Escapes and snowscapes at Paris Fashion Week

Travel is in, boots and bags are back and ski slopes have never been trendier

REALITY CHECK

What does a modern-day fairy tale look like in 2021? Days before Meghan Markle and Prince Harry imploded the notion in a history-making interview with Oprah Winfrey, Maria Grazia Chiuri explored the topic for her A/W ’21 collection for Dior.

Coincidentally showing on International Women’s Day, she dedicated her collection to fairy tales of the 17th century, ‘because they came from women’, she explained in a Zoom following the show at Versailles. ‘This Covid time is hard for everybody, but for women more. We see many difficult impacts on women who work,’ she said.

The clothes balanced the fantastical with the pragmatic; blue cashmere coats at one end of the spectrum, crimson red, hooded versions in the spirit of Little Red Riding Hood at the other. There was a sense of dressing for every kind of post-covid eventuality, whether it be (God forbid) another stretch of lockdown (relaxed denim and knitwear) or an elaborate night out (fantastical layers of multicoloured tulle).

At Thebe Magugu, the LVMH Prizewinning South African designer provided a different sort of escape, via spiritual healing. Collaborating with the traditional healer Noentla Khumalo, he explored those ‘who act as a conduit between various realms, often by using objects of divination’. The clothes, rich in colour and texture, were a delight: strong, elegant tailoring in crisp white, body-skimming dresses with shredded fringe and graphic silk and knit pieces.

NEW HIGHS

In a season in which designers have taken vastly different approaches to dressing, Chanel’s artistic director Virginie Viard stands out for her intentional, hopeful tone. This is a woman who just weeks before debuted a couture collection centred around the idea of a family wedding party – what more joyous occasion than that? For A/W ready-to-wear, she looked to the ‘ambiance of ski holidays and a certain idea of

cool Parisian chic, from the ’70s to now’. The clothes struck a mix of nostalgia for simpler times and optimism for adventures to come. They also advanced Virginie’s easy, effortless interpretation of the house’s trademarks: her take on Chanel tweed is lighter and breezier and feels younger in spirit. And for those nights out: jumpsuits, minidresses and separates in upbeat logos and neons.

But back to the slopes; they were an unlikely hot topic, given travel is currently cancelled. Yet they appeared as a reference at Chanel, Miu Miu and Givenchy. At Miu Miu, Miuccia Prada put on a show in the snow, with models walking through the Dolomites in a mash-up of glamour and practicality, clashing layers and contrasting shapes. ‘It is about escape… making fantasy a reality,’ said the press notes. The mixing and merging of the dreamlike with realism felt like a visual metaphor for our times, when the days have blurred together in surreal ways and world events have taken often wildly unpredictable turns. ‘They are dressed for the extreme,’ the notes said.

They were also dressed for the great outdoors, a compelling idea when the prospect of styling out one’s lockdown has grown old. There were statement quilted suits and padded coats that will be street style catnip (remember that?) and bejewelled slip dresses in roaring ’20s shapes. There were abominable snowman-sized thigh-high faux furry boots, gargantuan mittens and enormous shaggy bags. In short, the kind of pieces you don’t wear at home, but take out with the intention of being noticed.

WANDERLUST

Elsewhere, other designers were also looking to travel for inspiration. There’s no lockdown on creativity; we can still dream. For Louis Vuitton creative director Nicolas Ghesquière, being grounded was not going to stop him taking artistic flight. ‘There’s no need to venture far to create the impression of travelling,’ said the notes. So, he embarked not on a journey, but an ‘odyssey’ that mined ancient mythology and the Age of Enlightenment for inspiration. Interspersed in the collection were classical hand-drawn illustrations from the Italian design atelier Fornasetti. The collaborative designs embody the two houses’ ‘shared sense of experimental traditionalism’ (an expanded Louis Vuittonfornasetti capsule collection will follow).

You could see this tension woven throughout the collection. Laid-back, attitude-laden jackets came with gilded linings, jumbo coats were thrown over ritzy dresses, utilitarian gilets worn with bubblehemmed skirts (the eclecticism was echoed by the show’s setting; models walked in the Louvre’s Michelangelo and Daru Galleries to a Daft Punk soundtrack).

At Balmain, Olivier Rousteing also celebrated the joy of travel, presenting his collection in Air France’s hangars. Inspiration was found in the uniforms of early pilots and astronauts – see the luxe iterations of jumpsuits, bomber jackets and lace-up flight boots. But this being Balmain,

glamour was never far away, courtesy of glitzy metallics, jumbo shades and generously shoulder-padded, gold buttoned bourgeois jackets. The Balmain woman, after all, never travels economy.

