When I announce I’m off to Paris for the shows, most people assume, even many in the business, that that’s it. After many years and many seasons at fashion weeks from Sydney to New York, it’s clear that many other things happen during a fashion week. So, I’m going to give you a glimpse of my recent days in Paris, and hope it explains why we fight to be there, not online and why it’s important not just covering the big names.
Sunday, Up early, off to Eurostar and check in. Not too bad, but still as unglamorous as can be, even in Standard Premier. Breakfast on the train whilst checking emails and the updates on the schedule. So far Fendi and Gaurav Gupta have cancelled, and then Sara Chraibi, plus Ronald van der Kemp, Margiela Artisanal and Alexander Vauthier were not on the schedule from the beginning. I’m also fitting in interviews, high jewellery appointments and off schedule shows.
It all started six weeks ago with FHCM publishing the schedule, then I register and start sending emails to every PR. Plus liaising with friends also doing the same days over meeting up and sharing appointments.
Train arrives a few minutes early, friend and I share taxi since our hotels are two minutes apart. Check into my home from home hotel, pick up post, although a lot is digital nowadays or simply comes as an email. My room is ready, and I pop out and buy water and biscuits for my stay.
Thirty minutes later my friend and I are making the first of many trips on the Metro, having topped up our travel cards. We’re on our way to Avenue Marceau to the Musee Yves Saint Laurent to see the exhibition “Transparence.” It’s small and has some lovely things but also a few shockers showing even a genius like Yves can become dated in fashion terms. Next, we whizz across to see Dior High Jewellery and Watches. We meet another friend and enter the world of Victoire de Castellane and her divine jewels plus some extraordinary watches; more on this at another time. At the end of the presentation, we go for tea in a tiny Dior Garden, and afterwards we can choose a bouquet to take with us to our hotel room. We then jump in an Uber to see Riefe jewels near our hotels. It’s fascinating and the designer and we chat a lot, and I try pieces on. Time to move onto the last appointment of the day, but we go via our hotels and drop off the flowers, and then back to the metro. We’re off to the Fondation Azzedine Alaia to the opening of a new exhibition. It’s superbly curated by Olivier Saillard with furniture by Shiro Kuramata and after taking our time we then go up stairs to see the dress Alaia created with Jean Paul Goude for Jessie Norman to wear to sing the Marseillaise at the Bicentennial. Wonderful film clips bring the moment to life and show how the dress, based around the French tricolour looked in situ. Note. That evening was a Vogue event in Place Vendome, and Pieter Mulier the current designer at Alaia paid tribute in his own blue, white and red dress; fascinating. By now we’re tired and hungry so with a quick wash and brush up it’s off to dinner.
I have a table booked every night at La Belle Epoque, people know, so they turn up or text asking if there’s room, it’s a fashion conversation table. Tonight, one of my editors joins us and we discuss what we’ve seen, what we’re going to see, and of course, who should take over at Chanel now Virginie Viard has left. Finally, bed.
Monday morning and, like many people no Schiaparelli, it’s a much smaller venue, but I’ve made an appointment to view very first thing Tuesday. So, it’s off to meet one of my editors at Iris Van Herpen. It’s a gallery installation and she calls it Hybrid since it shows her sculpture and also clothes.
It’s amazing, the models are suspended in the air like works of art wearing van Herpen dresses, they pose, gesticulating and moving like dancers. It’s truly never been done before in this way, and it’s breathtakingly lovely each dress different to the next from tracery to spiky from richly metallic to coldly white. It had apparently taken all weekend, they’ve worked through the night to bring the entire thing together, and it was magical.
It’s then time for me to rush across to Georges Hobeika on the press bus. Yes, the wonderful FHCM runs little zippy buses between shows, run and organised by a team of young gentlemen, I assume college students, all immaculate in black suits, black shoes, white shirts, and black ties. After a couple of journeys, we look for them and know they’re looking out for us.
