his use of the colour green, which one journalist described as 'sea creature green'. Owens admitted to being attracted to its ugliness: ' thought it was jarring and irritating and weird. I love colour wen it's kind of grotesque'. No one would deny that, for a designer mostly associated with black, Owen' understanding of colour is one of the things that makes him one of the most brilliant designers of our time. Season after season, he keeps unsettling us with just one different shade. And we keep loving it.

Team work: The show's invite, which already is a collector's item, was a bandana. But not just any bandana: printed on it was an image of an Italian brutalist head bust by the artist Thayaht. Explained in the scarf was the fact that, of two busts in existence, Owens owns one. 'This Italian futurist represents a brutalist aspirational aesthetic that I have pursued doggedly since I first put my name on a label', it went on to say. Brutalism's philosophy of optimism, futurism and grace was spotlessly translated into clothes through all the white looks, the bags placed on models' stomachs as symbols of fertility, and the unexpected grace with which Owens' clother never fail to carry themselves.

In 1944, the Museum of Modern Art in New York staged its first fashion exhibition, ‘Are Clothes Modern?’. Put together by architect and curator Bernard Rudofsky, the show explored attitudes towards clothes at a time when soon-to-be-outmoded traditions still prevailed, from superfluous pockets and buttons to rigid female silhouettes.

Despite its forward-thinking provocations, MoMA has not devoted another exhibition to the field of fashion since. Until now, that is. This month, the museum presents ‘Items: Is Fashion Modern?’, a comprehensive exploration of fashion design that considers the effects specific garments and accessories have had on society. Curated by Paola Antonelli, MoMA’s senior curator in the department of architecture and design, and curatorial assistant Michelle Millar Fisher, the show brings together 111 iconic fashion typologies from the last century that have had a universal and lasting impact.

‘When I started at MoMA 23 years ago, I noticed that there was no fashion and I started asking around why,’ says Antonelli. ‘I got many explanations about the fact that modern design is timelessness and fashion is ephemeral, but it didn’t make too much sense to me. So I began keeping a running list that I called “garments that changed the  world”.’ About three years ago, MoMA director Glenn Lowry suggested Antonelli make a show out of that list.

‘Items’ brings together sartorial archetypes such as the biker jacket, the white T-shirt and the bikini. Some are represented by multiple examples to give a sense of evolution: there are little black dresses by Dior, Versace and Rick Owens, and suits by Armani and Thom Browne. Added to these are contemporary icons such as Adidas’ Superstar trainers, Levi’s 501 jeans and Yves Saint Laurent’s Le Smoking tuxedo, all chosen for their revolutionary impact. Antonelli’s anthropological approach considers each item’s cultural, technological, economic, political and aesthetic relevance.

On our sartorial stop-off, three particular pieces caught our eye. Firstly, a transparent, slim jacket by British fashion designer and artist Carlo Brandelli made under his former label Squire; it is a piece that forms part of his seminal ‘Unstructured Tailoring’ cannon. The other two are part of the 19 commissioned prototypes for the exhibition, which riff on the designs of their predecessors – an oversized take on the guayabera shirt by the New York-based designer Ryohei Kawanishi, and a swirling 3D interpretation of the utilitarian jumpsuit, by London-based Richard Malone.

Brandelli gained renown in the nineties for his skinny and lightweight interpretation of Savile Row suiting. At Squire, he deconstructed the blazer silhouette exhibited at MoMA to its basic external form, removing its conventional inner fabric and horse hair linings, to create an unstructured sheath-like garment without additional internal weight. His designs anticipated the skinny suiting that was the silhouette du jour on the men’s catwalks in the early noughties.

‘I was always thinking about form, silhouette and function,’ Brandelli says. ‘Suits had always been so heavy. The first steps at Squire were to eliminate details... a process of reduction and abstraction as a reaction to the baggy long tailoring that was only available. I’ve always fused ideas of art process into my work, and perhaps this is why such a significant design was developed.’

Flourishing fashion designer Richard Malone was made aware of the significance of his commissioned design when Paola Antonelli sent him a selection of essays about the symbolic importance of the jumpsuit. ‘The shape goes back to Constructivist Russia,’ the Central Saint Martins alumnus explains. ‘It was a non sexualised uniform for everyone, about covering your body in order to function.’

Malone has created a fantastical interpretation of a functional garment – a swirling jumpsuit in his signature optical illusory patterns, complete with a 3D body and sleeves, sculpted using coils of wire. The Irish designer grew up working on building sites in Wexford, where he became familiar with workwear garments. His design has a more expressive and architectural flair. Due to the intricate nature of the forms he creates, Malone doesn’t sketch his designs in the conventional sense, but creates swirling patterns on paper, some of which he sent onto Antonelli’s teams during the creation process of his commission. He then notes how his designs conform to the body, ‘you get more unusual solutions and surprising silhouettes’, he says. 