E IS FOR...EXTRAVAGANCE

For his sophomore Givenchy collection, creative director Matthew M Williams was thinking about elegance and extravagance. ‘Ultimately, fashion for us is a way of being, feeling and connecting rather than a game to be played. It’s almost like monumentalising the everyday, filling it with emotion – like music you can wear.’ This translated into slinky maxidresses and rigorous tailoring teamed with tough accessories, such as stompy rubber boots and chunky monogrammed chains.

...AND ECLECTICISM

At Paco Rabanne, Julien Dossena was in an exuberantly eclectic mood with clothes that mixed elements of day and eveningwear with a refreshing joyousness. Unsurprisingly for a house that boasts chainmail as a signature (seen here on slinky bejewelled dresses), the collection ‘[explored] conspicuous embellishment as a form of empowerment’. A bit Helmut Newton Parisienne, a bit Sloane Ranger gone wild.

THE SEASON’S BREAKOUT STAR

This year is shaping up to be stonking for Schiaparelli’s Daniel Roseberry: see Lady Gaga at the US presidential inauguration, Emma Corrin at the Critics’ Choice Awards and Beyoncé’s viral black leather look at the Grammys. His stellar streak continues with the A/W ’21 collection, where he amplifies glamour with an outré, surreal wit that will be a surefire hit with the red carpet’s boundary pushers. These clothes, he says, ‘allow for freedom of expression, whether that’s a shout or a whisper’.

THE NEW ECO-FUTURISM

Making her debut as creative director of Chloé, Gabriela Hearst drew a line in the sand that divided the storied maison’s past from its more sustainable future. Her first collection proves how much she plans to change the way things are done. She has ambitious plans for the label’s sustainability objectives, accelerating the timeline to just one year from an original target of 2025, and has kicked off proceedings by eliminating polyester and viscose, and sourcing recycled, reused and organic denim. Changes such as these – as well as offseting the show’s carbon output with a reforestation project in Myanmar – mean the collection was four times more sustainable than it was this time last year, an impressive statistic when you remember that she was only appointed in December, and also has her own eponymous label to run from New York.

The show itself was filmed on the deserted streets of Paris, the models emerging from Brasserie Lipp, the setting chosen by the brand’s founder, Gaby Aghion, for her shows in the ’60s. And, like all the creative directors before her, Gabriela paid homage to the legendary figure. Gaby’s scalloped detailing was reimagined on sleeves and petalled leather coats, while the pattern of broderie anglaise found its way on to a floor-skimming sweater dress. But while Gabriela showed reverence to the house codes and its female-centric outlook, her own fingerprint was all over everything.

Her championing of knitwear, something that quite literally looms large on her own label’s catwalk, and the use of recycled cashmere yarn made cult items of the striped sweater dresses, slider sandals (with chunky knitted straps) and ‘puffchos’ (her brilliant hybrid of a padded coat and poncho). The colours started on a spectrum of sumptuous browns, creams and beige, but soon gave way to reds, greens and yellows on the most wonderful mash-up coats – made in collaboration with Sheltersuit, a non-profit organisation that creates shelter out of clothing for the homeless community – that looked like they could be zipped off at the hip and came with sportily striped cuffs.

Meanwhile, Marine Serre, who has long been seen as the cool face of a more mindful approach to fashion, presented a book, a documentary and a collection for A/W ’21, building on her concept of ‘eco-futurism’. What this boils down to is a strengthening of the brand’s core values of environmental consciousness (Marine relies heavily on rendered fabrics and recycled yarns), resilience and accessibility. But what of the clothes themselves? Her signature moonprint bodywear appeared on everything from hand-warmers to tights to babygros, while silk scarves were ingeniously transformed into baseball caps, zippered jackets and even a bustier.

THE SHOW REIMAGINED

In a world where physical shows aren’t possible, Loewe’s Jonathan Anderson is something of a magician at conjuring captivating alternatives. First there was his ‘show in a box’, then his ‘show on a wall’, where ‘attendees’ were sent giant wallpaper posters of his models wearing each look, along with brushes and paste. For A/W ’21, he created his own newspaper, with a splash that read, ‘The Loewe Show Has Been Cancelled’, which was not only distributed to would-be guests, but appeared in the day’s actual papers, such as The Times and Le Monde. Inside: a line-up of boldly graphic, outsized looks. Anderson called it ‘dressing as an audacious act’. Turns out the show was on after all.