The show is outdoors in a very open green garden, it’s hot. I’m not under one of the few umbrellas but I’ve got a fan, so I’m able to survive the wait. The show is beautiful, and well worth waiting for. It’s based around the idea of a garden but it’s an imaginary nocturnal one. From the layered black tulle dress suspended from a white baroque curlicue to the bride its romantic, very couture in the details and embroidery. There’s a pale violet shaded beaded dress where the weight of the beading makes the dress drape and sway as the model walks, there’s a deep Parma violet dress with a wonderful curved basque of matching a ostrich feathers, a grey oversize man’s jacket and long training skirt, with curved silver pailletes shaded in intensity from the hips to the hem, there’s a man’s black slouchy suit where the entire back of the jacket is covered in black roses and there’s a beige fit and flare dress with cuffed bateau neckline. Decorated with encrusted white beaded blossoms. Although it’s not far to the next show, Dior, I take the bus as it’s hot, and anyway I know the bus will get through the traffic, indeed on arrival near the Musee Rodin we’re allowed to get off two minutes walk away. I walk into the huge tent Dior always erects for this show and ………there’s air conditioning, how marvellous. The walls are hung with a tribute to the late artist Faith Ringgold and featured Ringgold’s Woman Freedom Now political poster from 1971, in addition to 32 recreations of her mosaics. The beautiful show teams many ideas of sport and athletics, but merged with a Hellenic, Sparta games feeling. A slender body suit might half emerge under beautiful asymmetric drapery, a metallic toga might open to reveal a simple sporty piece of a softly draped top may be teamed with a silky fringe skirt. The workmanship is beautiful, and Dior sensibly put a lot of savoir faire information on film to show details. There’s a calmness and a beauty that eschews tricks or overstatement and for many it’s not exciting, but for me it was a beautiful collection with a hint of La Vestale or Norma in its operatic crescendo of drapery in pale silvery grey, onyx black, old gold, and pewter. Olympic Games awareness but dealt with as simply part of the inspiration.
I along with many others now run to catch the press bus, and since the location for the next show is also on the left bank, we hope it’ll be quick. It’s not too bad and of course they’re slow letting people in anyway. It’s Rahul Mishra in rue de l’ecole de medicine, Le Refecture des Cordeliers, a space used many times over many seasons with its vaulted ceiling and wooden columns. The craft, technical intensity and dialogue between shape and surface is a thread running through the seasons for Rahul Mishra and his extraordinary teams. Each season the exploration of mood and inspiration, and how it can be conveyed, is the raison d’être. This season Aura and how this might be transformed into couture was dazzling and complex. The sharp quills in black the tightly ruched ruffles shaded from black to nude through grey, the illusion profiles on stretched tulle, and the intense jet glittering encrustations were amazing. To my eye Indian, African, and possibly ceremonial rites were hinted at, even witch doctors or tribal incantations. Dark and light fought for prominence and rich blood red slashed into the parade. I loved a black velvet cape, a red silk mousseline goddess dress with shimmering red beadwork, and the curved ruffles top shaded white to black worn with black sequinned trousers, and the dress apparently formed entirely from black trailing organza ribbons was spectacular.
I’m due with my editor at Hermes afterwards and we are running late, and we end up going across Paris by several metros and some fast-paced walking. The building is cool, the clothes are divine, and I have some water, I also get a surprise reunion with a fashion friend from many years ago, so chat, look at the beautiful Hermes menswear and dream, indeed lust after an oversize Birkin in dark denim and navy leather. Oh well.
I skip anything else since it’s now late and after escorting my editor back to her hotel call an Uber back to mine freshen up and walk to the restaurant. It’s another long evening of eating drinking, extra guests and still, who should take the Chanel job.