Another Central Saint Martins alumni, Ryohei Kawanishi’s take on the guayabera shirt – a Central American and Caribbean staple that has become a symbol of immigration in the US – is not only oversized, but also festooned with politically charged embroideries arranged in patterns inspired by Afghan war rugs, Vietnam War souvenir jackets and Cuban media. ‘The guayabera shirt is said to be Cuban, but as a stereotype image, I’ve seen it a lot in American war movies,’ says Kawanishi. ‘I tried to find a way to approach the political scene and create a dialogue with those issues.’

The pieces are examples of MoMA’s intention to spark a deeper understanding of ordinary items we see every day. ‘It’s really a design show in which objects give you a chance to not only think about aesthetics, style, politics and anthropology, but also just the way we live,’ Antonelli says.

A version of this article is featured in the October 2017 issue of Wallpaper* (W*223)

INFORMATION

‘Items: Is Fashion Modern?’ is on view from 1 October until 28 January 2018. For more information, visit the MoMA website, the Carlo Brandelli website, the Richard Malone website and the Ryohei Kawanishi website

ADDRESS

MoMA
11 W 53rd Street
New York NY 10019

VIEW GOOGLE MAPS

Mood board: As is customary, the invitation for Rick Owens’ S/S 2018 show arrived in a long thick box. However, the usual slab of embossed leather wasn’t enclosed. Instead, sandwiched between two thick pieces of white foam sat a mini Italian futurist bust based on a design by the artist and designer Ernesto Michahelles. Known by his pseudonym Thayaht, he was an Italian polymath credited with one of the earliest examples of the coverall, and later worked with Madeleine Vionnet in the 1920s to design her logo. Thayaht is the inspiration behind Owens’ avant garde desire to elevate the transgressive. His S/S 2018 menswear collection was called ‘dirt’ as a counterpoint to last season’s ‘glitter’. Sometimes unsettling in their singularity, Owens’ clothes are the last in extreme elegance.

Scene setting: The usual staging of his shows – deep in the concrete crypt of the Palais de Tokyo – was turned inside out. Models walked the upper walkway of towering scaffolding set up in the courtyard spanning the full height and width of the art deco building which dates back to 1937. Owens’ construction was dual purpose – on the one hand it framed the epic symmetry of what he has said is his most favourite building in Paris – but it also brought to mind Led Zeppelin’s rousing Stairway to Heaven. In the harsh summer sunlight, the models were elevated and ethereal. They walked to Egyptian Lover’s 1984 dance track I Need a Freak, remixed by Jeff Judd. ‘In these times of petty discord and anxiety I’m looking for transgressive inspiration and imagination’, Owens said. And boy did he serve it.

Best in show: To decipher the times, Owens looked at office-wear and traditional menswear tailoring. In particular, he took the suit jacket as a sort of uniform, a symbol of evolution. For summer, the jackets are in a dry nylon, which shares the same look of silk duchesse, cut large and roomy, worn with wide trousers fitted high to the torso and crushing to the floor. They were also shown in custom developed fabrics such as a lacquered 12oz denim in industrial black, blue, and green. The look was blunt but rich in texture. Light sheer wool gazar was washed and sun dried. Plastic tarp lurex tape was woven on a metal warp creating a stiff plastic textile that looked future-proof.

‘Who’s the skinhead with the beard, tight suit and tattoos?’ A few years ago, a distinctive looking chap appeared on the front row of the fashion shows and caught the attention of other regular attendees. ‘He’s the buying director for MyTheresa,’ replied one sage. This particular tattooed gentleman was Justin O’Shea and he was definitely rocking a ‘Thing’. And he was getting noticed. O’Shea came from a humble background. Prior to his Thingness, young Justin grew up in a remote village in Queensland, Australia, working in mines with his dad and shifting boxes at supermarkets. Now he was an unmistakeable feature on the fashion circuit with an exploding social media profile boosted by numerous half naked selfies. Some dismissed him as a bit of a joke. Others said he was a smart guy who knew his fashion retail and also knew how to project himself as a brand – as a Thing.

Fast forward to July 2016 and O’Shea is no longer on the front row but on the catwalk, taking a John Galliano-style bow for his debut collection for Brioni. His appointment as creative director a few months earlier raised eyebrows as he had no formal training or experience as a designer. But it was a reflection of the changing responsibilities of such a role and of the industry and society more widely. It’s no longer just about being able to design or oversee a collection, it’s about communicating a style and a vision. It’s about being an ambassador who projects that vision. It’s about being noticed and talked about. It’s about having a Thing!

I wish I had a Thing. I realised some years ago that anybody who is really successful, who has really made it, has a Thing. I’m doing all right, but if I had a Thing I’d be big. I’d be someone. A Thing gets you noticed and remembered. ‘Do you know Tony Chambers, the editor of Wallpaper*?’ ‘I don’t think I do… oh, hang on, is he the xxx guy with the xxx? Yes, sure I know him.’ Being noticed and  remembered seems to make you better.

