Fashion is cruel. Until last season we heard that quiet luxury would dominate the catwalks. And in fact the new “trend” lasted the time of a couple of collections, and in Paris, fortunately, fashion has returned to be a little less quiet but very luxury, starting again to make us dream with clothes at the edge of the abyss. What does it matter? The curtain fell on the men’s collections in Paris. If in Milan the quiet luxury has monopolized the scene, in the French capital is sunny again, and the designers have forgotten minimalism. From the ode to the Native Americans of Louis Vuitton, to the utopian, liberating and visually impactful design of Rick Owens, through the color of Issey Miyake, Paris has not followed the trends. Then there were Dior who was inspired by Nureyev, Valentino brought on the catwalk his new “gentle masculinity” and Hermès who re-emphasized elegance. Many confirmations, many experiments – “the unexpected elegance” of Dries Van Noten followed by Kenzo and Star Wars and one winner: Kidsuper and its collection, full of fashion in its pure state.
Paris was a battle. Noise, chaos, silence, colour, new men, sharp cuts, music, existential dramas – all in one week.
Fashion is back. Sometimes a pause for breathing is useful
Words: Domenico Casoria
LOUIS VUITTON
As soon as I realized that the main themes of the LV show were the Wild West, cowboys and Native Americans, I thought about the disaster. The risk, when the purpose is to give back the true aesthetics of Native Americans by inserting it in an ideological diaspora, is that a flawed counter-aesthetic is produced, which has its roots in the white aesthetic appropriation. Thi appropriation, over time, has introjected western hats, leather ties, jeans and jackets with fringes, inserting them in a totally misleading and romanticized narrative. The discussion is articulated, but it seems linear in Pharrell Williams’ new work. The creative director of LV man is a hybrid – he does not come directly from the fashion world, and this allows him to deal with certain issues with a freedom that an ordinary creative director would not have. The interesting point of the collection, however, is the creation of clothes loaded, decorated to excess, saturated with references, that will not only go sold out, but that revitalize a vision of Native Americans (artifact) but sincere. The FW 2024 respects all the aesthetic codes of cowboys and talks about clothes – and not the costumes – that would be equivalent to that hungry approach that decimated Native Americans. The new collection also passes from the reinterpretation of workwear and dandy dress. Pharrell draws from the Vuitton world – from the Damier motif, to the trunks transported on carts, to the bags (there is a spasmodic attention to detail, above all, the Speedy bag, now signature of the creative director), but revisited in a Native American key. Leather suits with fringes, western shirts and spur boots close the circle. The collection works. And it will sell a lot of pieces. The Far West (the mythical one) always sells. Because it takes us far and it takes us to a world that is different – at first glance, from ours.
“You know me, give me a full ballerina skirt and a hint of saloon, and i’m on board ”.
LOEWE
Jonathan Anderson’s latest collection for Loewe was a big, bright and beautiful melting pot of rich knit jumpers and cardigans mixed with tracksuit pants, formal suits paired with sneakers, untied belts, half-tucked shirts, socks over pants, and floor-length knit dresses that could easily be anyone’s uniform for an entire winter. Not to speak of some of the models’ beauty looks: messy hair (don’t care) or baggy eyes (which actually trended among Gen Z on TikTok for a while). Despite the informal and ironic take on the menswear wardrobe, of course the collection also featured pieces that embody Loewe’s rich savoir-faire and attention to detail. For example, the two opening looks, a couple of rickly textured deep green and bright orange leather trench coats. And true to the House’s heritage, the rest of the leather pieces too: pants, a skirt, long hoodie dresses, a jumpsuit, coats, and jackets. The fruitful collaboration between Jonathan Anderson and Richard Hawkin has translated into several colourful pieces featuring the American artist’s collage work. It’s become a print, jacquard on knit (we’re personally obsessed with the two long dresses), embroidery on oversized Squeeze bags, and embellishments on the Puzzle Fold tote like embroidery, leather marquetery, glass studs and fringes. In addition, some of his artworks decorated the runway venue, which resembled the typical white cube style of an art gallery. which strengthened the House’s relationship with art and the powerful message of this collaboration. As the press release reads, “Richard Hawkins has indulged his fascination for the male body, mining the aesthetic, literary and philosophical mythologies that underpin its representation in everything from art history to paparazzi shots and social media content,” adding that his “collision of disparate imagery long foreshadowed the constant online stream of disparate images we are now seduced by daily.”
