Balmain show at Paris Fashion Week © Corbis/Getty Images
Paris Fashion Week has begun to unfold, and the overall message is about power. Considering that this year saw the reversal of Roe vs. Wade, and that protests against Mahsa Amini’s death in Tehran have now spread across the globe, girl power is a topic worth revisiting. It is also about the power of the fashion houses themselves: their ability to deliver a message, to sell a dream and a product.
What does female empowerment look like for 2023? At Dior, she looked like a farthingale skirt and platform shoe. Artistic director Maria Grazia Chiuri was inspired by Catherine de’ Medici, an Italian who, marrying Henry II in 1533, entered French royalty. De’ Medici was considered the most important woman in Europe for most of the 16th century. She dressed for power, most notably increasing her height with heels and wearing black in mourning for her husband, an expensive color in those days, also indicative of her wealth and status. Christian Dior himself was a fan of corsetry and petticoats, but Chiuri did not get stuck in the story. The collection looked best when structured corsets, over cotton shirts, were paired with simple trousers, like modern pragmatic armour.
Gabriela Hearst has embedded responsibility into the ethos of both her namesake brand and Chloé. Backstage before his show for the latter, he got excited about fusion power, no kidding, and the collection and show were an endorsement of the proposed fuel source, which would generate electricity using heat from the reactions of nuclear fusion. Hearst had recently visited an international nuclear fusion research and engineering project in the south of France and translated elements of fusion energy into her clothing. If she wants, she can wear studded denim with isotope-mimicking eyelets or dress in knit mesh inspired by reactor components.
Dior’s Maria Grazia Chiuri created modern armor by mixing corsets with cotton shirts. . .
. . . and she dressed models in black gowns and sky-high platforms, as Catherine de’ Medici inspired her in the 16th century.
At Chloé, Gabriela Hearst took inspiration from nuclear fusion, wearing denim studded with eyelets to mimic isotopes. . . © Isidore Montag/Gorunway.com
. . . and mesh dresses that resemble reactor components © Isidore Montag/Gorunway.com
It was a weird experience talking about clothes backstage while also being educated on the intricacies of alternative fuels, but Hearst is an outspoken nerd. And he proved that the power of fashion as a tool for communicating messages may, thankfully, be more complex than the Kardashian-Jenner clan’s next move. I certainly never thought he’d be Googling fusions during fashion week.
Balmain’s message was loud and clear. The first is the operative word: creative director Olivier Rousteing put on a show, called the Balmain festival, in a sports arena for some 7,000 guests, some of them fashion press but most of them an audience, eating hamburgers while cheering on the dresses. couture. and musician Cher. She simply materialized next to Rousteing for his bow, but it was enough to incite hysteria.
Rousteing’s collection was beautiful, drawing inspiration from the painted ceilings of Versailles and peppering reproductions onto clothing that, like the palace itself, was designed to dazzle and overwhelm onlookers. Some looks looked like naked statues, while others were imprinted with licking flames. The final couture ensembles were inspired by Africa and made from natural materials like bark and twigs (Rousteing’s biological parents hail from the Somali Peninsula).
Balmain presented garments dotted with reproductions of Versailles paintings. . . © Daniele Oberrauch/Gorunway.com
. . . and couture dresses inspired by Africa and bark and branches © Daniele Oberrauch/Gorunway.com
At Loewe, giant anthurium flowers sprouted on dresses and shoes. . . ©Getty Images
. . . which in some cases resembled a bunch of deflated balloons © Getty Images
I kept going back to the shoes, which laced stone slabs to the heels as if their models were standing on pedestals. It is remarkable that, under Rousteing’s watch, Balmain has become a brand with a global resonance that can literally fill a stadium with fans. Cher was there to sell a bag, which she gleefully brandished in a video projected 100 meters above the ground. How’s that for power messaging?
There were no bags to be seen at Anthony Vaccarello’s Saint Laurent. “I want to dress a woman,” the designer said backstage before the show. It’s strange how few designers have made that statement recently. Saint Laurent’s show, like Balmain’s, was open to the public and staged on a grand scale in an elaborate parterre with a huge fountain on the Place du Trocadéro, with the Eiffel Tower as a backdrop. However, he still had a sense of intimacy. These garments were devastatingly chic, with a sucker-punch aesthetic power. Virtually every look was floor-length jersey dresses: some were draped, others knitted, leopard-print patterned chainmail, some with structured coats over them, gigantic off-the-shoulder and ankle-length pullovers. The colors were glorious (olive green, ox blood, ink blue, lilac bruise) like faded shades from a Polaroid photo.
At Saint Laurent, Anthony Vaccarello’s hooded dresses harken back to the brand’s archive. . .
. . . as are heavy-shouldered coats in bold colors like oxblood, royal blue, and olive green
On The Row, models wore blazers and minidresses with flip flops. . .
. . . while Dries Van Noten’s crushed pleats and pastel ruffles took center stage.
The power was palpable. On the one hand, it was the brand: these clothes will photograph beautifully and are unmistakably Saint Laurent. Hooded dresses harken back to Yves Saint Laurent’s couture collections, from the 1960s until his retirement in 2002. The large, striking shoulders also originate from the designer’s archives, as do the large globules of gold jewelry on the wrists and earlobes. But it was also a vision of a woman in her most powerful and imposing form, at a time when that is exactly what we need. Vaccarello would not be attracted to that subject. “When you get political in fashion, it seems like an opportunity to sell more bags,” he said. He prefers his clothes to do the talking. And furthermore, Saint Laurent’s revenue was up 42 percent in the first half of 2022 year over year. Maybe it’s selling enough.
Sales at Loewe have reportedly increased fivefold during Jonathan Anderson’s nine years in office. What is perhaps even more valuable is that we all understand what Loewe stands for now: craftsmanship, concepts and nature, which is why hand-woven raffia can sit next to injection-molded silicone. The identity of the LVMH-owned brand was dizzy before Anderson started. This season, giant anthurium flowers made their way around bodices, burst from breasts, and perched on shoes. “I like something in nature that looks fake but is real,” Anderson said backstage. “Proportion. Mirage. The idea of iconography: something that reminds us of something else.”
That is the intelligence of Loewe by Anderson, where ordinary and even humble objects and materials are used in extraordinary ways to create garments that are unlike anything else. He witnesses shoes made from a bunch of deflated balloons that ended up looking like something between a Swiffer mop and a sea cucumber. The extraordinary thing was that, at the end of the program, you wanted to get your hands on a pair. Or, rather, your feet in them.
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