It’s official: Capes are in for fall 2020
PARIS — The fashion message was clear: Capes aren’t just for magicians anymore. If you don’t think you can rock one with all the confidence of a runway model or Billy Porter or even Count von Count, you’ve got about six months to practice throwing one over your shoulders with calculated nonchalance.
That’s because the trend, one of the major takeaways of New York Fashion Week last month, gained major traction on the catwalks here. Another mini-trend we noticed coming out of New York, novel knitwear, caught its stride here as well, making for some of the coziest clothes we’ve seen in a long time.
Here you’ll find a look at those fall and winter 2020 trends — and a few others that caught our attention — that designers and labels hope you’ll stock your wardrobe with in advance of next autumn.
Flapping of capes
Because we’ll spend a lot of time with the cape this fall, let’s start with the basics. A cape is a long, sleeveless outer garment that covers the back and fastens at the neck. (Sometimes a longer one is called a cloak, but here we’ll use cape to refer to both versions.)
Its pop culture association with vaudeville magicians, superheroes and Count Dracula not withstanding, the cape, in the right hands, can telegraph power and afford a measure of protection from the elements at the same time.
Two of those right hands belong to Rick Owens, whose fall and winter women’s runway collection repurposed duvets from a Moncler collaboration into immense puffer capes that fastened at the neck with a metal chain clasp connected to two grommets, quilted into a spiderweb-like pattern in the back and served up in black, smoke gray and sky blue.
If you’re looking for an apres-ski cape, this is the one.
There’s probably not a collective noun for a group of capes gathered together in one place, but if there were (might we suggest a “flapping” of capes?), it would have come in handy at Balmain where creative director Olivier Rousteing included many a cape in the collection.
Rousteing referenced the bourgeois codes of his Bordelaise childhood from beige, leather-trimmed, diamond-quilted capes that evoked horse blankets to navy blue capes heavy with metallic embroidery to billowing Champagne-colored silk.
Clare Waight Keller’s Givenchy collection took inspiration from the powerful heroines of French art-house cinema. There were both CEO-worthy pagodashoulder cape dresses and opera-worthy cherry red cape dresses that draped almost poncho-like across the front.
Purple reign
Compared to the vibrant sea of color coming out of New York, the Paris palette was muted, and some of the week’s most memorable collections were grounded in black and white with only the barest pops of accent color. (Valentino and Chanel, we’re looking at you.)
However, the hues designers couldn’t seem to refuse came from the purple family and ranged from deep, near-maroon wines, cognacs and eggplants to bright lilacs and grapes. Examples could be seen at Elie Saab, Givenchy, Redemption and Altuzarra, to name several.
But, if you’re considering adding a pop of purple to your fall and winter wardrobe, there are two collections that should be at the top of your list.
One is Celine, where Hedi Slimane sprinkled the hue liberally throughout his unisex collection.
In the collection, shades of deep purple could be found in rich velvet varsity jackets, shawl-collar tuxedos and blazers, blouses, skinny polka-dotted scarves and a shimmery, silver-flecked dress.
The other designer at the top of the purple pile was Dries Van Noten, whose Nocturnal Glamour collection included a purple shearling biker’s jacket, billowy purple satin trousers, a dress and pants in an exploded purple iris floral print and sparkly jacket with purple flower-petal paillettes.
Leather and latex
There wasn’t just a lot of leather on the Paris runways this season. There was a lot of head-to-toe leather. Oddly, the one label that seemed to dial back on the level of leather was Hermes, a brand that made its name in the leather goods space.
At Dior, the abundance of luxe leather came by way of a black zip-front jumpsuit worn with a dress shirt and necktie. And at Louis Vuitton, Nicolas Ghesquiere’s lineup included motocross-inspired color-blocked leather skirts and dresses and a handful of pin-striped leather pieces perfect for the banker-by-day/ biker-by-night crowd.
Balmain managed to tap into the secondskin trend twice over; once with molded leather bustiers and a second time with a couple of head-to-toe shiny latex looks.
Another designer keeping the latex factories working around the clock was Anthony Vaccarello at Saint Laurent, where models were clad in practically painted-on latex leggings.
Checks, please
Yes, autumn and plaids go together like Scotsmen and bagpipes, but you couldn’t swing a lumberjack’s ax in the City of Lights during fashion week without slicing into a collection chock-full of checks and plaids.
Some collections served up just a taste (Off-White’s trippy take on the houndstooth check, for example), while others went all in, including Thom Browne (whose Noah’s Ark-themed runway show enthusiastically embraced the Prince of Wales check), Stella McCartney (riffs on the black-and-red lumberjack plaid), Dries Van Noten, Ralph & Russo and Dior.
Novel knits
At Alexander McQueen, Sarah Burton’s argyle intarsia rib-knit sweater dresses (made by dicing and splicing two different sweaters into one) put her squarely in step with another of the big trends of the week: novel knitwear.
Other designers whose envelope-pushing knits will have you longing for sweater weather included Rick Owens (clingy, curve-hugging cashmere dresses), Marine Serre (dresses, skirts and balaclavas patchworked together from odds and ends of Fair Isle sweaters), Joseph Altuzarra (ribknit cardigan and skirt sets) and Elie Saab (an Andalusian bullfighter-inspired cableknit cape).