In chronological order – starting in New York and ending in Paris – the 12 catwalk shows that had the most beautiful clothes; empowered the most women; packed the most punch; or took fashion into fresh aesthetic terrain.
Wuthering Heights in the famed cathedral of finance the Woolworth Building. Brilliant double-face cashmere wrap coats, worn by heroines escaping a storm, like the famed novel’s protagonist Catherine Earnshaw.
Alpine cashmere sweaters; black riding boots; jodhpur-style pants; fabulous hooded great coats; and soft blousons, ideal for the north Yorkshire moors of Wuthering Heights, or for New York’s sub-zero temperature on the day of the show. America’s most polished fashion statement.
Luar
One of two great design communities in BIPOC fashion alongside Willy Chavarria, Raul Lopez wowed in a lower Manhattan lobby with a great gutsy, provocative lust for love display.
It’s title was “El Pato”, taken from Hispanic homophobic slang for someone effeminate. Lopez cuts with a scalpel: diagonally slashed tunics; fantasy pencil thin pants suits in a muddy crocodile print; fantastical Martha Graham body stocking-meets-cape looks. Nearly every passage winning cheers from his ecstatic front row. All the way to a fabulous bouffant space commander denim jackets, like an after-hours Lieutenant Uhura in Bed Stuy. Fashion fighting for diversity and inclusion.
Paolo Carzana
A star is born moment for Paolo Garzana and his first proper runway show, presented in a tiny wee pub called The Holy Tavern to just 40 patrons. A delightful gang of beguilingly disheveled dandies and molls, all attired in bizarrely dyed fabrics, crumpled and creased and sewn into Restoration-pirate chic.
Beautifully bedraggled, the cast wore a collection that was tied, twisted, coiled and ruched – like extras from “The Raft of the Medusa”. The hottest new talent in the UK. And not a bad pint afterwards.
Francesco Risso may not be the most commercial designer in Milan, but he is the most crazily cool. A collaboration with Nigerian artists Olaolu Slawn and Soldier Boyfriend led to images of wolves, fox tails, dark birds and flying pigs.
Paintings displayed on the show-space walls and printed onto many phantasmagorical outfits. Talk about composite cool fashion: Crombie coats that become cocoons, tube skirts that had plenty of kick, and shirt dresses morphed into gowns. All presented inside a surreal mock jazz club. Probably the single most original collection of the season.
Silvia Fendi feted the century of the brand her grandparents founded with an often beguiling collection. Ironically this felt like the best possible examination paper for the job she already effectively carries out – creative director of the Roman house.
Flawless flared funnel collar coats worn as dresses; marvelous tubular leather coats in chevron and zig zag mink coats that reeked rich. Eva Herzigova in an accordion pleat silk cocktail; Edie Campbell in a strass encrusted tweed cocoon coat. Talk about passing a test with flying colors.
Poise, poetry and calm at The Row, where half the guests had to sit on the carpeted floor, the better to enjoy the purity of the clothes: begun by super trench-coats – shortened with precise panels; all nipped at the neck with two visible buttons.
Everything classy yet never attention seeking – double-face cashmere coats with tuxedo lapels, lambskin great coats in burgundy or soft spy coats with big lapels in black leather. Exactly the sort of clothes that every lady editor and buyer wanted to wear.
A sweet smell of a hit at Haider Ackermann’s launch collection for Tom Ford. Hyper-ironed leather looks with a soupçon of transgression. Impeccably cut – razor-sharp perfectos for gals; taut biker jackets for guys; redingotes for rockstars; surgeons’ coats for femme fatales.
Zegna spent $150 million buying the 20-year license to Tom Ford’s fashion and accessories division, which was not ever noticeably profitable. But this looks like one big bet that is going to pay off handsomely.
Róisín Pierce
A moment of grace at Róisín Pierce, who staged three intimate shows in the gilded elegance of the Hotel de Breteuíl, otherwise known as the Irish Embassy in Paris.
A delicate dreamlike meeting of cotton spirals, snowflake cotton, whisper-light embroidery and feathery tulle that confirmed Róisín as one of the most important young contemporary designers.
Sarah Burton debuted with tremendous panache at Givenchy. Riffing on Hubert de Givenchy’s Bettina blouse; crisp tailoring; little black dresses for Audrey Hepburn; or fishnet tops that read “Givenchy Paris 1952”, the year the house was founded.
A canny blend of silhouette, attitude and the best costume jewelry anywhere. A stylish home run for Burton, and Givenchy.
The season’s loudest applause went to Satoshi Kondo at Issey Miyake inside the Carrousel du Louvre. Marrying mannish blazers with beautifully inverted shirts, their sleeves falling before the waist.
Heralding fabric innovations – like paper and polyurethane V-shaped blazers; or blends of alpaca and thermoplastic synthetic fibers to produce gargantuan rigid coats in fantasy folds and silhouettes. Blockbuster show, epic fashion.
Trans-Euro Vuitton, as Nicolas Ghesquière took just 400 guests to a mock rail station, beside a real one – the Gare du Nord. A fitting metaphor for the designer’s latest blend of futurism, active sport, techy materials and tongue in cheek humor.
Talk about taking risks: leather shorts cut like lotus flower-shaped Kiki Bachi basins, paired with transparent latex dusters. Graphic anoraks with road signage Vuitton logos; or tartan blankets brilliantly draped into sexy after-hour saris. For evening, samurai armor-shaped knit tops over vast folds of mille feuille chiffon dresses. No wonder French First Lady Brigitte Macron gave him the warmest imaginable embrace when Nicolas took his bow.
Unquestionably, the single most influential show in fashion today.
This season, Miuccia entitled the collection “Femininities”, and her exaggerated ideas – cone bras; triangular structures in felted wool; tailoring that sat off the body; ultra-see-through transparent silk all looked sensational. As did her hyper eclectic and sexually diverse cast. Vive la Resistance.
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