PARIS (AP) — Valentino’s fashion show in Paris on Sunday saw trapped lines of black cars dropping battalions of celebrities who, in the commotion, simply couldn’t find a ticket.
Seated VIP guests huddled sweatily inside the Le Marais venue, waiting as the show started an hour late. While outside, screaming audience members braved the rain for hours just to see their favorite stars, which included Zendaya, Naomi Campbell, Florence Pugh, Erykah Badu and Ashley Park.
A feverish tone like this in Paris ready-to-wear is reminiscent of the French capital’s fashion scene before the pandemic, and is a more visible sign that the industry is buoyant again after the devastation wrought by the pandemic. coronavirus pandemic.
Here are some highlights from Sunday’s spring-summer 2023 collections in Paris:
VALENTINE REVEAL
“Cuts and sheers reveal personality,” the brand said of designer Pierpaolo Piccioli’s dazzling spring collection, which mixed tricks with moments of thoughtful fashion skill.
Models with faces and necks completely covered in haunting interlocking “V” makeup began the show, introducing the reveal theme.
The inside-out or back-to-front exploration continued with a beautiful nude leather top with matching nude pants sparingly sprinkled with diaphanous feathers on model Anna Cleveland.
One coat had ostrich feathers peeking out from the inside through the hems. The sides of some dresses were open, while a dazzling purple sequined floor-length dress revealed the model’s flesh only in the back.
However, at times it felt as if the lauded Italian designer had tried too hard to fit in. For the 91st outfit, he, too, was feeling exhausting, with fashion experts eager for the show to end.
The Valentino finale was the real reveal of the show, which was broadcast live: the models didn’t even walk past the seated guests as usual, but went straight out into the cheering general public, causing some of the who were inside felt superfluous.
RAIN AT THE GIVENCHY PARADE
Rain would normally be a good thing in the green bushes of the Jardin des Plantes, the gardens in the center of Paris.
For Givenchy’s outdoor catwalk, it was a different story.
VIP guests, including Olivia Rodrigo, survived the torrential downpours only thanks to helpers clutching clear umbrellas. But the show had to go on. For Matthew M. Williams, a designer who has been getting lukewarm reviews of late, this collection was a bit of a turning point.
For spring, the American designer moved his street aesthetic in a more elegant direction, likely trying to hit the safer ground of the traditional millennial home aesthetic. He had some success.
An oversized black tweed bolero cut a creatively surreal silhouette over a pencil-thin mini dress, paired with Matrix-esque hues. Elsewhere, features such as ruching on a silk top or draping on a flowing skirt resembled thick organic tendons or human ribs.
This felt like a good, gently transgressive direction for Audrey Hepburn’s LBD-immortalized house.
However, many of Williams’ design elements still felt out of place on the high Paris runway, such as the low-waisted ’90s cargo shorts that looked unflattering and contrasted with black silk ruffled cuffs. that hung down.
THE ART OF THE INVITATION
The art of the chic invitation remains a staple of the Parisian luxury industry.
Small works of art sometimes give a clue as to what the collection has in store; other times, they are simply extravagant.
Balenciaga’s spring invitation was, incomprehensibly, an actual used leather wallet containing actual French franc notes, a health insurance card, a photo of a pet cat, and credit cards, as well as other things that spilled out. Countless videos surfaced on social media of guests surprised opening her “invitation.”
One fashion expert exclaimed, “But how do you know how to get to the show?”
Valentino’s invitation was a plain black cube that opened up and contained nothing but a QR code. Meanwhile, Chanel’s was a card with Kristen Stewart’s face so big it wouldn’t fit in mailboxes.
BARBARA BUI IS SMART
Low-key French designer Barbara Bui is a good example of how the pandemic has affected the fashion industry, for better or worse.
Many houses went digital during the lockdown, opting to show a fashion film instead of staging a fashion show, which was banned for many months. This spring season in Paris, like the one in Milan, the industry seems to have returned to pre-pandemic catwalks, but Bui’s was one of the collections that continued the fashion film format.
It’s a smart move: smaller houses like Bui’s have benefited from the new flexibility, as catwalk collections are clearly much more expensive to produce.
The collection’s spring video featured a pair of lovers in a French country house looking for each other and apparently wearing each other’s clothes, a good theme for a mixed fashion show.
The film’s use of light meshed well with the fluidity of a white tuxedo suit flowing over the bare chest, or a giant multi-colored scarf thrown nonchalantly over the male model’s bare shoulder. A cobalt blue one-shoulder piece was highlighted by the male model’s androgynous, metallic nail polish.
Source: news.google.com