Giorgio Armani distills the essence of his couture style for the Prive couture this season in a collection so perfect it’s ridiculous. Elegant and refined, restrained and chic, it somehow takes the great designers’ ideas and melds them with our vision of a legendary night at the Oscars but one with perfect taste. Slivers of fabric enwrap the models, fragile blouses seemingly constructed from cobwebs are teamed with softer skirts that drift in the breeze, columns of beads just drip to the floor, and theirs is a lot of black and white and shimmering metallic and crystals rather than cool neutrals of classic Armani. It is a stunning collection from any designer but at this stage of his career it is astonishingly sure of hand rather than retrospective.
Tuesday and it’s time to whisk around the corner, pick up my friend and walk to Place Vendome where we have an appointment to view Chaumet. Of all the jewellery houses it’s known this is the house that makes my heartbeat faster, whose heritage back to Napoleon is extraordinary and whose building with its own museum is truly a jewel in itself. The jewels are amazing, that all you need to know right now. Afterwards I stroll across Place Vendome and call in at Schiaparelli, it’s early and noticeably quiet and I have plenty of time to examine everything and take many pictures. I’m not disappointed, but it’s not Daniel Roseberry’s strongest collection. It feels historical with Schiaparelli and Charles James and a hint of Azzedine Alaia, it’s slightly haphazard in what it’s trying to say, and although I love some pieces I’m not blown away as I have been in the past. Now to get across to Alexis Mabille, but I’m making a detour. Off to Hotel Costes to have a tiny snack, meet a friend and zip over to the Lido by taxi. I’ve been to the venue before but it’s so odd stepping into nighttime at 1.00 and sipping champagne. Alexis Mabille is an established designer at couture, and I’ve been attending his shows since the first season he showed at Angelina’s. He’s a classic evening wear designer aiming to make women look, strong, sexy, and glamorous, not edgy, and bizarre. He uses long sinuous lines, flattering silhouettes and it’s clear the clients in the audience are shopping. I run out and find the press bus and off to Salle Pleyel concert hall for Stephane Rolland. I’m excited because I adored last seasons show, and I’m interviewing the designer the following day. I have a marvellous seat and the show literally sweeps me away. The show is about the story of Paris and the stories about Paris. The poets and the directors, the atmosphere, and the legends. I think about Maria Casares in Les Dames de la Bois de Boulogne, or Michel Morgan, Arletty, Simone Signoret, Le Jour Se Leve, Quai des Brumes, there’s great beauty in how Rolland balances a huge duchess satin skirt with a tiny top, or strictly controlled explosions of feathers like the branches of winter trees, or a plank mousseline cape like fog rolling in across Montmartre. The monochrome collection offers a tuxedo hooded coat, a huge silk bazar bow, a trailing long white jersey skirt with a sling sleeved white hooded top where the inside of the hood is encrusted with white beading like crushed snow. no time to go backstage as I’m back in the bus for Charles de Vilmorin. The location is some floors up in a long dark panelled room, we are initially told it’s one flight up but it’s actually five floors, never mind good exercise. The narrative of the show was very French for me, although the designer mentioned Cluedo on his Instagram. It felt in the footsteps of balls of the 1930’s, fete champetre, a dinner with Alexis de Rede, and definitely a night with Louise de Vilmorin, the designer’s great aunt. As a designer who draws and designs textiles and has a quirky original hand, and eye the curlicues of feathers, the extraordinary constructions of chapeaux, and the layering and twisting of the fabrics it’s fabulous. There’s brilliant use of casting as characters pass our astonished gaze, and we are finally treated to the great dancer Marie Agnes Guillot rushing and performing through the space under red silken veils like a Salome. My favourite look? A boy and a girl in Merveilleuse white satin like Pierrot’s adorned with shiny back lacquer flowers. The ribbons and sleeves were drooping and trailing in a romantic manner as the passed between the audience.