Think of Le Corbusier. Would he have been as successful without those black, thick-framed round spectacles? Richard Rogers has his brightly coloured collarless shirts, while Jean Nouvel keeps it monochrome. Peter Marino’s career took off after he adopted the Tom of Finland look. John Pawson keeps it minimal, of course – he has his NOthing.

Steve Jobs had his black polo-neck and 
dad jeans – the low-key thing. While Italian industrialist Gianni Agnelli always wore his wristwatch over his shirt cuff. A bling thing!

Fashion designers are undoubtedly kings of the Thing. Alber Elbaz ‘owns’ the big bow tie and Rick Owens ‘owns’ elegant goth, while John Galliano has borrowed just about everything – currently settling on a sober Savile Row gent Thing. Karl Lagerfeld has about five Things. The greedy Kaiser has his powdered ponytail, his high-necked starched shirts, ever-present dark glasses and fingerless gloves, and his celebrity pussy, Choupette.

Although copper is his big Thing, designer Tom Dixon also had a pet Thing. Until her recent sad passing, Dixon would always be seen at cocktail events with his pet poodle, Molly. Even Molly had a Thing – she had to be carried as she was deaf, blind and 120 in dog years. Dixon also proudly sports artfully dishevelled curly hair, rides a vintage motorbike, and was apparently the first person in London to go sockless.

Ron Arad has his ever-present trademark hat, gallerist Rossana Orlandi her oversized eyewear, and Marcel Wanders has his 1970s playboy Thing. Karim Rashid, Jack Mama and Nina Tolstrup are the undisputed bright things. And the younger generation of designers are not to be outdone. Bethan Laura Wood does her Boy George Thing, while Philippe Malouin and the Formafantasma boys have made facial topiary their favoured chin Thing.

Photographers naturally understand the power of image. Terry Richardson has his retro porn star Thing and thumbs-up Thing. Juergen Teller is unvaryingly in the shortest of short, sporty, short shorts. And the late, great Bill Cunningham was never without his bright blue French worker’s jacket.

Successful magazine editors are inveterate thingsters. Graydon Carter’s sweeping patrician pelt, Anna Wintour’s bob, Suzy Menkes’ pompadour and Grace Coddington’s fiery red locks are their mane Things. The follicly challenged have to take another tack. British GQ’s Dylan Jones resorted to wearing comically large shirt collars. It may look preposterous, but at least it’s his Thing. He’s got a Thing. I haven’t. Even our Bespoke art director Aneel has developed a personal way of wrapping his shoelaces behind his ankle. ‘It’s my Thing,’ he answered proudly when quizzed by puzzled colleagues.

What could be my Thing? A monocle? Nah – too old fogey. A single bright, block-coloured outfit? Nah – too Rashid. A hat? A cane? A polka-dot bow tie? Deerstalker and pipe? Pants outside my trousers? Not right! I was about to give up when, lo and behold, I had a Thing bestowed upon me. Last year I contracted vertigo, an inner ear condition resulting in room-spinning, nausea, loss of balance and, subsequently, deafness in my right ear. All rather unpleasant and irritating, but at least I now have my Thing. ‘Tony Chambers? Oh, is he the wobbly guy with the ear trumpet who vomits involuntarily? I know him, he’s a legend!’

As originally featured in the October 2016 issue of Wallpaper* (W*211)

Scene setting: The Palais de Tokyo feels like it was made for Rick. It is a grandiose, graphic 1937 construction outside, and yet inside it's all about brutalism, raw edges and broken concrete. It has been the constant backdrop to the American designer’s shows for the last two years, and yesterday it provided the perfect contrast to Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 31, a romantic soundtrack far from Owens’ usual techno-inspired music.

Mood board: Like Beethoven's sonatas, Rick Owens was in a complex mood, at times melancholy, at times zen and uplifted. Gone was the glitter, the jolly Paleolithic-looking girls and the almost couture-style feathered capes of the past few seasons. This time, it was Owens stripped bare, all khaki and black. The designer's hits were all there: the knee-high supple leather sneakers, the knotted puffas, the leather dresses, the long organza skirts. Make up was also more understated than usual, most of the models' faces being covered by cotton and wire headpieces mimicking mitres, crowns and veils that had also a whiff of menagerie (they could also be elephants and donkeys).

Sound bite: The question on everyone's lips: 'Was it political?' Not an easy one to answer, given that Owens usually loves to mess with our minds. However, post-show the designer stated, ‘After protest, one's attention might turn to personal behaviour, and maybe embracing what makes us civilised can be our most positive act.’ Suddenly, the mood of the collection and the Beethoven soundtrack were perfectly explained. In a season rife with anger and protest, Rick's serene stance was a heavenly breath of fresh air.