The fashion capital of the world is always a scene during Fashionweek. It’s the time of the year when we all feel a little more like a chic Parisian and dream of having wine in the afternoon at Café de Flore while casually wearing heels and a designer bag.
With the world’s most famous and probably most influential fashion houses like Chanel or Saint Laurent, and the most powerful global player LVMH, Paris is the ultimate home of fashion. Looking at Paris’ history, the city has always been a special place for artists and art throughout the years. Writers, painters, street artists, and ballet dancers, everyone has been welcome in Paris. This of course was just as true for fashion designers. As a result, fashion’s most known personalities go back to the city which is why when anyone thinks of Paris, they immediately think of fashion.
Paris Fashionweek was founded in the late 1800s as the first known Fashionweek. Nowadays, it’s a mix of traditional French fashion houses, like Dior, Saint Laurent, Givenchy, Balmain, Celine, Louis Vuitton and Chanel, Paris originals like Isabel Marant, Off-White, or Schiaparelli, as well as guest stars, like Loewe from Spain, The Row and Rick Owens from the U.S., Acne Studios from Sweden, Stella McCartney and Victoria Beckham from England and Valentino, Marni, and Miu Miu from Italy. This diverse mix is what makes Paris Fashionweek so special and colorful. I cannot wait to see what this wide range of high-end brands will show this Paris Fashionweek Spring Summer 2024 season.
Dior
Dior is famous for dressing the English royals. Princess, later Queen Margaret, was wearing the house’s beautiful and dreamy gowns. Princess Diana even had a bag, the ‘Lady Dior’, named after her. I also have to immediately think of their Couture and Cruse shows where the house states its seasonal vision as well as demonstrates its skills in craftsmanship and quality. However, the Ready-to-wear collection doesn’t come short. This season played with the brand’s DNA of snatched waistlines through tailoring. The runway was set in a colorful pop-art style, which makes me very curious if we’re going to see colors in their future Cruse Collections. In contrast, the collection itself was shows in black, white, off-white and navy.
Saint Laurent
Saint Laurent is always a brand I dream of wearing. The blazers, the very chic jeans, and the androgynous coats are simply chic. It’s precise and perfect tailoring. To me, is a brand that does accessories and clothing equally well, which is kind of rare if you think about it. I love the bags for everyday occasions and especially their sunglasses which I wear all year round. This season, the brand references their iconic 60s workwear shirts and switched the original pencil skirt for long wide-leg pants or transferred the shirt into jumpsuits. The color range of browns, mustard and curry shades with black and white gave the collection an overalls safari vibe.
Balmain
Balmain, a brand most famous for its recognizable blazer cuts and usage of bold colors, patters, and metallics, stayed true to its DNA. The collection featured new combinations of bold colors, prints, and patterns. And the blazer was also in focus, of course. Overall the show had a true vintage vibe with the exaggerated blazer cuts, blazer-skirt combinations, and very feminine flower decor, ruffles, and plissé.
Loewe
Loewe, a brand with a very long history, even going back to being the Spanish royal’s leather supplier, has dominated the fashion world with its quirky and witty designs. Earlier this year, the brand announced that their famous ‘Puzzle bag’ will be discontinued and people were shocked. However, I think this can only mean the brand is seeking change, and I am super excited to see what the genius Creative Director Jonathan Anderson will introduce to us next. True to the brand’s origin, this season’s collection featured leather, metallic details, and knitwear . And a new bag with hype potential – the ‘squeeze bag’.
The Row
The Row was founded by Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen. If you’re around my age we know them as the Olsen twins. Besides their popularity from 90s and 2000s TV, they’re famous for their unique styles. From boho to boyish, the twins were always publicly admired for their style. So it only made sense to turn this special talent into a fashion brand and make it accessible to others. As I was when watching the Olsen twins on TV, the brand is now in its late teens. And in contrast to that, the brand is known for a mature, sophisticated, effortless style and high-end quality. The designs take inspiration in art and architecture and are regularly praised from knowledgeable fashion experts. The pieces are classic, clean forever pieces.
Acne Studios
Acne Studios kicked off this season earlier this year in partnership with Kiley Jenner with an Out-Of-Home campaign showing ‘dirty’ jeans styles. I assume, jeans is what the brand first commercially became popular with. So, this is a nice feature of the brand’s DNA. I personally love their winter accessories, from colorful scarfs to cashmere beanies, it makes fashion fun and cozy. This season reflected that feeling. The models were wearing long casual dresses in special material or cuts.
Isabel Marant
Isabel Marant forever is the free-spirit bohemian girl, but always in the most modern way. There’s a special ease to the brand’s designs. It includes caps, canvas bags and sandals that are perfect for the warmer seasons, as well as boots, jeans and sneakers that bring the same vibe to the colder months. In perfect DNA tradition, this season’s collection showed bouclé jackets and shirts, long knit dresses, tiny shorts and clogs.
Viktoria Beckham
Victoria Beckham is a style icon herself. Her style is classic and combines strong shapes. Like her UK colleague Stella McCartney, the designer is gifted with tailoring. The brand celebrated its 15-year anniversary this year. Within that 15 years, the brand developed a recognizable look, and even extended the portfolio to high-end beauty. The designer has shown her collections in Paris for some time now, and so it comes to no surprise that the celebrity attendance of the shows are always quite high. The collections are always influenced by classic pant-suits or pencil dresses. In that manner, this season’s collections showed new variations in gray, black and white with highlights of long silky dresses.