Straight out of the building after the show, across the road, back on the bus and we arrive for Imane Ayissi. I’ve been to the venue before and know to take the lift up to the top floor and walk down. It’s a series of small salons and the models sweep past us between the narrow rows of seats, very couture. The brilliant signatures are taffeta and raffia fringe, greta colour sense, some intricate hand made detailing of rosettes and an exuberance and movement which reflect both the designers Cameroonian background and his time as a dancer. There are more soft volume pieces this season often melding kimono, kaftan and robe into a glorious flowing piece, some time with toes, sometimes with swirls of sequins and sometimes with the rosette embroidery. There is a beautiful, hautest of haute couture, top to toe black silk and black raffia fringe look which is stunning. The Japanese prints are lovely but slightly at odds with the designer’s colour sense being muted watercolours. Ayissi uses colours like wheat, clotted cream, and Bois de rose, as well as scarlet, deep lime, and cranberry, in other words, delicious.
Time to Uber back to the hotel, freshen up and another evening of discussion, argument, and laughter. I’ve not been invited to any of the designers at Jean-Paul Gaultier since he left, and to be honest, I’ve not been that interested in a one-off couture collection using another designer’s archive. I thought the collections of Glenn Martins and Haider Ackerman interesting, but it seemed more of an exercise than anything else. I have since learnt it was Monsieur Gaultier himself’s idea, but until I look at the images and show of Nicolas de Felice, I was unimpressed. This season to me was superb and especially since this young designer didn’t play safe, he eschewed many JPG signatures and pared back, edited, and sharpened the collection with a clean modernity which did two things; elevated his own standing as a designer, and showed that the essence of Gaultier remains relevant. Watch the show and see how the collection doesn’t try to add the kind of narrative JPG was famous for, but focuses on really great clothes, and each piece with a nod in some subtle form to the founder of the house. I think I like every single piece, and I think De Felice should be allowed to stay.
Wednesday and again I pick up my friend and we walk to Roger Vivier in the rue de Faubourg Saint Honore, we are viewing the Pièce Unique collection in the large boutique upstairs and it’s always a delight to meet the team including Ines de la Fressange and spend time in such delightful surroundings. The space is decorated with hundred of gilded insects from dragonflies to beetles. The bags are like jewels and Gherardo Felloni is indeed fascinated by jewels, the work and the details are spectacular and after flowers and gardens this season it is about the other inhabitants of the garden, insects. Exquisite creatures hide behind jewelled leaves or are shaded by ostrich fronds, intense beadwork outlines bees and butterflies. The only descriptive word I can think of is “wow.” We take an Uber together afterwards off to Franck Sorbier which is set in a cobbled courtyard with horses and models. Nuages, meaning clouds is the title of the collection and indeed every type of cloud from summertime to rainy and from soft and spring like to black and stormy. Sorbier uses couture skills to make amazing pieces, and to also construct great silhouettes. A long narrow coat is embellished with silvery embroidery, an exquisite lace top is paired with an explosion of tulle, a caped dress is seemingly constructed from layers of fringes, and there are several cloudy jackets and tops with organza and point d’esprit layered or twisted to form shapes which appear ready to drift away. It’s a beautiful collection and from the long, long black Victoriana men’s coat covered in black-on-black embroideries to the cape with clouds scudding across it, demonstrates beautifully Monsieur Sorbier’s knowledge and creativity in haute couture.
It takes less time than a show, so I’m relaxed on my way to Yuima Nakazato at Palais de Tokyo, but because of road closures it takes hours, still its well worth the effort. I have a special respect for Yuima Nakazato and his team, who explore what couture means each season and develop a collection with both intellectual rigour and with couture creativity. The thread of signatures is there but never obvious and this season truly built on Nakazato’s style but was also fresh and innovative, balancing past and present perfectly. The January 2020 collections fieriness and the opening sounds from jewels in the July 2023 could both be seen in the new collection. The show has performers placed throughout the space whose clothes rattle, clack, ping and so on as the performers move and gesture, since they are covered in “jewels.” The show has many amazing looks but put simply it’s the contrast between immaculate black tailoring and red crochet. The crochet is assembled and trails off into threads and is skewed and twisted around the body, it’s almost punk but truly lovely in its complexity, like the rope detailing also seen in the collection. It feels like watching a ceremony or ritual, and it’s both show and performance, but many of the models’ simple walk so the production isn’t over la lured or fussy. As it finishes the designer takes his bow and a roar fills the space, for many of us it’s one of the standout shows of the entire week and remains so.