ACNE STUDIOS
Denim for winter? Groundbreaking. The founder and creative director of Acne Studios, Jonny Johansson presented the new men’s fall winter 2024/25 collection through a lookbook. The work is an ode to denim, on which the whole brand is based, because denim «by its nature has a rebellious aura. It is provocative, it is robust». The collection is also inspired by all the subcultures that have drawn the material – from punk to grunge, up to bikers and rave parties, and ranges from a wide variety of leather jackets, t-shirts with trompe-l’oeil jewelry and bombers with a punk soul. The stroke of genius? The collection was presented by the American musician Yves Tumor, who between electronic and experimental music, became the perfect ambassador. Tumor fully embodies the aesthetics of the collection – deeply rock, sometimes psychedelic – a contemporary cyborg. It works. Denim is like black. It goes with everything.
GIVENCHY
The transition period in the creative direction of a brand is always dangerous and resembles a limbo of suspended souls that lives in aspirational desire. It did not happen to Givenchy – and the brand’s design team (Matthew M. Williams left the creative direction at the beginning of December), which presented in Paris the fall winter 2024/2025. At number 3 of Avenue George V – where Hubert de Givenchy created his collections, the team presented men’s collection, inspired directly by the founder of the maison, and draws from the vast heritage of codes, from surrealist scarves to white shirts used as a tailor’s uniform, up to the famous white blouse with wide sleeves. The autumn/winter collection is paradoxically the one with the strongest identity of the brand, because it is the result of a multi-handed reinterpretation of the same aesthetic archive that opens to many interpretations. Hubert de Givenchy was the last great couturier of contemporary history and the design office managed to emphasize this feature also in a prêt-à-porter key. During the runway, everyone’s attention fell on the scarves worn as a head handkerchief, painted with a representation of the hair, similar to real braids and curls (designed by Hubert in 1953 and already taken by Riccardo Tisci for a photo shoot on Tilda Swinton). The surrealist inspiration is clear – the founder of the house, in fact, before starting his own, studied at the École des Beaux Arts and was apprenticed, among others, to Lucien Lelong and Elsa Schiaparelli, from whom he borrowed the surrealist allure. The scarves are only part of the quotation, along with the monogram G, the long necklaces that Hubert had on his back, the ring with the founder’s seal, the linear cuts of the jackets and even some examples of overlapping dresses. The collection is therefore apt in the garments – but lacks of a design consistency – and above all, it is not clear where the brand wants to go. Individually, the clothes are beautiful, but Givenchy needs a guide.
To Givenchy, however, the codes were revived. And it is a starting point.
RICK OWENS
In 1990, art historian Kirk Varnedoe published ” A Fine Disregard: What Makes Modern Art Modern”, in which investigated the birth of modern art. According to Varnedoe, around 1860 some artists including Degas, van Gogh, Rodin, Gauguin and Picasso, not only rejected the norms of tradition abandoning the spectres of the past – above all perspective, creating a commonly accepted language, but went further. The artists created, from scratch, a new game with new rules.
130 years later, Rick Owens is making to fashion what those artists did to art. It’s clear by now that Owens is playing in a separate championship, and it’s clear that all the latest collections presented are shifting the boundaries between art and fashion – and at this point, the debate about fit on clothes is on par with perspective. Owens’ latest collection, the FW 2024/2025 is called “Porterville” and was presented in Paris in his apartment at Place du Palais Bourbon, where twenty-five years ago the Californian designer began to sell his fashion line. The apartment is inserted in a “concrete palace” and is French brutalist (it was the private studio of Francois Mitterand in the 14 years in which he held the office of president of the French Republic) – concrete floors, gold stuccoes, original furniture designed by the designer himself and leather ottoman. The real coup de théâtre is the collection, which is black, white, black, a little pink, black, black – gothic to the right point and deeply estranged. The highlight are the proportions, shapes and volumes that become fierce and cruel sculptures, symbol of the horrors of everyday life. But Owens reaches his highest point by inserting in the collection huge inflatable rubber boots, created in collaboration with the English designer Straytukay, combined with long leather and wool jackets, asymmetric hoods and vertical cuts.
Owens has a trait that is missing to the majority of the designers-artists around: conviction. He continues to target us with his booming aesthetic and does it to its fullest potential – keeping the level high. And he is convinced of what he does. He continues to pursue his idea of fashion, utopian – but basically possibilist. The collection nevertheless aspires to a “better place”, but subverting the current rules, in spite of the existing world. The championship in which Rick Owens plays is all internal but he needs to expand to new designers – ready to revolutionize, once again, the rules of the game.