Marni
Marni has one of the strongest brand DNAs. Androgynous, colorful and witty, Marni pieces are always recognizable. It was a little surprising that this season’s collection started with more muted outfits, but the highlights were in true Marni spirit with colorful dresses covered in flower-print stickers. Therefore, the brand showed a perfect balance and the show was a true highlight to me, very playful and unique. I especially liked the pieces where you could spot a color blocking within the details, like the lining. The show location which was partly inside and partly outside.
Schiaparelli
Schiaparelli is always an artistic highlight of Paris Fashionweek, like Kiley Jenner wearing a massive (obviously fake, but very realistic) lion head to the brand’s last show. This is the beauty of Paris fashionweek, nothing is too much or too extravagant. The attendees can fully indulge in the playground of fashion for that one week of the year. Schiaparelli’s show was very small and intimate, and the staging was just as arty as the fashion. The models slowly tiptoes through the room in dramatic gestures.
Rick Owens
Rick Owens has lately made his collection more accessible which is debated in fashion world, but I personally love it. It connects the audience to the designer and its vision. Rick Owens was always first and foremost an artist and stood out with experimenting. For example through its draping, or by creating marble furniture. As part of this experiment journey, he showed his Malevicent-like shoulders for some time now. This season’s collection was inspired by Björk, very suitable when you think of the musician extending her craft to the art world as well.
Valentino
Valentino is known for studs, true red and bold pink. Although this sounds more edgy and loud at first, the brand’s true DNA lies within elegance and femininity. The flowy garments perfectly break with the color and material choices, which is one of Valentino’s secrets to success. Besides the design, the ‘maison’ uses the highest fabric qualities. It is one of the reasons the brand plays a major role in the Couture world. This season’s show was a real moment. FKA Twigs performed, Kaia Gerber opened the show once again, and the collection captured the true essence of elegance. I loved the flowers which were stitched together like lace, in combination with jeans, and the clean cut jackets and shirts.
Stella McCartney
Stella McCartney was one of the first brands that promoted fake leather and sustainability. Before there was the term of ‘vegan leather’, the designer managed to introduce the fake leather a long time ago without stepping away from high-end quality. Besides the focus on fabrics, the brand is well known for its advanced tailoring skills, and for good reason. Pants and coats first come to my mind when I think of Stella McCartney pieces. The garments always hit the right spots, like perfect shoulders, lengths, never too tight or too wide, even with oversized cuts. And the bags are unique beyond the material. They are everyday bags that will stay in shape and style for decades. Of course the bags were part of this season’s collection, as well as pantsuits which demonstrated tailoring skills, and in beautiful balance to that female ruffled dresses that were clean and cool.
Louis Vuitton
Louis Vuitton, probably something like the king of fashion, might be the most know fashion brand of all time and the logo one of the world’s most recognizable icons out there. The craftsmanship goes back to 1837 when at the time 16-year-old Louis Vuitton arrived in Paris and started working on travel trunks. Till this day the trunks are a symbol of the iconic brand. Today the brand is part of LVMH (Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy). The company owns fashion and luxury goods, like Dior, Tiffany’s, Rimova, Veuve Clicquot and many more.
Besides the background of this powerhouse and the fame of the bags, the Ready-to-wear collections are always a highlight of Paris Fashionweek. The collections are playing with shaped, techniques and proportions like no other and it’s a true pleasure to watch. And since I admire the bags, especially the less conventional ones, I am always excited to see how they’re going to be implemented and played with within the presentation. This year, the bags were dainty little elegant details or top handle bags on the model’s wrists when they walked the runway in a stunning bright orange setting to powerful French pop music (I specially liked the upbeat song implementation of Zaho de Sagazan‘s „ Aspiration“ ). Long flowy skirts with sculptured jackets, and corset tops created very unique silhouettes and I am here for it next summer.
Chanel
Chanel, a brand as soft and yet powerful as its name. It’s known for its strong female founder, and Karl Lagerfeld’s talent, as well as for iconic bags and sentences, quilted leather, pastel colors, white-black combinations, extraordinary presentations and famous runway models. It’s French elegance. Although every single garment is made with the most care, skills, and precision, there’s an ease to it when you wear it. The iconic ‘LBJ’ (little black jacket) and the quilted leather ‘Flap bag’ can be styled down or up, but will forever transfer a ‘je ne sais quoi’ attitude.
As the house’s tradition the show took place at the Grand Palais and was one of the final shows to close Fashionweek. The collection included over 70 looks which were very playful, and colorful and featured the brand’s most famous material, the bouclé, as well as jeans. With bold prints and maritime stripes the collection had a classic bohemian French vibe.
Miu Miu
Miu Miu is Prada’s playful little sister. The brand goes back to the early 90s, when it was established by Miuccia Prada. The brand regularly inspires trends with its designs like the recent comeback of the mini skirt or cargo bags. It’s always very exciting to see what the brand will present next. As the show is normally one of the last shows of Paris Fashionweek, it adds a special feeling to the show. It’s a mix of the built-up of starting into fall, envision the next spring summer trends with everything the designers showed during fashion month. What an overwhelming feeling with the many impressions everyone collected during that time.
This Paris Fashionweek Spring Summer 2024 was closed by Miu Miu once again with memorable looks. It was a mix of boy college references, such as polo shirts, blazers, bomber jackets, checkered button downs, and classic boat shoes with the most beautiful embellished dresses.
Like in the last Fashionweek Spring Summer 2024 posts, all of these impressions and of course many more can be found on Woman‘s wear daily.