It is now time for me to get an Uber to interview Stephane Rolland, except on arrival I discover I’ve muddled the day, it’s tomorrow, but Monsieur Rolland has just had a client cancel, maybe….. a few minutes later he appears, and a brilliant half hour of interview follows. I call another Uber and with surprising speed I arrive at Viktor & Rolf; early, so a long refreshing citron pressé and go to the show. There are very mixed responses to the show, but it’s pure Viktor & Rolf based on geometric shapes from circles and triangles and squares etc. The models are surrounded by and immersed in the shapes, with high squares, totally round circles, and ankle grazing triangles. Many signatures are there, from the widespread rever collar to the satin stripe and the huge ruffles, even the slight patchwork assemblage of some pieces. It’s an experiment in couture, it’s a thoughtful and exacting process to make these pieces, it may not be your cup of tea, but it’s bold as these designers always are. I e been seeing their work for many many seasons and often it takes time to think about more than just the key message and delve below the surface of what the clothes are saying. I rather liked a lot of things in the collection and have returned to really look at the images of the show to see pieces again, so in the words of a certain ghastly talent show – “It’s a yes from me.”
Exit and press bus to Zuhair Murad at the Hotel Salomon Rothschild. There’s a seat muddle, but after some confusion I have been found another seat, actually better than the first option. I’ve been attending Zuhair Murad shows for many, many seasons, watching how within his aesthetic, and that of his clients he subtly shifts and modifies, moves forward and changes without tricks or losing his personal views on fashion. I loved this season very much. New colours like chestnut, bois de rose, lipstick red and a shade I’ll call Rose Madder after that colour in an old-fashioned paint box and prune in mousseline and crepe. Lots of beautiful drapery including huge swathes of black velvet stoles, very Rita Hayworth in Pal Joey! There is less intense all over beading, and some really beautiful drapery using beading and embroidery as an anchor point. I can’t choose a favourite because each piece stood alone and glamorous, sexy, and gala, its many people idea of exactly what a couture show should be, even to the fact I was perched on a tiny gold chair in a chandelier hung salon. Supper time and my dinner companions include a Paris based jeweller friend who always has delicious gossip, plus we return to the who should take over at Chanel conversation.
Friday my last day, I pack and leave the hotel, I’ve got a packed day. Off to Aelis who I adore, and I take my editor who’s never seen a Sofia Crociani I show before. She loves it and afterwards I do a fascinating interview with Sofia. There are designers whose work one admires personally as well as professionally, there’s an extra, possibly emotional, response to their work. For me Aelis and Sofia Crociani is one of those designers. Here romanticism is never cluttered or over designed, the lightness of touch and her sharp editorial eye means it is perfectly balanced. This season using new technical fabrics with a transparent metallic sheen alongside black recycled velvets from the Paris Opera the collection showed light and dark, weighty, and lightweight and demonstrated the designer and her team perfectly. The trains slithering out of the space the floating ties, the ruffles apparently held on by air, the drape and flow of the collection as it solemnly paraded through the gallery space was truly special. I loved a black belted dress with white collar and cuffs worn over crepe trousers, which had a George Sand quality, I loved the use silk jersey back of a tunic which was gathered and released in a handkerchief point and I loved the ball gown with a huge diagonal ruffle which was somehow tucked or pleated instead of gathered giving a completely different aspect to it. It was like a Worth reimagined for the twenty first century.