Because contemporary fashion is contemporar
HOMME PLISSÉ ISSEY MIYAKE
I said that fashion stopped being quiet, I was talking about Issey Miyake. Those of Miyake have happily decided to ignore the trends – “this year do not go colors”, and have launched themselves into a “wild creative session” together with the Breton artist Ronan Bouroullec, who investigates together with his brother the creative relationship between the instrument, in this case the pen – and and how it affects materials. The collection is therefore a creative process, which not only incorporates the artist’s pieces, but is also conceived as an aesthetic practice that aims to discover new ways to relate to clothing. Miyake’s is the most colorful collection in Paris – thankfully, a flicker of light in the gray afternoons of fashion. Of course there is pleated, which made the Japanese brand famous, but the male wardrobe is a game – of color, cuts, volumes. Have you seen those jackets with Bouroullec’s artwork? And those scarves involved in a metamorphosis around the body and head?
I want everything. Including that pillow bag. Awesome.
DRIES VAN NOTEN
When I said that fashion is still – in some cases, a little bit quiet – I was talking about Dries Van Noten, who for the FW 2024/2025 starts from the «elegance of the unexpected that comes from collisions of contrasts». The collection of the Belgian designer is a game of asymmetries, which builds, deconstructs, cuts brutally, gently sways the clothes. But it is also a game of contrasts, between coats and black double-breasted suits (someone in leather, fortunately), that clash with cargo pants, long leather gloves, sweaters with open zippers and blazers rolled up at the elbows – but also fur headdresses declined in different shades. Somewhere between quiet and luxury. Unexpected. Too much.
DIOR HOMME
When I said that fashion is still – in some cases, a little bit quiet – I was talking about Dries Van Noten, who for the FW 2024/2025 starts from the «elegance of the unexpected that comes from collisions of contrasts». The collection of the Belgian designer is a game of asymmetries, which builds, deconstructs, cuts brutally, gently sways the clothes. But it is also a game of contrasts, between coats and black double-breasted suits (someone in leather, fortunately), that clash with cargo pants, long leather gloves, sweaters with open zippers and blazers rolled up at the elbows – but also fur headdresses declined in different shades. Somewhere between quiet and luxury. Unexpected. Too much.
KENZO
Kenzo and Star Wars in the reading room of the Richelieu Library? Groundbreaking x 2. Kenzo’s new collection breaks the mould, and combines samurai films by George Lucas and Akira Kurosawa to the Star Wars universe. The creative director, Nigo, for FW 2024/2025 has managed to combine Japanese tradition and references to the world of science fiction – from the warrior-style kimono coat for men, to the draped clothes and the combative taste for women. Many stars and many jackets with perfect cuts.
KIDSUPER
At this point, let’s talk about who really conquered Paris. What are the elements of success? The street couture proposal that had practically disappeared from the scene and the endless variety of cultural references. The collection of the brand founded and directed by Colm Dillane, was unveiled through a performance – including Ronaldinho, who paraded while wearing a jumpsuit and a giant faux fur coat and a background of violins. Talking about clothes is almost impossible (there was really everything, besides the collaboration with Canada Goose who worked on four garments), and each proposal had a story. A dark dancer, a weeping widow and meters of black tulle, multiplayer bags (Vuitton inspo?), pants with flowers, and at the end, a model-puppet that comes out on the catwalk with a knitted suit whose yarn unrolls simultaneously, revealing jacket and pants.
There is a concept here. Fashion is almost in the background and that’s fine. Because it’s preparatory to performance. 100 points for Dillane.
HERMÈS
At Hermès consistency is on runway. The language is always the same: a refined elegance that is renewed in pursuit of contemporaneity. Head of the Hermès man is Veronique Nichanian who has held that position since 1988. The fact that a creative direction has lasted so long is synonymous with solidity, but Nichanian has been able to reinvent himself over time. The collection is practically perfect, and so are coats and jackets – driving force of all the male wardrobe. This is where Nichanian comes through with his flair, pulling the winning cards out of the top hat. An example? The leather trench coat and the over fit or the bomber jacket that winks at streetwear. Everything changes. Nothing changes. Thank you Veronique.
VALENTINO
Le Ciel 20.24 is instead Pierpaolo Piccioli’s tribute to the skies of Paris, but also to a new type of masculinity – blue, human, gentle. The collection is an intimate study on the color blue, which is «archetype paradigm of masculinity», and that wants to become in the hands of the creative director of Valentino, soft, fluid, delicate. The male wardrobe is contaminated with haute couture and the details are the key – like the sculpted altorilievo technique that opens several windows on the body. The collection fully reflects Piccioli and is exactly how he dresses – a turtleneck, a wool pullover, long coats and jackets with a perfect cut, a bomber of straws, loose pants, perfect cuts alternating with ripples.
Piccioli definitely does an accurate investigation of masculinity and the way it has changed over time and tries to overturn the structures, but the choice of a new color instead risks blurring the design. After PPPINK and Le Ciel, what?
