Chic, Reconsidered
The message was clear: Paris designers aren't willing to secede chic to street. Nor do they have any interest in stuffy old notions of chic. They do, however, still value the classics, only rethought with modern audacity. Case in point: Chitose Abe's trench duet for Sacai.
Polish. Getting dressed. Looking obviously chic. Major bullet points to emerge from the Paris collections, as designers celebrated the ages-old joy of dressing up. Along the way, they took classic tropes — tailoring, trenches, cozy sweaters — and had their way with them.
It started with that traditional sartorial ideal — tailoring. As noun and verb, it’s synonymous with chic, and the opposite of undone. To a large degree, tailoring anchored the Paris collections. Designers kept it distinctive with details, from Clare Waight Keller’s arched shoulders at Givenchy to Sarah Burton’s suits with flourish, including one inset with custom lace featuring birds indigenous to northern England. And Thom Browne did a deep dive into the genre he loves best, along the way paying homage to the artist Romaine Brooks, whose Jazz Age work focused on androgynous portraits of women.
The trench — another classic twisted in memorable ways. John Galliano at
Maison Margiela and Lutz Huelle went for incongruous sleeve treatments, and
Junya Watanabe, for fabric splices. Meanwhile, Sacai’s Chitose Abe subverted the classic via her signature hybrid construct, adding a mini puffer to one trench and mega utility pockets to another.
As for those sweaters — designers co-opted Nordic and Aran motifs to alluring effect. In the last Chanel collection of his brilliant reign, Karl Lagerfeld and Virginie Viard masterfully elevated the cozy piling.
And Joseph Altuzarra fused knits and sharp tailoring for an inventive take on his soft-hard counterpoint. Dressing up? Bring it on!
– Bridget Foley