I am now rushing to Cheney Chen, I arrive, take me seat and my cell pings, my Eurostar is cancelled. I think I’ll have to miss shows and I transfer to an earlier train, this is almost immediately cancelled, now there’s no space on any trains today. I scurry out of the show rush back to my hotel book another night, fortunately they have a room, and I book on the second train of the following morning, meaning 05.30 alarm call. Back I go to Peet Dullaert who is fortunately in Place Vendome at Hotel d’Evreux, walking distance. I loved last season, so I was pitching high hopes for this collection. This season had a few looks I was unsure of, towards the end of the collection, but once again it was a beautiful and original interpretation of couture. The faded glories feeling, the embroideries and the layering of techniques is masterly and so beautifully placed. The brilliant severe black pieces at the beginning are like Court Mourning and have real presence, and dusty taffetas and splendid drape segments across and around the body are divine. The use of drape indeed is masterly throughout the collection and the designer clearly has couture skills and understanding. Afterwards it’s bus back to Palais de Tokyo for Robert Wun, it’s boiling hot, and I mean boiling hot in the space. We hear afterwards that Palais de Tokyo wouldn’t pay for air conditioning and young designer doesn’t have big budgets. Robert Wun’s third show is as strong visually as the previous shows, and his signatures are now firmly placed, Great drapery, back views with impact, bold silhouettes, especially trains and trailing extensions, immaculate surface embellishment be it snow, butterflies or incandescent beading. Strong colour top to toe and inspirations from nature, this season including the four seasons, as well as some surrealistic statements, such as the look created with transparent skeleton pieces attached to black top and fringe detailed trousers with a huge fold back basque. Technically Wun and his team have amazing skills, but I felt this season it misses more couture fabrications, such as bazar, taffeta and satin, maybe this is not his aesthetic, but it is often a key couture element. Still, a stunning show and it makes brilliant images and like Schiaparelli is very much a visual feast piece by piece. Back on the last bus to Musee des Arts Decoratives. ArdAzAei who I met last season, and who didn’t have a show is closing couture. It’s in a huge airy space and we all breath a sigh of relief. ArdAzAei has a brilliant intelligent and intellectual philosophy behind the collection, but I’m going to go straight to the point; it’s a good collection even without the press release, and it closes couture beautifully. These are clothes using both the heritage of couture and thinking about making the women wearing the clothes look great. There’s a variety of silhouettes and shapes, there’s some truly stunning drapery work which only haute couture can satisfactorily make fit and flow perfectly. There’s ruffles and frills in cascades and flounces, some vibrating like insects, some flopping like petals, and some descending into trailing trains of movement. My standout look though was a glacier blue double silk organza coat dress, it’s Watteau back and full cuffed sleeves merging the eighteenth, the nineteenth century in a timeless mix of elegance and grace, with perfect proportions. Colours included a rose quartz, amethyst, and other gemstone shades. Thank you Barhareh Ardakani for sharing your unique Swedish Iranian vision of couture.
I wander slowly back to my hotel; I’ll go to my restaurant on my own and have a quiet early supper. After eating I step outside and a shout from a PR friend stops me in my tracks, two hours later after a great many fashion people and much more chatting and still discussing who should take over at Chanel, I leave. That’s couture done and dusted, except of course for the words I’ve got to write for my three different editors. Plus, any other reviews, interviews, etc that will surely crop up during the coming days. Exhausting, but I’d not miss one second of it all.
Final Note. Stephane Rolland, Giorgio Armani for Armani Prive, Nicolas de Felice at Jean-Paul Gaultier and Maria Grazia Chiuri at Dior all seemed to be in tune for offering modernity at haute couture. The alchemy of making us think it is easy when it is only possible with great expertise and assurance. Extreme refinement in techniques, discretion, and understatement of couture bravado. Using the petits mains and the ateliers to create a different kind of magic, almost like works of art in a gallery, rather than fussy beaded and glittering red carpet loud statements. Whisper couture, where the brilliance is in making it all look so simple, yet it’s an illusion.
P.S. ……….and still no news on Chanel
