5 key takeaways from Paris Fashion Week Men’s
From Jonathan Anderson’s debut at Dior to the opening of Demna’s Balenciaga exhibition attended by both Demna and his successor, Pierpaolo Piccioli, Dries Van Noten’s creative director Julian Klausner’s debut men’s show, Paris Fashion Week Men’s heralded fashion’s transition into a new era.
Most of the week felt like it was building up to Anderson’s debut. “It definitely feels like Dior’s week,” said GQ’s global fashion correspondent Samuel Hine, noting that Jonathan Anderson’s Jean-Michel Basquiat teaser image has been plastered all over Paris. “Expectations were super high because Jonathan Anderson is so talented, Dior is so big, and everyone is looking for someone to introduce a big idea that people can follow or react against,” Hine added.
It was peak hype, and Anderson exceeded the anticipation, according to Harrods’s director of buying, Simon Longland. Jonathan Anderson’s father, Willie Anderson, seemed very happy and proud, speaking to Vogue Business backstage. “Great start. First step of the 10,000-mile journey,” he quipped. (Anderson’s women’s debut show is slated for October.)
Heatwave dressing
The week before, in Milan, Dolce & Gabbana showed an all-pyjama collection, and the trend continued in Paris. “A lot of designers have tried to embrace a sense of intimacy in the clothes this season, starting with The Row. It was pyjamas and undergarments that you can wear outside,” said Hine. “People want to buy things that feel like they really fit into their lives in a really personal way.” Saint Laurent’s interpretations were breezy, silky shirts that looked incredibly comfortable yet sensual. “It’s a lightness that designers are going for because they’re trying to figure out how to make clothing that is comfortable and easy and that people want to wear in the heat but that still looks cool,” Hine added.
It’s a challenge indeed. Fashion week goers themselves tried to crack summer dressing this season, as many show venues didn’t have air conditioning (the historic library under the roof of Lycée Henri-IV, where Wales Bonner chose to stage her show, was particularly warm). Only the thunderstorm that struck just as the Ami Paris show was ending brought some relief from the sweltering heat. At Rick Owens, models were sent to swim in the Palais de Tokyo’s fountain in their show clothes. “Owens finally took the dive,” wrote my colleague Luke Leitch in his review of the show.
“Eventually it’s not a retrospective,” Rick Owens’s wife Michèle Lamy told Vogue Business about the major Palais Galliera exhibition dedicated to Owens’s work that opened this week, right after the show. “Usually a retrospective is because you are finished and it’s not the case at all, so the show at Palais de Tokyo was the answer [to show the brand is still full of life] and it was nice to go from the show to the museum.”
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